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The Hidden Allegories Within Paradise Lost and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Many authors of proclaimed masterpieces, such as Animal Farm by George Orwell, reflect past events to mock characteristics of human life. For Orwell, these events were those of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and his intention was to mock the communist regime that he had witnessed as a democratic socialist and as a member of the Independent Labour Party. By presenting his opinions allegorically throughout his novel, Orwell succeeds in displaying communism as hypocritical. Another fine example of this would be The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, who, as a Christian apologist, decided to include various Christian allegories in his novel perhaps to reflect his always-changing beliefs in the existence of a god. It has been said that by knowing the background of an author before reading his/her novel, a person can have a more intellectual opinion on the piece of literature being read. Through criticism and symbolism within the novels Paradise Lost and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, John Milton and Robert Louis Stevenson’s very different personal experiences influence the character development, word choice, and plot within their writings about the processes in which individuals engage in the pursuit of knowledge, which provides a different perspective for readers.

Love lives affect their character development. Milton’s negative experience with women leads to his disrespectful views towards women in his novel, Paradise Lost. Milton makes hurtful remarks about Eve within Books 4-5 and 9-10 and puts Eve in the background, preparing food, while Adam talks to Raphael in Book 5, saying to her, “But go with speed/And what thy stores contain bring forth and pour/Abundance fit to honor and receive/Our Heav’nly stranger” (Milton 114). Adam just expects Eve to prepare the finest of refreshments for their unknown guest, displaying true abuse of power and disrespect. Stevenson’s satisfying love life affects his portrayal of women in his novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. His content is the probable cause of the absence of women in this novel. While there may be one female used in the opening of the story, Stevenson never describes her as a woman, rather, “a girl of maybe eight or ten”. Stevenson proceeds to refer to her as “the child", writing that Mr. Enfield states, “Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground” (Stevenson 3). Stevenson expresses much more concern with the man’s actions than the young girl’s, displaying a stronger opinion of the actions of man than anything else.

Both write through illness, using their suffering to achieve artistic accomplishment. Milton’s sudden blindness is the explanation of the Muse used to begin various sections of Paradise Lost. At one point in the story, Milton asks his Muse to give him “holy light” because he is blind, stating, “Through hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe/And feel thy sovereign vital lamp but thou/Revisit’st not these eyes that roll in vain/To find thy piercing ray and find no dawn,/So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs/Or dim suffusion veiled” (Milton 56-57). It can arguably be said that Milton uses his Muse as his own invented inspiration to continue to write his novel despite his disability. He also uses the term “dark world” to express his inability to understand the spiritual world and its knowledge, whereas light is used to symbolize a complete understanding of both. Therefore, if Milton lives in such a “dark” world due to blindness, he must be suggesting that his understanding of his surroundings has suffered since he became blind at the age of forty-four. Stevenson reflects personal experience of solitude at the end of his life that was lost to illness. Since Stevenson was always sick, his reference to medicine near the end of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde could have been a reflection of his past experiences with it. He writes for Dr. Jekyll in “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case”, “In short, from that day forth it seemed only by a great effort as of gymnastics, and only under the immediate stimulation of the drug, that I was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll” (Stevenson 67). Jekyll needs medicine to not become Mr. Hyde, and it could be assumed that Stevenson needed constant medicine to feel normal, too. Stevenson dies alone, much like Jekyll at the end of the novel. Since the book was written near the end of his life, which was spent in solidarity inside a house located in the Samoan Islands surrounded by three hundred acres of purchased land, Stevenson could have been suggesting how he imagined that he would die.

Their writing reflects what is going on in their respective societies. Milton criticizes the English Commonwealth by using Paradise Lost as an allegory of his personal experiences with Cromwell’s rise and fall. Milton writes, “High on a throne of royal state which far/Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind/Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand/Show’rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold/Satan exalted sat, by merit raised/To that bad eminence and from despair” (Milton 26-27). Satan is a cruel and oppressive ruler like Charles I and sets himself on a throne. By disobeying God and encouraging others to do so, he also proves to be a rebel like Cromwell. Stevenson expresses his feelings towards the social order in Victorian England, displaying the general mindset of society in a critical way through various characters in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The blackmail of Hyde in the beginning of the novel, which Enfield describes to Jekyll, claiming, “I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black, sneering coolness—frightened too, I could see that—but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan. ‘If you choose to make capital out of this accident,’ said he, ‘I am naturally helpless. No gentlemen but wishes to avoid a scene’” (Stevenson 4). From this, it can be determined that the characters care so much about their reputation that any type of blackmail that threatens their reputation can persuade them. Mr. Utterson also refuses to speak on Jekyll's behalf on various occasions to preserve Jekyll’s reputation, as well as his own, which is that he is trustworthy and loyal. The importance of reputation is a reoccurring theme in the novel, mocking the behavior of society found during the Victorian era.
Milton and Stevenson reflect their feelings about their love lives, sufferings, and environments within their writings. Various aspects of Milton and Stevenson’s personal lives can be seen to affect the character development, word choice, and plot of their novels. Once a reader acquires the knowledge of Milton and Stevenson’s hidden motives for writing their proclaimed masterpieces, he/she can have an improved understanding of the texts.EndFragment>