'Man is not truly one but truly two' – this is the central theme depicted in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson had great skills and was able to captivate his readers with his storytelling skills. His way of coming up with unusual themes and use of language makes his story very interesting and engaging. He has a wonderful way at portraying the duality of man through Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stevenson also uses the environment and setting of the story to represent the contrast between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We don’t discover Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll’s relationship until towards the last chapters of the book. We learn that to every person there is a demonic and angelic side.
There is duality to human nature and character flaws in everyone that we meet in life. “All creatures are flawed, but out of the flaw may come the universe” by Marguerite Young is one of my favorite quotes that describes the characters so well. There are flaws to every creature and from all of our flaws we make up the whole universe. The characters in the novella aren’t perfect either. Mr. Utterson was a longtime friend of Dr. Jekyll and he was someone who never showed emotions, even though he was a trustworthy and honorable man. He was portrayed, as the ideal Victorian man who was a God-fearing man, wasn’t a man who enjoyed parties so much, reserved in his thoughts. Mr. Utterson was a high honored man on one side, but on the other side he has very strange walks with Enfield. Even the most ideal and “perfect” man has character flaws.
Mr. Hyde is purely evil. He is described to be smaller, younger, ugly, and hairier; he is considered to be villainous and evil. Stevenson compares him to a monkey. The monkey symboliz...
... middle of paper ...
...at Dr. Jekyll had started drinking the potion so often that he couldn’t control his urges to keep turning into Hyde. Until one day he wasn’t able to turn back into Dr. Jekyll. This shows that to some extent, our evil thoughts and negative attitude overpowers our minds and leaves us to only think about ourselves and no one else, even if someone is good-natured and has great qualities.
The setting and environment of the book also symbolizes how Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll are different as well. Dr. Jekyll lived in an upper middle class neighborhood but there was a backdoor leading to a dangerous street. Soho is described with a negative description its “... a district of some city in a nightmare.” In the chapter of “The Carew Murder Case”(15) Stevenson compares it to a nightmare while your sleeping. He emphasizes that duality is everywhere not just within human nature.
To conclude the way that Stevenson has described Hyde and what Jekyll has done in most parts he has related it to the devil which in Victorian times was considered very dangerous, even though today he’s not considered that powerful it would still make a big impact. Stevenson has been successful in using many elements of a shocker/thriller to write a novella with a much deeper moral significance because every aspect of the story relates back to the Victorian morals of 1837 till 1901 and for a 21st century reader some parts of the novella will make them think what is really happening around them now and whether it is right or not!
...ve duality of man;… if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” Thus, Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two coexistent, and eternally opposed components that make up a “normal” individual. However, here, good and evil are not related but are two independent entities, individuals even, different in mental and physical attributes and constantly at war with each other. Evil now does not require the existence of good to justify itself but it exists simply as itself, and is depicted as being the more powerful, the more enjoyable of the two, and in the end ultimately it is the one that leads to Dr. Jekyll's downfall and death. Stevenson creates the perfect metaphor for the never-ending battle between good and evil by using Jekyll and Hyde. However, this novella is perhaps one of the few that truly show the power of Evil.
Throughout the thriller-mystery story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Utterson, the friendly lawyer, tries to figure out the reason behind why Dr. Jekyll, his friend and client, gives all his money in his will to a strange man and murderer named Mr. Hyde. Readers learn from the ominous third person point of view the worries of Mr. Utterson and ride along for his search of Mr. Hyde. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, R.L. Stevenson employs characterization, imagery, and motifs of weather to construct complex characters and create eerie settings, which parallel with the mood of the characters.
Mr. Hyde was pale ad dwarfish; he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and some what broken voice,—all these were points against him; but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. (10)
Within the text of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson portrays a complex power struggle between Dr. Jekyll, a respected individual within Victorian London society, and Mr. Hyde a villainous man tempted with criminal urges, fighting to take total control of their shared body. While Dr. Jekyll is shown to be well-liked by his colleagues, Mr. Hyde is openly disliked by the grand majority of those who encounter him, terrified of his frightful nature and cruel actions. Throughout Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson portrays the wealthy side of London, including Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll, as respected and well-liked, while showing the impoverish side as either non-existent or cruel.
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the author Robert Louis Stevenson uses Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to show the human duality. Everyone has a split personality, good and evil. Stevenson presents Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as two separate characters, instead of just one. Dr. Jekyll symbolizes the human composite of a person while Mr. Hyde symbolizes the absolute evil. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who are indeed the same person, present good and evil throughout the novel.
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, the dual nature of man is a main theme. Jekyll says: "Man is not /truly one, but truly two"(125), meaning all people have both a good and a bad side. Dr. Jekyll creates a potion to fully separate good and evil, but instead it awakens a dormant character, Mr. Hyde. Throughout the novel, Stevenson uses society, control, and symbolism to tell the reader about human nature.
From reading the last chapter, we can all see that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are easily viewed as a symbol about the good and evil that exists in all men, and about the struggle these two sides in the human personality. Hyde has a short temper and is made to look evil. “I observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near me at first with a visible misgiving of the flesh”. Jekyll is arguing that Hyde is the perfect physical embodiment of the evil inside him, implying that Hyde looks evil. Stevenson has also explored which aspect of human personality is superior, good or evil. Since at the start of the book Hyde seems to be taking over, you might argue that evil is stronger than good. However, Hyde does end up dead at the end of the story, suggesting a failure of the weakness of evil. Since Hyde represents the evil in Jekyll he is therefore symbolically represented being much smaller than Jekyll as “Jekyll’s clothes are far too large for him”. But as the plot progresses Mr. Hyde began to grow and becomes more powerful than Jekyll, and the reason for Hyde to become more powerful is due to the fact that Jekyll enjoys what Hyde does, which allow Hyde to gradually destroy the good in
Due to their concealed yet present inner evil, humans are naturally inclined to sin but at the same time resist temptation because of influence from society, thus illustrating a duality in humanity. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde focuses on how humans are actually two different people composed into one. The concept of dual human nature includes all of Hyde’s crimes and ultimately the death of Jekyll. Jekyll proposes that “man is not truly one, but truly two,” and describes the human soul as a constant clash of the “angel” and the “fiend,” each struggling to suppress the other (Stevenson 61, 65). Man will try to cover up his inner evil because once it rises to the surface everyone will know the real...
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the theme of the duality of man. The idea that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are one man in two bodies rather than two men sharing one body suggests that man itself is a combination of both good and evil. In distinguishing the female characters as inferior beings, Stevenson begins to suggest that women are victims of the evil side - the sadistic unconscious - of men. Each time female characters are mentioned in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, they are victims of violent and unfortunate circumstances. The culprit of these violent circumstances is always Mr. Hyde. Because Mr. Hyde represents the evil side of man and because Mr. Hyde is the one who is directly hurting the women in the novel, Stevenson suggests that men has a sadistic unconscious. In other words, all individuals are both good and evil. Included in the evil side of man is a subconscious desire to hurt other individuals, especially women. Throughout the novel, individuals continuously suffer physically at the hands of Mr. Hyde. For example, the first appearance of a female in the novel results in a “horrific” situation. On his walk with Mr. Utterson, Mr. Enfield recounts being a witness to a strange scene, “All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along...and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street...the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground” (Stevenson, 9). The female child is clearly the victim of male violence, specifically that of Mr. Hyde. Because Mr. Enfield claims that the man trampled “calmly” over the young girl, he suggests that the culprit shows no remorse for the female child, who is left “screaming on the ground.” Furthermore, this implies that the man ran over her with ease, further demonstrating the imbalance of power between men and
The reader is drawn to the plot of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde through the literary devices Stevenson employs. Foreshadowing displays the sense of mystery throughout the novel, the foreshadowing of the actions of Mr. Hyde leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. The ironic nature of Dr. Jekyll relates to the reader as a person, no person is completely perfect and Dr. Jekyll exhibits the natural wants and desires of humans. The irony behind Mr. Hyde adds an enigmatic side to the plot. These two devices expose the readers to the complexity of the novel and reveal the inner meaning of the hidden details.
Stevenson’s most prominent character in the story is the mysterious Mr Hyde. Edward Hyde is introduced from the very first chapter when he tramples a young girl in the street, which brings the reader’s attention straight to his character. The reader will instantly know that this person is a very important part of this book and that he plays a key role in the story. This role is the one of a respectable old man named Dr Jekyll’s evil side or a ‘doppelganger’. This links in with the idea of duality. Dr Jekyll is described as being ‘handsome’, ‘well-made’ and ‘smooth-faced’. On the other hand, Mr Hyde is described as being ‘hardly human’, ‘pale and dwarfish’, giving of an impression of deformity and ‘so ugly that it brought out the sweat on (Mr Enfield) like running’! These words all go together to conjure up an image in the mind of an animal, beast or monster. During the novel...
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the story of a gifted doctor who discovers a drug which can release the evil side of one’s nature. This drug transforms Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. Stevenson does not reveal the details of Jekyll’s story until the end of the novel, but presents the story as a sort of mystery, in which a variety of characters try to figure out the identity of Mr. Hyde and understand the relationship that Dr. Jekyll has with Mr. Hyde (Critical survey of Science Fiction and Fantasy). In writing The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson proposed the idea of the duality of human nature and used this to incite fear amongst readers.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a riveting tale of how one man uncovers, through scientific experiments, the dual nature within himself. Robert Louis Stevenson uses the story to suggest that this human duality is housed inside everyone. The story reveals “that man is not truly one, but two” (Robert Louis Stevenson 125). He uses the characters of Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde, Dr. Lanyon, and Mr. Utterson to portray this concept. He also utilizes important events, such as the death of Dr. Jekyll and the death of Mr. Lanyon in his exploration of the topic.
This guilt drives him to have “clasped hands to God…tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds that his memory swarmed against him” (Stevenson 57). As a whole, the text demonstrates that Dr. Jekyll’s alter ego, Mr. Hyde, is the mastermind of pure malevolence who participates in activities that Dr. Jekyll cannot Jekyll experiences. For instance, Dr. Jekyll’s physical appearance begins to decline as he stops taking the draught. The text describes Dr. Jekyll’s physical characteristics as “looking deadly sick” when his is usually a “large well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness” (Stevenson 19-25). Not only does Dr. Jekyll’s health begin to decline, but also his behavior changes as well.