The Discussion Of Dual Personality And Triple Narrative Technique

In the year of 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson published his horror novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was very popular among readers. Also,"Jekyll and Hyde"has become synonymous with"dual personality".In this dissertation, besides describing Stevenson and the his writing process of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, we will focus on the two following questions: First, we will analyze"dual personality"of the hero deeply and carefully, discuss its basic feature and its causes of formation; second, the narrative art of this novel will become our subject, especially its triple narrative and the"unreliable narrator"in last chapter. This dissertation tries to show that The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde occupied its unique position in English literature because of its profound connotation and exquisite narrative art.Although The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been affected by Gothic Fiction and Crime Fiction, it is different from those Gothic Fictions. It has totally ruled out the classical form of devil's temptation, but made an effort to explain the complicated struggle in the human heart using the modern fiction techniques. Meanwhile, it is different from those cheap crime fictions too. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the author didn't blindly give colour to the horrific crime, but made a serious consideration about the social morality. This dissertation tries to show that the hero of the novel is a hypocrite from beginning to end, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has always been"twin brothers". Therefore, it is superficial to discuss Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde separately or regard the struggle between them as conflict between"good"and"evil".In this dissertation, we think that the creation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not accidental, but has deep personal and social reasons. In Victorian time, society is full of religious and moral restrictions, and the general middle class lead a conservative and well-behaved life. On the other hand, many upper classes seek pleasure and indulge their passions under the table. We can say that the hypocritical morality is a hotbed of"dual personality", and the"dual personality"life style strengthens the hypocritical moral values and social climate. Therefore, the discussion of"dual personality"shows that Stevenson has made a serious consideration about the social morality and deeply criticized the hypocrisy of the middle class morality. The most important artistic achievement of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is its ingenious use of the triple narrative technique to create huge suspense, so that the story is complicated and confusing. The novel is composed of 10 chapters. In the first 8 chapters, the author uses limited third-person narration, tells the story from outside by what Earsent saw and heard. In chapter 9, Dr. Lannan's letter revealed the secret that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was actually the same person. Chapter 10 is the confession written by Dr. Jekyll before he died, which has explained the whole course of the story. It's true that this confession can help readers get a clue of the story, but on the other hand, his confession may not be objective. This arrangement reflected Stevenson's good intentions.This dissertation believes that, due to the use of Dr. Jekyll's first-person perspective, while Dr. Jekyll is a hypocrite, so he is an"unreliable narrator". By analyzing the text, we can see that Dr. Jekyll's behavior is likely to involve sex crimes, and he concealed this in his confession. Moreover, he also defended his personality in the confession. As he never been able to make self-examination about his crime, he still pinned his wrongdoings to his embodiment Hyde. It is this unique narrative art that deepened the theme of the novel. The reason why some researchers have misread this novel is because they regarded"unreliable narrator"as"reliable narrator".