Now I will try to give a resume and
my own view about Robert L. Stevenson and the Victorian period, about his
achievements and his futurate influence in the fantasy and sci-fi novel.
Stevenson was a victorian writer who went farther in their literary writings.
He investigated a new field in the fantasy genre as well as in the 'voyage
novels'. Whereas other authors did their work in the fields of 'illusion
in reality', as Henry James did, Stevenson focused his work in the individual.
In the rest of novels the characters were plain, with jus one good or bad
side. The victorian concept of nation was still there. Stevenson divided
his characters and showed them as a matter of investigation. Ambiguity
appeared in "Treasure Island". Long John Silver was interesting but dark
and cruel at the same time. Two images --that of a fairy dream in the boy,
and of evil in the pirate-- were presented at the same time. But
Stevenson's definitive and most important work is "Dr.Jeckyll & Mr.Hyde."
Although Stevenson's friend Henry James
also worked with the idea of duality, Stevenson has been the perfect example
of that serach in literature.In his novel "Dr. Jeckyll & Mr.Hyde" we
find again two sides, a good and respectable one, the public image, and
another one, wich is evil and twist-minded, savage. This last side is hidden,
it is a dark side. But this time both images are not separated. These two
faces are inside of and only character. It was this reflection of real
human nature that was revolutionary. Stevenson, with his light prose and
his peculiar narration, showed us perfectly the different treats of the
human personality. The ancient idea of Good and Evil was now rewritten,
and it was taken during a whole century by thousands of different artists
for their inspiracy. Drama, cinema, painting, etc. All the artistic genres
had been influenced in different degrees, but those of cinema and novel
are the most productive ones.
Good and Bad are still today a good starting
point for a film or a novel.It was in the last decades of the XIX century
that Stevenson's novel and also Melville's novel "Moby Dick" changed the
concept of human nature. The last aspect I would like to point out is that
of science-fiction in Stevenson's "Dr.Jeckyll & Mr.Hyde". In this work
science plays an important role. Jeckyll's opened soul appears by
courtesy of a new chemical potion. And the idea of this potion comes from
the new psychology theories of the time, the new possibilities of introspection
in our won minds and souls. The capability of knowing the inner factors
of human beings; the reason of their acts, thoughts... and the discovery
of a new inner world inside of us. The primordial idea of science as way
of discovering new worlds and sensations, and the unpredictable consequences
of this investigation, that Stevenson remarked, was recovered a few years
later by H.G. Wells, father of modern science-fiction. Wells regarded science
as a new chance for mankind. It could meant the future's perfect world
or the future's perfect suicidal destruction. From this premise, other
authors contied developing this new genre. Before and after of the Second
World War soviet and american writers built up new ideas in sci-fi. Once
the atomic terror began to disappear, new authors as Isaac Asimov or Jack
Vance wrote about robots and alien worlds... but the main idea of Good
and Evil (even in Asimov's robot characters) was still there. And it is.