The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Stevenson

       I have studied a science-fiction “The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” in my graduation, this was the most interesting text for me in my first semester. Now I know the plot of this novella but still it gives me a feeling of suspense and horror whenever I read it. I would like to share my interpretation of this novella.

Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

By Robert Stevenson

                          

                       Robert Louise Stevenson was the master of the adventure stories in Victorian age. He was the writer of current affairs and situations. Victorian era was an era of science and art, and there were many inventions in science. Many writers have tried to write about science and its effects, the best science fiction is Marry Shelly’s “Frankenstein- a modern Prometheus” and many poets also used the inventions to express their feelings.

                 
                    Robert Stevenson has also written one science fiction which shows the reality of human life and expresses duality of human nature. He has used ‘split personality’ which suggests that within the same body, there exists more than one distinct personality. The full title of this novella is, “The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide”. In this novella, Dr. Jekyll is a character that shows two personality within him, but both are different one is good and another is evil.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide

                

                      This story is all about a scientist who wants to reveal the hidden personality in human nature which is suppressed by the social contexts, the scientist wanted to fulfil all his evil wishes, but as a very kind hearted doctor it was not possible for him to do that so he made a portion, a chemical which helps human body to transform appearance with personality, it is totally different from apparent personality of person. Human has two nature as well as personality; one is for society, as a good a noble human and another is a hidden evil wishes. Stevenson has showed the darken side of human or we can say hidden evil part of human.

                As per Dr. Jekyll,

“Man is not truly one, but two”

           He wanted to separate both the personalities so he can live his social life as Dr. Jekyll and fulfil his evil wishes as Mr. Hyde. Stevenson has also shown the connection between appearance and reality. Dr. Jekyll is apparently a good and a kind natured person but from inside he is a criminal, on the other hand Mr. Hyde is a very ugly looking man with ugly (evil) nature, he has killed sir Danvers Carew, a member of parliament. If we take reference of “Frankenstein- a modern Prometheus” by Marry Shelley, she has also presented appearance and reality but in different way, as per her point of view appearance not always goes with reality.

           

        Dr. Jekyll wanted to live double life and commit crimes, but without harming his reputation, and that was the reason that he has created a man which looks different than him, who is not a part of society. In a day time he serves as a doctor, and in the darkness of night he was committing crimes.

              

        The novella clearly suggests the unfulfilled human desires, which forces a person to choose inappropriate way to fulfil that. Society has made such rules, and as a social animal every human have to follow that, but Dr. Jekyll has choose a very strange way to commit crimes and finally at the end his darken personality has overpowered his noble persona and he has became Mr. Hyde, but before being Hyde completely, he has committed suicide. At the end we could say that the good soul in Dr. Jekyll has sacrificed to destroy the evil, and both died. The very important symbol in the novella is dead body of Mr. Hyde, he died as Mr. Hyde not as Dr. Jekyll, and it shows that evil has finally died.

         

       He has challenged the rules of nature and it resulted in death, also in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and in Christopher Marlow’s “Dr. Faustus and his Tragic History” we could find this kind of elements.

Wordsworth has said,

“Nature never did betray the heart who loved her”

But it can be also said that,

“Nature never did forgive the heart that betray her”

Movie review of an award winning short film "Selfie" - directed by Ramchandra Gaonkar

      

     On 26^th September, in the dailyschedule of Department of English, Komal Sahedadpuri has presented one short film named “Selfie” in the column of personal presentation. The title of the short film suggests that it should be about social media and how some of us are very conscious about their look and “selfies”

 Here is the short film "Selfie"

       

      An award winning short film “Selfie” is directed by Ramchandra Gaonkar and produced by Balasaheb Matre. The story is common as well as unique. We could say that seventy percent people judge everyone by their looks, clothes and shoes and also comments upon each other with that perspective.  In school, colleges and workplaces this kind of incidents do happens where people bully each other and insults. Even in the advertisements of washing powders and branded clothes, it can be observed that cloths and its whiteness is very much connected with character and personality but the fact is that all this is materialistic things which hides the reality rather than expressing the truth.

       

    Another fact that the short film expresses is importance of our love towards us. The person in the film has passed his whole day by feeling insulted and uncomfortable because an unknown person has commented badly about him and also tried to change his behaviour and appearance. What others are thinking about ourselves is their way of thinking we cannot change or control that and we don’t even need to do that. In the last scene when the victim (the person who has insulted by the man) has done the same thing with fellow young passenger and that young boy was laughing rather than being uncomfortable and the simple reason was,

“I have known myself from 21 years!”

     When we take selfie and upload it on social media we wait for likes and comments… and if we don’t get such things as per our expectations we feel bad and ignored, but the main thing is we know that what we are and what can we do. We should not give our remote controls in other people’s hand; if we know ourselves we don’t need anyone to make us happy or sad. This is the idea of existentialism that whatever we do is for our self and only we are responsible for that, we can’t blame anyone for our disaster or cannot credit anyone for our happiness. “selfie” is all about taking our photograph of our own, and it’s up to us how we take it because we are the controllers of our life.

   Only WE are responsible for WHAT we are, WHO we are and WHERE we are.

Workshop on various Art forms Day - 2

      

          Today on 25^th September, it was a second day of a workshop related various art forms, organized by Balvant Parekh centre, Vadodara, and Department of Gujarati MK Bhavnagar University.

Blog link of Day – 1 – Click here

       

     The second day has started with the feedbacks from students. Dr. Mahendrasinh Parmar has invited two students of Gujarati and English department to give their feedbacks, so everyone can measure the understanding level of students that how they are getting the knowledge and learning.

     

    The interesting thing in the session was that the organizers have given chance to students to introduce the guest speakers. After feedback the student of Gujarati department Nehalba Gohil has introduced the first speaker Raksha Bhatt.

      

   Raksha Bhatt is a photographer and a teacher at B. M. Commerce School Bhavnagar. She has started her presentation by the history of photography, the first slide of very interesting that she has given a reference of Aristotle and how he said that,

“The soul never can think without a picture”

while reading this feedback, those who have attended the workshop they are recalling their memories and those who have not attended they are imagining the things. So the basic idea of Raksha madam was to connect us with visuals and its deep effect.

       

    Raksha Bhatt has included the importance of camera from the starting of photography to the contemporary time. The first was Dub Camera and from 15^th century dark chambers or we can say camera obscure has started, from 17^th century there was Box camera and from 18^th century process of using negatives has started and in 19^th century wet and dry glass plates were used for photography. 

   

   She has also mentioned some name and photographs of well known photographers and photojournalists like, Henry Cartier who has evolved street photography, the second was Ashvin Mehta whose books of photographs like “Gifts of Solitude”, “Himalaya” and “the cost of India” are very famous. The third was Raghu Rai a renowned photojournalist, the fourth was Kishor Parekh and lastly she mentioned Jyotibhai Bhatt a photographer and a painter.

        

     After the introduction of these great photographers she has presented a collection of her photographs, you can take a look of it by clicking here (PC: FB wall of Dr. Dilip Barad). Mostly the photographs were of tribal life of Kutchh and ghats of Varanasi and Hardwar. There were projection of real India and culture; a photograph of a widow with bald head, Sadhubabas, shamshan ghat (Cemetery) of Varanasi shows the cultural aspects and also the condition of society in one or the other way. The speech and presentation has ended with the video of her collect photographs.

    The second speaker was Dr. Rutul Joshi and a professor at CEPT (centre for environmental planning and technology) University. Rutulsir has explained his idea of architecture study by its nine parts with its best examples of buildings. The nine parts are Structure, Space, Light, Form, Materials, Colours, Texture, Climate and Culture.

       

     The examples of various buildings were there like, Salk Institute US, Church of Light at Japan, A house in Wada at Maharashtra, Florence at Italy, Church on water at Japan, Gandhi museum and many more. He has given the names of five best buildings as per architecture research, Mill Owner’s at Ahmadabad, Newman Hall at Ahmadabad, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Ahmadabad, A farm house at Sihor and Aranya Township at Indore. Some photographs are here(PC: FB wall of Dr. Dilip Barad).

      

    The third and last speaker was Ashish Kakkad a Voice artist, actor, writer and director. He is the producer, writer and director of “Better half”. Ashish Sir has presented some parts of his film Better half and also described the way of making scenes and implement of emotions in character by going out of the stereotypes of film making. His best suggestion for film making was about casting, as per him the actors should be appropriate for character, it’s good to choose appropriate rather than best.

     

    The session has ended with the feedback speech by Dr. Dilip Barad and thanking speech by Piyush Thakkar.

   

    I have really enjoyed the workshop and learned so many new things about various art forms. Every art has its own value and after attending the workshop, my interest has increased in further reading and research about these arts.