'Jekyll & Hyde' in Pop Culture

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1, University of Innsbruck (Anglistik), course: British Literature, language: English, abstract: The names 'Jekyll' and 'Hyde' ha... Read more

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: 1, University of Innsbruck (Anglistik), course: British Literature, language: English, abstract: The names 'Jekyll' and 'Hyde' have become a pop cultural phenomenon. Most people can connect something to them, at least the aspect of some kind of split personality. The aim of this paper is to determine the reasons for that. Therefore, I am going to take a look at the many adaptations of the novel for all kinds of media. This is because I want to find out if they played a role in the spreading of the general knowledge about those characters. In doing so, I am going to divide my paper into three parts in order to try to explain the 'metasplit personality' of Stevenson's Novel. In the first part, I am going to compare the original notion of the novel with the modern views of Jekyll & Hyde1 and thereby focusing on the changes that have been made. In the following chapter, I am going to expand on this idea by taking a step back and looking at some adaptations in more detail. This is followed by a last chapter on the influence the idea of Jekyll & Hyde had and still has on other works of art. Less