Homosexuality in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” This quote from Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, while being sarcastic and facetious, is truly indicative of the societal expectations placed on men in Victorian society. This is the very belief that is subverted and challenged in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The conflict in his novel is …

…society, which reviles homosexual behavior. Upper-class men in Victorian society should desire wives and it is wholly unacceptable for them to desire other men. The condemnation of homosexuality by the Victorian society led these men to drive their deplorable lifestyles into the shadows and act hypocritically in the process. Stevenson’s novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, is clearly protesting against a society that causes deviants to hide their homoerotic behavior and thus, act hypocritically.