Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Paper 2
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GCSE English Literature · key term
A nineteenth-century belief that human beings or civilisation could decline into a supposedly more primitive condition. It is historical context, not an accepted explanation of criminal behaviour.
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Paper 2
Component 2
A historical belief that individuals or societies could decline towards a supposedly more primitive condition; it is not an accepted explanation of criminal behaviour.
Later nineteenth-century degeneration theories expressed fears that civilisation could decline towards a supposedly primitive condition. These were theories of decline, distinct from Darwin’s account of evolution through natural selection. Hyde’s “ape-like fury”, described by the narrator during the murder in Chapter 4, can evoke these anxieties: his violence threatens confidence in the civilised human being.
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