A Machereyan Reading of R. L Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.1886

Abstract

The current paper follows an in-depth reading of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, The Strange Case of DR.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde under the lens of Macherey’s post-Marxist reading strategy of the ‘said’ and the ‘unsaid’ to reveal its absences. It goes further on explaining the impact of the Victorian society’s mentality and ideology on the production of literary works. This work also investigates the creation of Victorian Gothicism, and displays all of its elements that the author implied directly or indirectly in the novella. Overall, this research paper thoroughly analyses Louis Stevenson’s novella utilizing the Machereyan method of reading the absences of a text to enlighten its mystery, and have a deeper understanding of the message that Louis Stevenson wants to communicate through his writing.