Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde Presenting the Siniste

Bipin Mathew
The various ways in which Stevenson and Jones present the sinister
Many authors present the sinister in their unique way. Robert Louis Stevenson presents the sinister in Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a lot of description using the senses, but on the other side Steve Jones uses description but in a slightly different way. He uses dozens of illustration which are mysterious and also includes humorous but sinister writing too. For example Jones writes in his book, “Canals are handy for both murderous and suicidal reasons”. This is amusing but sinister because canals are used for industrial purposes not for suicidal or murderous reasons. Both books are sinister in their own way because of the techniques the authors use but also the way they select to show the sinister.
Birmingham the sinister side has a lot of sinister pictures. The picture of the peakies is extremely mysterious because you can see ghostly figures down the alley. Also Steve Jones uses gory description, “I wish I could have got her mother as well. I would have chopped her into mince meat and made sausages of her” This amazing piece of language is awfully disturbing and sinister in ways because you cannot do these kinds of things with a heart. But Stevenson does not use any illustrations to describe the sinister but he does have one special technique, he uses the five senses to make a picture in our head with full detail. “...he even laid his hand upon my arm and sought to shake me. I put him back, conscious at his touch of certain icy pang along my blood.” This is not natural because laying your hand on someone is to welcome them and make them feel comfortable and also it is strange because humans are warm blooded.
Stevenson also uses humour in his story, “If he is Mr. Hyde, I shall be Mr. Seek”. This is amusing because he refers to the game of ‘hide and seek’ because Mr. Hyde sounds like ‘Mr. Hide’. Jones also uses humour when he wrote about Phillip Evans but at the end of the writing about him he uses a rhetorical question which is humorous “can u tell if I’m wearing a wig?” Another way that Stevenson presents the sinister is by using imagery description.”He was small and very plainly dressed and the look of him, even at a distance went somehow strongly against the watchers inclination.” In addition to that there is another piece of writing where he uses both auditory and imagery description. “I could hear his teeth grate with convulsive actions of his face was so ghostly to see that I grew admired both for his life and reason”.
There are also many different places where Stevenson uses phenomenal, well detailed description to illustrate the picture. For example he uses this technique to picture the murder of Sir Danvers Carew. “...with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under his foot, and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones where audibly shattered.” This piece of description is extremely grizzly and the fact you can hear the bones shatter is very disturbing and this is exceedingly sinister. Birmingham the sinister side includes a bunch of sinister characters e.g. the peakies, the twinkles and the father of the boy who locked him in his room and nearly starved him to death. This is also a good technique that Jones uses to present the sinister in his book.
The most dramatic and sinister part of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is where Jekyll transforms into Mr. Hyde.”But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough in the yellow light of mid-London morning , lying half shut on the bed-clothes was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.” Stevenson describes every aspect of Hyde as a body of a criminal with knuckly hands which is sinister. Another description of the metamorphosis is when he sees himself in the mirror.”...my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed as Henry Jekyll and awakened as Edward Hyde”. This is impossible. You cannot change from being one person to another so this unnatural and sinister.
Bipin Mathew
Both authors have presented the sinister incredibly well but have shown it in different ways. Robert Louis Stevenson presented the sinister in Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde using the five senses: touch, hear, taste, smell and sight. All these factors included in a piece of sinister description will make an exceedingly amazing illustration in the readers head. And that is exactly what Stevenson has done. But Steve Jones takes a different simple way which is as good as Stevenson’s. He uses pictures that are mysterious and scary and also real people that are very sinister. He also applies good descriptive writing where he uses some of the five senses. Overall they both did an excellent job of presenting the sinister using images and creating images in your head using the senses.