Science and Technology in Novels
Attitudes on Science and Technology in Novels
Three novels that were written in three completely different times all were able to contribute to different views and attitudes towards science and technology. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Time Machine, and Fahrenheit 451 are all accurate portrayals of the effect that science and technology have had on this world even as far back as 1886 when The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was first published. Although each book was written for different purposes and in different times, they all had mainly positive attitudes that were able to portray what the author thought science and technology would be like as the future progressed.
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it seemed that Robert Louis Stevenson had a positive attitude with a negative twist towards science and technological advances throughout the book. This book is ultimately about a scientific potion that affects a man, Dr. Jekyll. By having a positive attitude with a negative twist, it is meant that it showing advances in science, but it has negative consequences. Although this book was written so long before our time, the emotions towards scientific advances were there. On page 62 of this book in Dr. Jekyll’s statement of the case, he states that “From an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be house in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable.” Dr. Jekyll shows that he “dwelled” with pleasure, which signifies a neutral type of attitude that the author portrays. The positivity of the science of his potion was that he was able to do something that no one else had. The negativity was the consequences of the evil in Mr. Hyde and the suicide that ended it all.
Three novels that were written in three completely different times all were able to contribute to different views and attitudes towards science and technology. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Time Machine, and Fahrenheit 451 are all accurate portrayals of the effect that science and technology have had on this world even as far back as 1886 when The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was first published. Although each book was written for different purposes and in different times, they all had mainly positive attitudes that were able to portray what the author thought science and technology would be like as the future progressed.
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it seemed that Robert Louis Stevenson had a positive attitude with a negative twist towards science and technological advances throughout the book. This book is ultimately about a scientific potion that affects a man, Dr. Jekyll. By having a positive attitude with a negative twist, it is meant that it showing advances in science, but it has negative consequences. Although this book was written so long before our time, the emotions towards scientific advances were there. On page 62 of this book in Dr. Jekyll’s statement of the case, he states that “From an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be house in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable.” Dr. Jekyll shows that he “dwelled” with pleasure, which signifies a neutral type of attitude that the author portrays. The positivity of the science of his potion was that he was able to do something that no one else had. The negativity was the consequences of the evil in Mr. Hyde and the suicide that ended it all.