Bonus Blog

It is of no doubt that there lies a stark contrast in the portrayal of women in the 1931 movie of Jekyll and Hyde and Robert Louis Stevenson's novella. The novella, first published in 1885, contains opinions and ideas of women that are much different than those that existed in 1931. First off, in the late 19th century, women were considered "lower" than men, whereas in the early to mid 20th century they gained many rights and broke free from their original stereotype. In the novella, Stevenson very rarely even mentioned women, with the exception of maids, and housekeepers. Obviously neither of those occupations can be regarded as prestigious or higher class jobs. In the film, characters showed much more respect for women with the exception of Hyde. In fact Rouben Mamoulian, the film's director and producer, gave women roles that were non-existent even for men in the book. For example, in the movie, Jekyll falls in love with a women which later becomes the reason for the murder of Sir Danvers Carew. Stevenson didn't even bother having a reason for his murder, Hyde simply killed him. Although there may be a latent reason behind the murder, none was revealed to the reader. Mamoulian may have been attempting to please the audience with these changes. If respect for women was added into the movie, more women would spectate his film. He may have also wanted to show the difference in the portrayal of women then and the present day back then. There are a plethora of plausible reasons behind Rouben's decision to alter the women's roles; although there were major changes in the plotline between the movie and the book, both Mamoulian and Stevenson did a phenomenal job in including their time period's opinions and views of women in their versions of the story.