Evil being Dr Jekylls alter ego Mr Hyde Essay Example for Free

Evil being Dr Jekylls alter ego Mr Hyde Essay In each of us, two natures are at war- the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them one must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose- What we want most to be we are (Robert Louis Stevenson. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 1885) Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Born in 1850 into a middle class family in Edinburgh, Robert Louis Stevensons Father expected his son to follow in the family tradition and become an engineer. Stevenson, however had other ideas. He was fascinated by literature, but to please his family he studied law, yet he never practised as a lawyer fulfilling his ambition to become a writer. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was a product of Robert Louis Stevenson life. Stevensons childhood was blighted by illness and as a result he spent much of his time at home under the care of his much loved nurse Alison Cunningham who told him stories of ghosts, body snatchers and heaven and hell. Stevenson as a result became fascinated by the idea of good and evil in every person. Stevensons ill health continued for most of his life and as a result he took laudanum and morphine as well as cocaine for chest problems and depression, other factors which may well have affected his life style and his writing. The Stevensons family home was in Edinburgh, but as he grew he travelled more and further, London, Bournemouth, France and the continent. Stevensons choice of London as the setting for Jekyll and Hyde was the result of the extreme social divide he witnessed there, the wealth and poverty been vividly displayed. The wealthy affluent London being safe like the character of Dr Jekyll whilst areas of social deprivation were constantly under treat of crime evil and disease, evil being Dr Jekylls alter ego Mr Hyde This essay will discuss how the Victorians viewed their rapidly expanding cities. It will also explore how Stephenson uses contrasting scenes and weather descriptions to portray good and evil. As a result of the industrial revolution Victorian Britain saw a massive movement of people from the countryside to major cities. Hugh numbers of houses were built to accommodate these people, but towns quickly became over crowded and unhealthy places. Filthy conditions and the spread of disease was rive amongst the poor and working classes. There was high unemployment and no suffrage for the poor, as a result the middle classes felt a revolution was imminent and felt fearful. Robert Louis Stevenson illustrates a divided city in Mr Utterson and Mr Enfields Sunday walk through the streets of London. They travel through a small quite street, it is described using metaphors like a fire in the forest indicating this street is well kept, a sharp contrast to others in the area, the shutters are described as freshly painted, the brasses well-polished and generally clean. This indicates that the inhabitants here are doing well. And yet at the corner of the same street stands a two story building. The building has only a door on the lower storey, the lack of windows indicating this building has something to hide. It is described as baring the features and marks of prolonged neglect. Stevenson uses the words sinister and sordid to describe this building. The fact that a building of such neglect stands on the same street as the affluent properties gives the reader the sense that everything is not going to be as it first appears in this novel. Stevenson uses this description of a affluence street with the uncharacteristic building an unlikely feature of this street, to prepare the reader for the dual character of Dr Jeklyl on the surface a good respectable person, who is able to turn into a alter ego the evil cruel Mr Hyde. Weather descriptions are used by Stevenson in The Carew Murder Case to depict the depraved nature of Mr Hydes character. The maid in the opening paragraph witnesses the murder of Carew. Stevenson uses graphic detail in his description of the weather on this night to create the atmosphere and set the scene. The association between lightness and goodness is clear; the night is described as been cloudless and lit by a full moon. The moon light on Carews face allows the maid to see his face, which she describes as pleasing to watch, a face breathing innocence and old world kindness. His beauty and innocence giving the impression of goodness. This description of Carew makes his fate all the more shocking and sets the scene for the dramatic moment when the maid witnesses the violent murder of Carew by Mr Hyde. Hyde is described by the maid as the complete opposite to Carew, a man she had previously conceived to dislike having an animalistic appearance. Stevenson continues to use weather descriptions to create a sense of foreboding as Mr Utterson travels through the streets of London to the home of Mr Hyde. Though it is nine in the morning the weather is described as foggy like a great chocolate coloured pall lowered over heaven and dark like the back end of morning, the use of fog and darkness implies a veil to hide and conceal evil. He continues saying that the fog is broken up yet for a moment giving a haggard shaft of day light this being only a brief relieve from the mournful reinvasion of darkness, reinforcing the idea of evil doings and the sorrow associated with this. By using weather descriptions in this way the city of London clearly becomes a dramatic backdrop for Hydes crimes. Victorian society was stricictly religious and therefore encouraged people to hide their sins and repress their desires. In this novel Stevenson offered Victorian society not only a psychological horror but a recognision that there is evil inside all of us, not perhaps to the extremes of Jekyll and Hyde but there is a side we hide, a suggestion that we all have a dual personality! Stevenson uses symbolism to create powerful images, for example doors are tradionally powerful and mysterious symbols they represent public and private spheres, things hidden and reveales. Stevenson refers to doors five times in the opening chapter of this novel. What is also relevant is that the Victorians had a front door /back door rule: the front door represented repectability so only those considered important and of high social status entered though the front door. The back door was used for those considered socially inferior, like servants. Stevenson uses this rule to emphasise Hydess social inferiority as he is not admitted through the front door of Jekylls home. What is significant here is that although the reader knows Jekyll and Hydeare one and the same, when Jekyll becomes the depraved Hyde he is evil and socially inferior, a lesson in immorility?

Male aggression is largely attributed to spousal abuse Essay -- Marria

Missing Tables Male aggression is largely attributed to spousal abuse "The truth is somewhere outside the circle." -ancient proverb The pervasiveness of spousal abuse is traceable from culture to culture. Every culture has a its unique way of dealing with spousal abuse. The fact that spousal abuse is rampant among certain societies and is completely oblivious to others indicates that spousal abuse is politically, socially, and culturally determined. However, common sense validity would imply that male-dominance is the cause of spousal abuse. This is not always true. For instance, in some cultures there is not a clear-cut gender differentiation between males and females. For those cultures, the binary gender line that exists in the Western culture does not apply to them. Incidentally, this raises the question of whether or not there is a "third gender." To delve into the topic of male dominance as attributed to spousal abuse in its comprehensiveness is beyond the scope of this paper; rather, our purpose here is to show how male-dominance affects spousal abuse by taking the cross-cultural approach. Perhaps it is worthwhile to note that the husband-wife relationship is not a linear relationship for all societies. There are some societies where females were forced to take on the role of the husband. Because the husbands were usually away from their homes, the wives became 'heads of the household.' Furthermore, the wives were allowed to beat their husbands at will if they were found of wrongdoing. It absolutely violates and contradicts the husband and wife relationship, which permeates the Western culture. Interestingly, this reversal of gender role between husband and wife proves that the husband-wife r... ...ery) Pearson Correlation 1.000 .032 Sig. (2-tailed) . .801 N 142 63 V754 Wife-Beating Pearson Correlation .032 1.000 Sig. (2-tailed) .801 . N 63 70 Summary: In conclusion, it can be safely established that male aggression plays a major role in motivating spousal abuse. As indicated, in every instance where wife-beating occurs there is a high divorce rate. Furthermore, the significance of these findings show that aggressive behavior is not a biological fact. Briefly, it is not something innate or inborn. The fact that aggression is not grounded in biology suggests that it is culturally and socially constructed. In every society, men and women learn to behave through a process of enculturation. As seen through a case with the Nuer society, women often times take on the role of the husbands. For the westerners, this sometimes comes as a shock

Sensory Perception

Our senses nourish our brain like food feeds our body, without their input our brains would be very hollow and lacking of knowledge (Kirby & Goodpaster, 2007). For knowledge we heavily rely on what we perceive from our senses, as they provide first-hand experiences, giving us primary evidence on surroundings and situations. However human’s five senses touch, taste, sight, sound and smell also have their imitations, so therefore they each have weaknesses to the amount of accuracy of knowledge they can give. Starting from the sense of sight, a popular expression is â€Å"seeing is believing† as we depend on this sense to confirm reality. However beliefs from sight vary from person to person as we perceive things differently. An example of this would be the fact there was a time when people believed the earth was flat, as that was how it appeared as people could see the distant horizon as a straight line, it was only when the few thought otherwise went forth to prove against this knowledge that they were able to open new vistas of reality through their vision. Hearing, another sense has also been important for the use of human survival as a way of hearing unusual sounds that may stand for danger and for communication through language. However, human hearing can be limited, as often scientists find the existence or presence of sounds we cannot hear through our own ears. A human hearing deteriorates through age, as sensitivity towards sounds of higher frequency is lost. However our hearing is sophisticated enough that we can organize the sounds we hear, grouping and segregating these factors so in one aspect we hear what we want to hear. Sounds can also be interpreted or misinterpreted by different people as they stimulate varied emotions. As we generally connect the sounds we hear back to our memory, meaning we can recognize a person with a distinguishable voice. The sense of smell is important and is often used subconsciously for instinctual reasons. As recently discovered the extent to which the smell of a partner can affect our attraction to them. Our perceptions and evaluations others are influenced by their smell, as unpleasant smells connect to our disgusts or negative opinion of another. However, the perception of what is a good or bad smell can be interpreted differently between people as it is attached to previous knowledge gained. Knowledge, justification and critical thinking are three factors that contribute to the accuracy of sensory data (Mohanan, 2000). Critical thinking is the mental process of reflecting upon something to assess its credibility, truth, significance, usefulness, value or goodness on the basis of information available to us and a mode of justification that we consider legitimate. Critical thinking, knowledge and justification support the accuracy of information that our senses feed our brain. What we call knowledge is a collection of propositions that we believe to be true. A knowledge claim becomes part of the knowledge for an individual when the claim is accepted as true. Justification involves providing reasons for accepting propositions that we regards as knowledge, that is, for considering them to be true. It also involved providing reasons for rejecting the propositions that we regard as non-knowledge, considering them to be false. In other words, justification involves the defense of what we regards as true, and the refutation of what we regard as false. Observations, generalizations and theories are strategies of justification when using the senses as a viable way of gaining knowledge. Psychologists have long debated if perception is in fact due to nature or nurture. Beginning from the view point of nature, Gibson’s bottom up/direct theory that all the information we need to perceive is provided by our visual environment e. g. nature, rather than having to use past knowledge or experience (Mace, 2005). Additionally, Gibson and Gibson later proposed their Differentiation Theory which explains how the innate system develops. They suggested when young, we lack the ability to differentiate between objects. However, as we get older we develop the ability to differentiate, for this to take place all the necessary information needed is found is our visual environment. Next, from the view point that perception is a processes of nurture comes from Gregory’s top down/indirect theory which suggest that often the perceptual sensory data we receive is ambiguous and impoverished so perception often relies on the construction of sensory data, stored knowledge and expectations (McLeod, 2007). Research would suggest that although some argue that perception is due to nature, while other argues for nurture, it may in fact be that the two factors are interdependent and rely on each other. After all, it would be most adaptive to be born with some ‘hard wired systems’ which can be pruned and then developed to suit our environment. The human senses have enough strength to enable us to survive and develop our knowledge of our surrounding world to a point a point which we feel comfortable. Each sense has its limitations as well as its capability to be influenced by our inherited preferences, memories or previous knowledge. The senses an also be influenced by certain human states as tiredness, drug/alcohol abuse, nutritional deficiencies are all detrimental to the sensitivity of senses causing us to perceive something mistakenly. Our senses tell us similar things: through our different experiences in life we absorb the facts in different ways.

Jennifer McFadyen - ThoughtCo