Females in Victorian Literatur
During the Victorian time period that both The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and A Study in Scarlet were written women were universally viewed as the weaker sex. Women of this time enjoyed none of the privileges that women in modern society receive the benefits of. For instance freedoms such as property rights and voting rights were positively unheard of in those days, and women were seen merely as an extension, of or worse the property of, the males in their lives. The same attitudes toward the female gender that prevailed in Victorian society are also prevalent in the literature written during this time period. In each of these novels the roles of women are very insignificant and serve to reinforce the attitude that women have a value that is substandard to men. Both Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle employ techniques such as constructing anonymous female characters that occupy low or subservient stations in life, representing women as victims and forbidding the central scientific figure to have a wife that indicates each author prescribed to the collective belief of the late Victorian era that women were inferior members of society. In Stevenson's Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde female char
For two solitary figures such as Jekyll and Holmes wives would serve only to distract them from their tasks at hand. Hyde paid no attention at all to his victim as he "tramped calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground"# The female does nothing to warrant this misfortune she is merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. This can be seen when the two men fight over Lucy in the presence of her father without regard to Lucy's feelings in the matter. Hyde and A Study in Scarlet showcase women in roles that reflect an attitude that they are in many ways weaker or less important and as compared to men. They are commodities to attained by men such as Drebber and Strangerson who care little about their feelings or desires. To a varying degree all the women play very minor roles, and without fail they are all very archetypical roles for women to occupy. First the male character literally "walks over the female" and then he shows absolutely no concern for her well being afterwards. The maid is only useful as a means of recounting an event. The only female characters that are present in the work are nameless characters who are often in positions that are associated with a lowly status. "# Although he is primarily referring to knowledge here is it a very typical mindset of the male scientist to be concerned only with his pursuit of science and nothing else. Lucy posses all the qualities of the typical female victim. Aside form Lucy Ferrier the only other allusion to female characters come with the wives of the Mormon men.
Common topics in this essay:
Study Scarlet,
Jekyll Holmes,
Jekyll Hyde,
Carew Stevenson,
Lucy Ferrier,
Sherlock Holmes,
Drebber Strangerson,
Conan Doyle,
Victorian England,
Drebber Strangerson's,
female characters,
jekyll hyde,
dr jekyll,
male characters,
study scarlet,
women inferior,
strange dr jekyll,
dr jekyll hyde,
strange dr,
women inferior society,
arthur conan,
conan doyle,
roles women,
maid witness murder,
anonymous female characters,
|
Acceptance Essays
