The Grotesque in Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Anglistik), course: 19th Century Gothic Fiction, language: English, abstract: The grotesque mode of writing has a long history and continues to exist in the 20th and 21st century. Yet, the concept of the grotesque hasn't been a popular subject in literary studies for a long time. This changed in the second half of the last century when literary scholars started to agree upon the significance and benefit of the grotesque for literary studies. Some of the groundbreaking studies in the 20th century were those of Wolfgang Kayser (1957), Mikhail Bakhtin (1965) and Philip Thomson (1972). Consequently, the grotesque became an accepted and frequently used theory in literary criticism. Yet, studying the concept of the grotesque implies facing certain theoretical difficulties. Definitions and descriptions of the grotesque may differ and there is still no consensus about what the grotesque really is. One reason for the difficulty in talking about the grotesque lies in the fact that scholars often defined the grotesque by referring to its use in different literary periods. However, what exactly is understood as the "grotesque" and how the grotesque is used as an aesthetic in a specific time is always dependent on the respective sociocultural circumstances. It is a term that is consistently redefined in (literary) history. Thus, it is advisable to narrow down a discussion of the grotesque to a distinct literary period. The German literary critic Christian W. Thomsen argues that in particular Gothic literature serves as a very rich source for an analysis of the grotesque aesthetic. He suggests that particularly this literary genre should be approached from the perspective of the grotesque. The study at hand follows his suggestion and focuses on one of the most prominent examples of late Victorian Gothic literature, namely The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. I argue that Stevenson's novel serves as a suitable example for the meaning and function of the grotesque in literature. Its distinct quality lies in the fact that it is representative of both, general overarching aspects and also genre-specific, that is, Gothic elements of the grotesque. The study has a twofold benefit: a better understanding of the novel by applying the concept of the grotesque, and a better understanding of the theory.