Presenter(s): Guy Jones − Psychology
Faculty Mentor(s): Mai-Lin Cheng
Oral Session 2O
Research Area: Literature
The infamous Mr. Hyde from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” is remembered by most as monstrous, however one of Hyde’s most interesting qualities is his incredibly average, normal appearance. If Hyde functioned as a reflection of that which the Victorian populace feared, this begs the question of what his common appearance represented to the audience at the time of publication. The Victorian era was marked by increasingly nationalist sentiments and a great deal of insecurity regarding unseen foreign invaders polluting the purity of Londoners’ lineages. These invisible intruders were largely grouped under the term degenerate, popularized by Cesare Lombroso around the 1850s, and believed to be inherently evil. Among these degenerates were foreigners, the mentally ill, and homosexuals. These deviant identities were heavily interconnected as foreigners were believed to be the origins of homosexuality and other so-called mental illnesses. The subtle depiction of Hyde mimics the Victorian understanding of these supposed degenerates as documented in primary sources and in research done by Historians on the time period. Enfield, on page 14, declared that “the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask” however, anyone can admit a name like Queer Street demands questions.