Alexis Moon

AP English
Pierce
Thesis Paper
Science vs. Superstition

The use of science and superstition in English literature reflects the struggle between
modern science and religious values during the turn of the nineteenth-century. There was a major
transition from the late eighteenth-century to the early nineteenth-century which lead to modern
life as it is known today. In English literature, the phrase fin de siecle describes work that has
been created during this time, or portrays popular themes from the transition. Two of these fin
de siecle novels that specifically display the theme of science vs. superstition include Dracula
by Bram Stoker and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Both of these works exemplify the worries of Victorian society through the agent of an
indestructible or strange evil. Seemingly strict, scientific men in Dracula must adapt
superstitious and religious methods in order to overcome Dracula himself; men of God in The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are forced to question themselves when science can
split the soul. Together, these tales prove to test the limits of the literary theme science vs.
superstition.
As previously mentioned, fin de siecle novels in English literature are commonly
influenced by scientific and superstitious elements. These novels were typically published
between the years of 1880 and 1920, including both Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde. The best way to acknowledge this transition in values is to look at other events
during the time. For example, starting in the mid eighteenth-century, England underwent the

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Industrial Revolution. This was a substantial increase in scientific and technological innovation
which redefined the economy of the nation and the type of work offered to the people. The
growth of industry and large city centers impacted the accepted family lifestyle, as working
outside of the home became more prevalent. The idea of leisure time was practically nonexistent,
every middle-class businessman lead the life of a workaholic. Pretty much all aspects of
English life were redeveloped to accommodate modernization, including contact with the church.
From the beginning of the nineteenth-century religious revival held strong; The Church
of England was regaining power and influence as it expanded with new churches. In 1829 the
Catholic Emancipation act was passed, allowing Reformation Catholics to hold public office
once again. Overall, in early nineteenth-century England, organized religion was expected out of
everyone as a social standard. As time went on, and the century came to a close, this standard
plummeted. In 1851, surveys show that only 40% of the population attended church on a typical
Sunday. By 1881, the survey results declined even lower, showing only about 30% attendance (T.
Lambert). A large part of the people not attending church did so due to a lack of resources.
English citizens affected by poverty were those least likely to seek religious aid, they were too
busy attempting to find work in cities. At the turn of the century, 25% of the English population
was considered in poverty, and 10% of them were below subsistence level. The main causes of
this impoverished society were low wages, and a deceased or unemployed guardian with
supporting income (T. Lambert). However, despite high levels of poverty during this time period,
the numbers still do not explain why seventy percent of the English population neglected their
religious custom. The answer is that religion was simply no longer considered an imperative part
of daily lifestyle. Victorian concepts of a proper family setting, ruled by conservative religious
morals, did not exist in the modern urban familial unit. People considered themselves to have

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more important things to deal with, usually involving their occupation. Much like the concept of
leisure, religion was put on the back-burner so industry could run as efficiently as possible.
A decline in religious value did not go unnoticed by the English people. Many of the
noble class, who had the time and money to worry about such things, developed anxieties based
on the lack of moral standard in the lower classes. A frequent scapegoat for such concerns was
the advancement of scientific ideas. For example, social darwinism made many excuses for
economic, colonial and imperial philosophies on the basis of biological superiority. The
advancement of society through evolution and survival of the fittest did not correlate with ideas
of the evangelical. People during this time preferred scientific ideas because it directly addressed
the causes of problems with order, naturalism, and rationality. Superstition seemed to only
address science negatively to emphasize the things that science didnt agree with, which did
nothing to ease societal tension.
In the novel Dracula, Bram Stoker exhibits this argument between the superiority of
science versus religion in the act of problem solving. All of the characters in Dracula experience
a point where their original scientific knowledge and analytical thinking cannot help them
against an evil, only the acceptance of superstition can. The ultimate evil, portrayed through the
character of Count Dracula, cannot be defeated by modern ideas alone. This is especially
noticeable in characters like Dr. Seward and Dr. Van Helsing. Abraham Van Helsing is someone
who teaches science on a regular basis, and is well respected in his field. He was Dr. Sewards
mentor in university. Despite Van Helsings breadth of knowledge in scientific innovation, he is
the one who expresses to all the other characters that science can only help so much in fighting
the evil of vampires. Van Helsing teaches the others to adopt superstitious agents such as
crucifixes, holy water, and garlic. He researches from archaic biblical and superstitious text

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rather than modern biological data. Van Helsing can be seen as representing the old fashioned
way of society. Obviously his advanced age sets him up as the only character who grew up with
Victorian values, as the rest of the protagonists are much younger. Van Helsing is an imperative
source of wisdom for these young people; he teaches them how superstition is necessary to save
the world. Van Helsing takes it upon himself to make all the modern characters believe in the
superstitious evil that they face. It is impossible for the younger characters to defeat Dracula at
all if they do not believe in his existence. In this way, Bram Stoker has the ability to translate
conservative, Victorian religious ideas as the central authority when science and superstition are
forced to work together to eliminate an enemy.
The side of the young contemporaries is most portrayed through the character of Dr.
Seward. Dr. Seward is the owner of a psych ward where he studies his patients condition,
attempting to aid their mental afflictions. This information by itself is enough to label Seward as
a modernist, since psychology was a budding science at the turn of the century. The first
psychology laboratory was built in 1879, and the first psychology clinic was founded in 1896.
The specific year that the story of Dracula takes place is never given through the novel, but one
can assume the novels setting is around this time.
Sewards character finds it the most difficult to acclimate towards the existence of
supernatural entities. Despite hearing the news from his beloved mentor Dr. Van Helsing, Seward
still finds difficulty believing in the vampiric evil. He finds it especially hard to believe that
Lucy, the female character who previously rejected his marriage proposal, could be one of the
mysterious undead. It isnt until Dr. Van Helsing takes Dr. Seward, Arthur Holmwood and
Quincey Morris, the three men who loved Lucy when she was human, to kill her vampire form.
This is another way that Bram Stoker represents the adaptation of traditional English beliefs. The

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fact that Lucy Westenra has courted three men to desire her makes her not only the representation
of a modern woman, but one with a negative connotation. When Dr. Seward and his two
companions accept that Lucy is no longer the woman they loved and destroy her, they are really
accepting the traditional viewpoint and destroying their desire for modern flamboyant women.
It is important to note the happy ending for the modern characters of Dracula. As
portrayed in letter written by Jonathan Harker at the very end of the novel, life post-superstitiouswar proved to be very beneficial for them. Dr. Seward and Arthur Holmwood particularly adapt
the more conservative version of their previously contemporary fantasies with Lucy Westenra, as
both have moved on and happily married. Quincey Morris dies in the final battle with Dracula,
but his character is rewarded in the end as a memory of a brave friend and the namesake of
Jonathan and Mina Harkers son. All in all, the story of Dracula proves to support the necessity
of superstition and science working together, in turn the necessity of Victorian value being
incorporated into modern idealisms at the turn of the nineteenth-century.
Similar to Dracula, Robert Louis Stevensons The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde proves to show literary parallels between English anxiety and scientific themes. The novel
is centered around a mysterious connection between the characters Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In
many ways, Dr. Jekyll is admirable and well behaved in they eyes of Victorian, high-class
society. Dr. Jekyll represents noble people who display morals which conservatively religious
Englishmen appreciated. Dr. Jekyll is also said to be quite old which conforms to this
description, mostly because the majority of people on the side supporting Victorian idealism
were both wealthy and in the latter stages of life. Another example of this characterization can be
seen in, once again, Dr. Van Helsing.

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On the other hand, Dr. Jekyll is not entirely composed of rainbows and glitter. Dr. Jekyll
contradicts his morals when investigating the soul, as he plays with the war between good and
bad inside of himself. In doing so, the doctor betrays his Victorian attributes. The fact that
Jekylls work in science causes this degradation of moral compass is no coincidence on Robert
Louis Stevensons part. As Evangelists would say that scientific advancement impaired good
values and enabled the bad; Stevenson designs Dr. Jekyll as an initially pleasant character who is
conflicted by his desire to experience the strength in immoral action, driven by his scientific
innovation. For, when Jekyll is transformed into the devilish Mr. Hyde, he initially only sees the
benefits. Hyde is younger, stronger, and possesses the ability to exist primarily in the shadows.
As far as society goes, Hyde is invisible. All of these attributes exhibited in the villainous alter
ego appeal to the guilty pleasures of an elderly and particularly well known aristocrat. Dr.
Jekylls experiment turned him into two polar personalities fighting for dominance over a single
physical being, a fight which tears him to pieces and ultimately leads to his unfortunate fate.
As previously mentioned, the character of Mr. Hyde exhibits the evil side of this mystery.
Hyde represents the immoral and dangerous conclusion when using science to explain what is
better left to religious interpretations. The physical description of Hyde as well as his sinister
crimes support this representation. For example, Hyde is noted to be especially ugly, short,
scrawny, and practically disfigured. He is described by one character, Mr. Enfield, to have almost
a malicious aura, making it seem as though people are thoroughly disgusted by Mr. Hyde before
they even look at him or hear him speak.
Many of these odd characteristics have been related to a rabid and uncontrollable wild
animal. Shortly before The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written, Charles Darwin
published a work called The Descent of Man. This piece discussed the evolution of man, and

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how humans were the descendants of hairy, ancient animals. Darwin even hypothesized this to be
preceded by a fish-like creature. Clearly, this would not have been a hypothesis supported by the
Christian faith. Darwins evolutionary ideas trivialized the specialness of human beings.
Because Mr. Hyde is produced using science, and said to be from the inner parts of Dr. Jekyll,
Hyde can be seen as the hairy, ancient animal that Darwin described humans to have evolved
from. Since the idea of such evolution would not have been positively supported by the Victorian
community, he is given a severely negative appearance and personality, reflecting their distaste.
Mr. Hydes behavior also justifies the animal-like depiction. Often times, Mr. Hydes
actions and thoughts seem impulsive in a simple yet terrifying way. At the end of the story, in
Jekylls final letter, he describes Hydes creation as, ...my devil had been long caged, and he
came out roaring. Not only does this specific line actually compare Hyde to a roaring animal,
but it describes the lack of restraint exhibited in Mr. Hydes character. Mr. Hyde has no
association with people or society, he wants nothing from them. He only wishes to get his way
and fulfill his basic, terrible desires. When people hinder Hyde or attempt to stop him, he does
away with them. The simplicity of Hyde mimics that of the way humans picture the mental
capacity of a wild animal: sleep, kill, eat, repeat. Isolating Hyde as such a thing and then
comparing him to the sophistication of Dr. Jekyll only enhances Stevensons portrayal of science
being the agent of moral, religious degradation.
The fact that Victorian anxieties between religion and science are easily recognizable in
fin de siecle literature should come as no surprise simply because these novels were designed to
appeal to English society in such a way that it reminded them of their worries without directly
addressing them. England was changing at the rise of the nineteenth-century; modernism had
presented a new way of life. The Victorians were afraid of losing their precious proper values to

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the questioning, relentless innovation of scientific theories. For that reason, many of the novels
written during this time represented science as either the cause of an antagonistic opposition or
as an unhelpful source when defeating such evil.
The novels Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde embody this trend
considering their themes between science and superstition. Both present a patrician character
who is seemingly stronger and more wise. For Dracula, this is shown in the form of Dr. Van
Helsing, who plays an imperative part to the defeat of Dracula himself. On the other hand, Dr.
Jekyll also plays this role, but is tainted by his scientifically created dark side. Dr. Seward is
somewhat similar, as his character is tarnished by his desire for the loose Ms. Lucy Westenra.
However, his education in superstition, through Dr. Van Helsing, allows Dr. Seward to redeem
himself and acquire the happy Victorian ending, which did not pan out for Dr. Jekyll.
These are just a few translations of the frequent yet minor hints at struggles between
religion and modern science. Almost all fin de siecle pieces of literature contain some kind of
subtle implication as to what ideas the author presents on this subject, simply due to the
commonality of the theme itself and its place in English society. It was a problem then, and its
still a problem now. The conservatives in Victorian England were exponentially more
superficially proper by twenty-first-century standards, but in reality, their concerns are not so
different from the concerns of those today. And much like the turn of the nineteenth-century,
scientific inquiry is strong and especially popular with the modern youth. When it comes down
to it, science and superstition are consistent themes in fabric of human society, and these pieces
of literature only show to prove it.

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