The story below is to help answer the question The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll an

Question

The story below is to help answer the question

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is written mostly in the third-person by a narrator who is not a participant in the story but who narrates the story from the limited perspective of a supporting character, a lawyer, Mr. Utterson. In other words, the reader knows only what Mr. Utterson knows. However, in the final chapter of the novella, the first-person point of view of the protagonist emerges through the literary device of a letter addressed from the protagonist to Utterson. This use of the first-person point of view in the final chapter is crucial to the understanding the full meaning of the novella's events and ending the suspense that has been building up during the course of the plot. In the letter, the protagonist tells his life's story from its beginning until the time of the novella's conclusion: "I was born in the year 18 — to a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellow-men, and thus, as might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honorable and distinguished future." In this way, the protagonist solves the mysteries of the novel as he tells his story using the first-person point of view ("I") for his confession.

How does the plot create suspense in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Explanation / Answer

Throughout the Novel untill the last chapter the reader was following the story through the lens of Mr. Utterson,this shift of story from third person's view to first person's narration unravel the mysteries of the story.here,the reader is able to piece togehter the Utterson's perspective with Jekyll's behavior and everything becomes clear.The complete story of Jekyll-Hyde relationship is revealed.The reader observes the story from a distance as Mr.Utterson did,this plot the third person's narrative created suspense in the story.This gives a realistic impession of a man who is puzzled about strange behavior of his friend and wants to the reason the same.This is the device that Robert Loius Stevenson has used to create suspense in his novel The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde.The suspense of the third- person's narrative is brought to climax by the first-person's narrative,when the first-person voice reveals the character's thought, emotions and personal interests.

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