Why Does Jack the Ripper Still Haunt Our Cultural Imagination?

The brutal unsolved murders of five women in London’s East End in 1888 were all attributed to one anonymous killer: Jack the Ripper. With the term “Ripperology” coined by Colin Wilson in the 1970s to describe its study, the killer’s myth has spread across novels, art, theatre, and even musicals, songs, and video games like Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. As Clive Bloom notes, the Ripper has become “the symbol of a predatory aristocracy,” (Jack the Ripper – A Legacy in Pictures, 2008) continually reimagined to reflect shifting fears around violence, anonymity, and power.

Victorian broadsheets and engravings helped shape Jack the Ripper’s enduring image by blending crime reporting with gothic spectacle, much like earlier portrayals of Spring Heeled Jack. Popular papers like The Illustrated Police News used dramatic engravings of bloodied victims and shadowy figures to stoke fear and fascination. The press also amplified the mystery through letters allegedly sent by the killer, including the infamous “From Hell” letter, which arrived at the offices of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee with half a human kidney enclosed. These sensational elements, echoing the lurid style of penny dreadfuls, reached a wide audience thanks to rising literacy and cheap printing.

Novelists Used the Murders to Explore Societal Anxieties

Set against the backdrop of Victorian London’s stark social divides, many fictional retellings (such as those by authors like Peter Ackroyd and Alan Moore) highlight the vulnerability of working-class women and the indifference of institutions meant to protect them. The Ripper’s anonymity becomes a symbol of faceless violence in a rapidly modernizing city. Echoing the fears stirred by the original press coverage and penny dreadfuls, these novels often portray London’s East End as a space of chaos and neglect, using the murders to critique the era’s obsession with propriety, its flawed justice system, and the repression of sexuality.

Through gothic imagery and psychological depth, writers continue to use the Ripper myth to interrogate the darker undercurrents of society then and now.

Artists Have Explored How Ripper Imagery Critiqued Violence and Anonymity

Walter Sickert, a post-Impressionist painter and founder of the Camden Town Group, created unsettling works like Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom and the Camden Town Murder series, blending voyeuristic tension with grim realism to expose the vulnerability of women. His fascination with the Ripper myth (including deliberately renting a room supposed to have been inhabited by Jack the Ripper) gave rise to a popular theory that Sickert himself may have been the killer.

The area in Whitechapel where the murders took place has become the canvas for many modern artists seeking to memorialize the victims of the ripper. Contemporary artists, (including the muralist, Zabou) have used shadowy figures, blood-red palettes, and fragmented female forms to explore how faceless brutality reflects deeper societal failures.

Film and television have played a major role in reshaping the legend of Jack the Ripper. Productions like From Hell (2001), based on Alan Moore’s graphic novel, link the murders to royal cover-ups and Freemasonry, reflecting modern anxieties about institutional corruption. Earlier films such as Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1927) used the Ripper myth to explore paranoia and urban alienation, while TV series like Ripper Street (2012–2016) delve into the social aftermath of the killings, highlighting Victorian struggles with poverty, policing, and gender violence. These adaptations often blur fact and fiction, using the Ripper’s anonymity to explore themes of moral decay, failed justice, and the fragility of public order.

Immersive Theatre, Exhibitions, and Podcasts Blur History and Entertainment

Productions like An Evening with Jack the Ripper and exhibitions at the London Dungeon or the Museum of London use reconstructed crime scenes, archival documents, and atmospheric staging to evoke the fear and fascination of the 1800s. Podcasts such as Casefile and The Ripper’s Gambit dissect the killings with forensic detail and narrative suspense, often speculating on motives and suspects.

These formats echo the sensationalism of Victorian broadsheets and penny dreadfuls. The mystery of the killer’s identity has given writers and artists ample ground for artistic license.