Victorian Society in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Essay Example for Free

Victorian Society in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Essay The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a Horror story written by Robert Louis Stevenson. The novella explores the divided nature of human personality and Victorian society by telling the story of a respectable gentleman named Dr Jekyll, who devolves into a beast by the name of Mr Hyde. The dominant theme of the novella is the theme of the double. Stevenson explores this in many different ways throughout the novella. Some of the characters in the book turn out to be very different from what they at first appear to be. For instance, Gabriel Utterson has a very rough countenance and looks quite ugly but he is a very nice, respectable gentleman of the novella and he is also a lawyer that helps down-going men. Also, Dr Jekyll, one of the main characters of the book, is very different from what he appeared to be. He becomes the most hideous character of the novella, Mr Hyde. The first time we encounter Mr Hyde, is during Enfields terrible sight of a little girl being trampled over. Stevenson conveys how dark the streets are by focusing on the lamps which can be seen onstreet after street. Stevenson also draws our attention to the emptiness of the streets, emphasising this by using the simile all as empty as a church. Stevenson builds up a sense of mounting fear by adding that Enfield is so frightened that he listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. Stevenson uses the character of Mr Hyde because he is everything a monster is. He is the definition of a monster and his appearance is very easy to picture. Mr Hyde is often described using animal imagery. An example of this is when Mr Enfield witnesses first hand a terrible sight of a little girl being trampled over, for the man calmly trampled over the girls body. Elsewhere, in the novella, he is compared to a hissing snake, a snarling dog and an athletic monkey and this reinforces the idea that he is some way sub-human. It is also significant that Hyde is only ever seen in the shadow, darkness or fog because he represents the hidden and mysterious side of mans personality. Stevenson uses language in a way that reveals to us the characters insincerity or sincerity by the way they speak. In the novella, there are many different characters which use their language in different ways. For example, Dr Jekyll speaks in a very indirect, reserved and cagey way of speech. He proves this in chapter three, when he become quite angry and tries to dissuade Utterson from pursuing the topic of his will, You do not understand my position, and this shows that he is reserved and unwilling to express his emotions. Utterson is also reserved and indirect. However Mr Hyde speaks with short simple and direct words like What do you want, this shows that he is very straight-forward, direct and emotional because he is not afraid to show his emotions or tell people what he thinks. Mr Hyde does speak quite aggressively also, which reveals that he is open minded and doesnt think properly before speaking. He is honest and straight to the point because he doesnt mind to tell people his thoughts. In a strange way, then, the villain of the story is more honest than its hypocritical hero. Poole is the lower-classed disreputable character in the novella as he is Dr Jekylls butler. His use of language shows that he is willing to express his emotions. For example, he also uses short direct way of speech. Through the use of different types of speech, Stevenson seems to suggest that the more respectable and self-restrained the person the more insincere and emotionally dishonest they are. In his exploration of the divided personality, Stevenson draws our attention to the divided nature of London in the 1880s. Throughout the novella, we are aware of the fact that the main respectable characters such as Utterson, Enfield, Lanyon and Jekyll all live in and around Cavendish Square. They live in that citadel of medicine, in ancient, handsome houses, which have a great air of wealth and comfort. However, we learn that the shadowy character, Edward Hyde, lives in the less respectable part of London, Soho. We also learn that he lives on a dingy street in villainous, blackguardly Surroundings. Stevenson, then, by connecting Cavendish Square with Soho, connects the rich characters in the book to the poor ones. Towards the end of the Nineteenth century, Soho was one of the least respectable areas of London. Soho was the kind of area where you would find crowded, shabby streets, people of all different nationalities, cheap eating houses, music halls, brothels or criminals making crooked deals. By connecting these two areas, Stevenson seems to be saying that the two are actually inseparable, that the rich cannot exist without the poor, that Jekyll cannot exist without Hyde. The reason that Mr Hyde who lives in Soho is in the novella at the time of dark is to show that his personality is a dark person inside. However, Jekyll and the others that live in and around Cavendish Square are in the novella at the time of light because they are bright characters who appear to be wholly good and removed from evil. Victorian society was highly moralistic and encouraged respectable gentleman to keep their private lives carefully hidden away. Stevenson makes this point by including numerous symbols of privacy and secrecy throughout the novella. For instance, Dr Jekylls laboratory is at the back of his houses which showed no window. This suggests that Dr Jekyll does not want people to know what he does in his own time because the simple reason that Victorian society was too highly moralistic. This kind of secrecy carries on through the novella with other characters as well. For example, Mr Utterson receives a package from Dr Lanyon which he examined in his office. Before opening the package he locks the door of his own office which shows that Utterson is very secretive about his business and does not want to be associated with down going men. The package was then put in a safe so that no one could have seen it. Taken as a whole, these symbols of secrecy reinforce the idea that Victorian gentlemen were compelled to keep their private lives hidden away. I think that the themes of the novel are not relevant now because the society is not so strict and people dont have to cover up their different types of living or their utmost desires.

The Alamo :: Essays Papers

THE ALAMO In San Antonio in early 1836, 6,000 Mexicans marched to The Alamo to fight a groups of Texas of 187 strong, They were led by Colonel William B. Travis. During 10 days of fighting, the Mexicans climbed over the wall’s of The Alamo., to defeat the Texans they killed a woman . her baby, and a slave were killed. Among the dead were frontiersmen Davy Crockett and the Bowie brothers. Following, is a description of how the Alamo fell. On February 24, 1836 Colonel Travis wrote a letter requesting aid in his own handwriting to all the people of Texas and all Americans. It was carried to Gonzales by Captain Albert Martin, It was first delivered upon his arrival on the Feb 25th to Smithers. Who then carried it on the San Felipe on the Feb. 27th. His letter explained the difficulty him and his men were having defending The Alamo against Santa Anna and his men. At the end of the letter he explains that if they do not receive aid, then they will fight till VICTORY OR DEATH. He also explains that, to this point, no men has lost his life. Following is an exact replica of his writing. COLONEL TRAVIS LETTER: â€Å"Commandancy of the AlamoBexar, Fby. 24th, 1836 To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World Fellow Citzens & Compatriots---I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna---I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man---The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion , otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken---I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls---I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & everything dear to the American character, to come are tour aid, with all dispatch---The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four of five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of h is country.

Consult

Consult Patient Name: Adela Torres Hospital ID: 13246 Consultant: Sachi Kato, M. D. , Dermatology Requesting Physician: Leon Medina, M. D. , Internal Medicine Date of Consult: 06/23/2011 Reason for Consultation: Please evaluate stomatitis, possibly methotrexate related. HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS: The patient is a very pleasant 57-year old female, a native of Cuba, being seen for evaluation and treatment for sores in her mouth that she has had for the last 10-12 days. The patient has a long history of severe and debilitating rheumatoid arthritis for which she has had numerous treatments, but over the past ten years she has been treated with methotrexate quite successfully. Her dosage has varied somewhere between 20 and 25 mg per week. About the beginning of this year, her dosage was decreased from 25 mg to 20 mg, but because of a flare of the rheumatoid arthritis, it was increased to 22. 5 mg per week. She has had no problems with methotrexate as far as she knows. She also took an NSAID about a month ago that was recently discontinued because of the ulcerations in her mouth. About two weeks ago, just about the time the stomatitis began, she was placed on an antibiotic for suspected upper respiratory infection. She does not remember the name of the antibiotic, although she claims she remembers taking this type of medication in the past without any problems. She was on that medication, three pills a day, for three to four days. She notes no other problems with her skin. She remembers no allergic reactions to medication. She has no previous history of fever blisters. (Continued) CONSULT Patient Name: Hospital ID:13246 Page 2 PHYSICAL EXAMINATION: Reveals superficial erosions along the lips, particularly the lower lips, the posterior buccal mucosa, along the sides of the tongue, and also some superficial erosions along the upper and lower gingiva. Her posterior pharynx was difficult to visualize, but I saw no erosions on the areas today. There did however appear to be one small erosion on the soft palate. Examination of the rest of her skin revealed no areas of dermatitis or blistering. There were some macular hyperpigmentation on the right arm where she has had a previous burn, plus the deformities from her rheumatoid arthritis on her hands and feet, as well as scars on her knees from total joint replacement surgeries. IMPRESSION: Erosive stomatitis, probably secondary to methotrexate. Even though the medication has been used for ten years without any problems, methotrexate may produce an erosive stomatitis and enteritis after such a use. The patient also may have an enteritis that at this point may have become more quiescent, as she notes that she did have some diarrhea about the time her mouth problem developed. She has had no diarrhea today, however. She has noted no blood in her stools and has had no episodes of nausea or vomiting. I’m not as familiar with the NSAID causing an erosive stomatitis. I understand that it can cause gastrointestinal upset, but given the choice between the two, I would think the methotrexate is the most likely etiology for the stomatitis. RECOMMENDED THERAPY: I agree with your therapeutic regimen regarding this condition with the use of prednisone and folic acid. I also agree that the methotrexate must be discontinued in order to produce a resolution of this patients’ skin problem. However, in my experience, this stomatitis may take a number of weeks to go away completely if a patient has been on methotrexate, for an extended period of time, because the medication is stored within the liver and in fatty tissue. Topically I have prescribed Lidex gel, which I find works extremely well in stomatitis conditions. It can be applied t. i. d. (Continued) CONSULTATION Patient Name: Hospital ID:13246 Page 3 Thank you very much for allowing me to share in the care of this pleasant patient. I will follow her with you as needed. _________________________ Sachi Kato, M. D. SK:YM D:06/23/2011 T:06/23/2011

The Great Depression vs. The Great Recession - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2133 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/05/16 Category History Essay Level High school Tags: Great Depression Essay Did you like this example? The Great Depression and The Great Recession are two important downfalls in economic fluctuation in two completely different time periods. The 1930s (The time period The Great Depression) and the late 2000s (The time period of the Great Recession) are very different, but problems within the Federal government provided a parallel between the two. What goes up must come down and The Recession and Depression are two prime examples. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Great Depression vs. The Great Recession" essay for you Create order The roaring 20s skyrocketed the economy and immediately fell into the Great Depression. The finally striving economy of the early 2000s fell into the Great Recession soon after. Although these are two different time periods, certain events connect and differentiate the two. The Great Depression did not start with the Stock Market Crash in October of 1929. Although there was correlation between the Crash and the start of the Great Depression, this was not the direct cause. The underlying economic conditions around 1930 were not the best. Economic uncertainty was a main cause of the Great Depression. Credit and installment buying arose around 1929 as consumption of new consumer products. This was good for the American industry, but was actually very unsustainable for those involved financially. The banks were trying to make more money by taking peoples money and investing, when things started going south, Americans wanted the money back that the banks no longer had due to investments. American farms had expanded enormously during World War I to provide food for all those soldiers the expansion led many farmers to mechanize their operations (Green 12) and undergo large debts. Between overproduction and low prices, many of these farms were soon out of busin ess which left those who invested in a sticky situation. Many signs of economic weakness appeared throughout the years leading up to the time period of the Great Depression. The growth of car manufacturing slowed due to overproduction, and the over-speculation of the stock market that began around 1927 and lasted well into the Great Depression. Loans from commercial baking began being taken for stock market and real estate investments. The stock market crash and the Depression were not the same thing. Many Americans lost money during the Stock Market Crash, however, what really made The Great Depression The Great Depression was the severe unemployment and the hardship that followed. Although big banks and corporations were investing in stock, they utilized borrowed money from brokers, or margin buying. Through all of these events that seemed to have tanked the Economy, there was a similar underlying cause to everything; The weak banking system. The Federal Reserve system was establi shed in 1913, but the vast majority of American banks were privately owned institutions that relied on their own money. If a bank did not have enough money on reserve, the bank would fail. 1930 is known for bank failures, the credit system froze up. This led to deflation where less money was circulating. The failure to predict or forecast the fall of the economy is what hurt the most. There was no preparation and the money people had in the banks was the only reassurance they had. During the time period of The Great Depression, the unemployment rate was at a jaw dropping 25 percent dropping the GDP an additional 35 percent. The people who were lucky enough to maintain wealth during the Great Depression were extremely wealthy, and those who were less fortunate were completely poor. There was no longer a distinguishable middle man or middle class. On top of everything, political policy seemed to creep up from behind as the U.S still had war debts from World War I that needed to be paid. The United States places tariffs on imported goods. When the world needed trade the most, trade was at a valley. The United States was buzzing and began to overproduce items due to the fluctuation exports, when things began to get a little more expensive, business between foreign countries began to stop and the United States was left with too much good and not enough consumer. Due to the severe loss of income, the government was forced to spend millions of dollars on relief programs. At the same time the government increased relief spending, it also contributed to the crisis by laying off employees and making cuts to health care, education and other social programs.(Higgins 2) Looking from the outside in, The Great Depression seems as though it could have been predicted/ prevented. Things were going so good, they were destined to go bad. Luckily, there is a flip side to that, and what is bad enough can only get better. The Great Recession (December 2007 June 2009) or the subprime mortgage crisis is described as a decline in per-capita world gross domestic product (GDP)(Roberts 2). From the start of the Recession in 2007 to the end of the Recession in June 2009, GDP declined by 4.3 percent and unemployment approached 10 percent. In this case, increased unemployment leads to less growth and a drop in consumer spending. Consequently, businesses lay off workers because they can no longer afford to pay them. 8.7 million jobs lost(policy priorities 2) between the start and end of the Recession. Investors looking for low risk, high return investments began to spend money on the U.S housing market. They predicted they could get a better return from home owner paid mortgages than they could on U.S treasury bonds. Investors began to buy mortgage back securities where financial institutions would purchase thousands of mortgages, bundle them as one, and sell shares of stock to the money hungry investors. Inves tors forecasted that since the housing market was skyrocketing, it would continue to do so until they were satisfied with their return on investment. Credit ratings agencies were also giving the investors reassurance. Due to the crazy boom in the purchase of mortgage back securities, lenders began to drop credit standards in order to create more and more bundles for purchase. People with low income and poor credit were now being granted Subprime mortgages. It got to a point where a few institutions began utilizing predatory lending practices where they would not verify income and offer outrageous adjustable rate mortgages which the subprime mortgage buyers could afford at first, but soon grew out of a proportion they could afford. Although this was actively occurring, investors maintained their trust in the credit agencies and continued to invest more and more money into these lenders. As investors, traders and bankers remained linear with an increase in the amount of money being in vested in the housing market, the price of homes in the U.S was increasing just as much. Due to the low interest rates and higher housing prices, the mortgage back securities were being portrayed as even better investments. Unfortunately for those who invested any kind of money, the now low credit, untrustworthy borrowers could no longer afford their mortgage payments. Borrowers began to default which put many houses back on the market with no buyers because seemingly no one could afford their home! Supply was extremely high and demand was extremely low so the prices of houses began to tank. Due to the decrease in value, some borrowers were now stuck with mortgage payments that was now a total of much more than their houses were worth at the time of the Recession. Because of this, many borrowers were no longer making payments dropping both themselves and the lenders into a hole deeper than imaginable or predictable before hand. Big financial institutions stopped buying subprime mortgages meaning subprime lenders were being glued to bad loans. By 2007 some of the biggest lenders of these loans had already declared bankruptcy. Unregulated over the counter derivatives such as credit default swaps were sold as insurance in case of default of mortgage back securities. Institutions such as AIG sold countless insurance policies without any kind of actual insurance to back them up. Everyone involved financially was connected through a big string with never ending ties of liability, assets and risk factors meaning when things started falling apart, they fell apart for the entire financial system at once. The stock market crashed once again as the U.S economy found itself in the middle of a disastrous recession. The federal reserve almost immediately surfaced and offered to make emergency loans to banks to keep them from collapsing. The troubled assets relief program or TARP spent 250 billion dollars to bail out the disaster bound banks and later helped AIG, home owners and auto makers. Congress in 2009, also provided nearly 800 billion dollars to the economy through tax cuts and new spending. In 2009 the Dodd-Frank Act enabled the federal government to assume control of banks deemed to be on the brink of financial collapse and implemented various consumer protections designed to safeguard investments and prevent predatory lending.(History 10). Between Moral Hazard and Perverse incentives, the seemingly great concept of investing in the consistently rising housing market based off of a simple economic model ended up not being so great after all. Sometimes if things seem too good to be true, it is because they are. Do not count your chickens before they hatch. To be realistic, what goes up can only come down and what is down can only come up. When reviewing economic models of both of these time periods one can notice a constant fluctuation in the economy. In both time periods, the economy was doing abnormally well which means it was destined to do abnormally bad soon after. A decline in consumer spending, an increase in unemployment and sever strain on financial institutions cause the Great Depression and Great Recession to almost mirror one another. History indeed repeats itself. In the 1930s, the time period of the Great Depression, Keynesian economics accompanied by the new deal began to doctor the economy, after the first huge decline, back into stability. This did things such as help the actual people of the failing economy, but also create long-standing government institutions to prevent similar catastrophes from reoccurring. During the Obama administration, the time period of the 2007 recession, a similar approach was made. In refle ction of Keynesian economics, the American Recovery and reinvestment act of 2009 were established to revive the American economy once again. In both cases, due to the unemployment rates and drop in GDP, many people were put out of jobs leading to much civil unrest in the economy of both time periods. The banking system received backlash in both instances. This came with an increased crime rate, and much protest from the uninformed or ignorant American citizens involved in the exchange. The gap in incomes between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor fueled a lot of the protests. Although there was a huge gap between the 30% unemployment rate of the Great Depression and the 10% unemployment rate of the Great Recession, the confidence in the government dragged to a stoop in both situations. It was not only the corporations and federal government who seemed to drive the depression and recession, but the entire capitalist system that, to the people, had been proven wrong for the second time. In consequence of the Great Depression, the only thing the economy and government could think to do was fix things and get them running smooth again. After the Recession in the late 2000s, the economy began brainstorming and inventing ways to improve and ensure the economy is not to collapse a third time. A weak, unstable banking system was to an extent a great cause of both of these historical time periods. By stabilizing our banking systems and making financial moves more transparent, financial crises such as these can be prevented. The government did indeed kick in at a good timing in both events with ways to slow the declines. Both instances could have been much worse, but due to quick action of authority, the catastrophes were prevented from escalating any further. Business had t o make the right decisions and pull the right cards in order to maintain or, depending on the situation, retain stabilization financially. Forecasting in both situations can be improved, however the forecasting of what would effectively stop the declines was predicted well. Through managerial incentive structures, these corporations during both time periods had an insight that something was destined to go wrong, and unfortunately for the banks, lenders, investors and borrowers, it did. History repeats itself, from wars and conflicts to declines and recessions, it is easy to look over past mistakes and make them again. Modern acts and laws have been established to prevent situations like the recession and depression from happening again, however, these are not a 100 percent risk free guarantee. Based on the economic model of the economyToday, It is only a matter of time before we experience another huge collapse in the U.S economy, maybe this time America will learn from its inaccurate forecasting and be a little more prepared.