Good and evil exists in everyone. Everyone has a good side and a bad side, some more than others. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is mainly portrayed by Mr. Utterson’s (Dr. Jekyll’s lawyer and friend) impressions of a man torn between his good and evil sides. Utterson is extremely crucial to the novel and is the perfect character to solve the mystery of who Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde is literally and figuratively. Mr. Utterson played an important role in the novel, in fact, most of the novel took place through the eyes of Mr. Utterson. He is basically our eyes, ears and our conscience in which the readers analyze most of the events in this novel. Mr. Utterson is tied in with most of characters of this novel because he is a lawyer …show more content…
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is very unknown throughout the entire novel until the very end. Mr. Utterson’s suspicions raised immensely when he found out that Dr. Jykell’s will was entirely left to Mr. Hyde (a man Utterson had never met before). After he met the evil Mr. Hyde he then began to believe that Mr. Hyde might be black mailing Dr. Jekyll. Most of the novel drops very small hints of the relationship between these two but not enough to figure it out fully. One hint was that their relationship was close enough that they shared a check book. Another is that they were never seen together. In the story Dr Jekyll, a well respected doctor and member of the professional Victorian middle-classes, conducted a series of scientific experiments, which unintentionally unleashed from his own psyche and brought out the good and evil, in result of these experiments he created Mr. Hyde. When Dr. Jekyll didn’t drink the potion he turne into Mr. Hyde. He said that he felt younger and lighter. Because it’s only one part of Jekyll, Hyde is small physically. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was easily viewed as an analogy about the good and evil that exist in all men, both sides of a human personality. Edward hyde was a strange, repulsive person. He was very violent, cruel and reckless. Dr. Jeykll wanted to get rid of his dark side and be only good. Dr. Jekyll began to run out of his potions. He then creates Hyde. Hyde is Dr. Jekylls darker side. Hyde began to grow stronger
The story illustrates this in the two characters of Dr Jekyll. and Mr. Hyde. Mr Hyde is on the evil side of Dr Jekyll, but he is restrained from being. wholly evil by Victorian society. Looking closely at Dr Jekyll.
...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.
Hyde’s character doesn’t seem to be liked by Mr. Utterson and most likely will be a theme throughout the entire story. Most characters in novels are first described on a physical level to get the reader to have an image in his or her head on what the character might look like. Mr. Utterson doesn’t really give us any physical attributes on Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde seems to be a broken down individual emotionally or spiritually because Mr. Utterson describes Mr. Hyde as deformed somewhere when it isn’t on his body. In the next sentence, Mr. Utterson describes Mr. Hyde as an extraordinary looking man so, Mr. Hyde may look normal on the outside, but may have a dark character that may foreshadow future events coming to Mr. Hyde and his relations with Doctor
I would compare Jekyll and Hyde to the makings of chocolate milk. When you start off, you have a bright white cup of milk. After, adding the chocolate syrup it turns dark. After becoming chocolate like it could no longer be that bright white cup of milk again. Just like Jekyll and Hyde: once Jekyll drunk his experiment, he turned into Hyde.
Some non believers may think that it is perfectly equal because in the picture the sides look almost the same. Despite this idea, Robert Louis Stevenson’s work [proves this claim wrong. The first example in the novel is when Jekyll is explaining what happened at Regents Park, “I began to be aware of change in the temper of my thoughts , greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung from lessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.” (73). This is an example of how Jekyll’s evil side just immediately takes over and causes his sides to be unbalanced. The second example is when Jekyll implies, “And hence as I think it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll.”(64). And also a little further states, “Evi besides had left on that by an imprint of deformity and decay” (64). Jekyll is implying that the reason for why he his now older looking than Hyde is because his evil side of Hyde has now left an imprint on a regular body. Therefore leading to the fact that his two personality sides (Yin and Yang) are no longer balanced. The final example is when Jekyll states, “I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end” (78). Finally Dr Jekyll’s evil side is taking over and there will no longer be a Dr. Jekyll only a Mr. Hyde
Jekyll is respectable man with a very good career. He is a doctor that is highly regarded in his community for what he does as far as charity and his manners. As young man growing up, he was secretly involved in weird behaviors that made him a bit questionable. Dr. Jekyll finds his other side to be quite bothersome and he decides to experiment so he could try a separate the good from the evil. He creates potions and other things that really do not help. After so many attempts of trying to restrain his evil side, he brings forth Hyde through his failed experimentation. Therefore, he only accentuates his evil self to come forth. Hyde is an extremely ugly creature that no one could stand the sight of. He is deformed, violent, and very evil. Throughout the story, he fights against Jekyll to take over his life eventually causing Jekyll to murder one of his good friends, Mr.
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.
Thus far, there is a strange relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that Mr. Utterson is trying to uncover. Are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kin in some sense or could they be the same person? If it is true they are related in some sense, then that would explain Dr. Jekyll’s attachment to Mr. Hyde despite him killing a man and walking over a child on the street. It would also explain why Dr. Jekyll would allegedly forge a letter stating Mr. Hyde is in a “safe” place and shall not be found after his murder of Carew. However, if it turns out that there is no relationship (further than acquaintanceship or friendship) between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, then a second question may be posed as to why Dr. Jekyll feels inclined to involve himself with
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde becomes Jekyll's demonic, monstrous alter ego. Certainly Stevenson presents him immediately as this from the outset. Hissing as he speaks, Hyde has "a kind of black sneering coolness . . . like Satan". He also strikes those who witness him as being "pale and dwarfish" and simian like. The Strange Case unfolds with the search by the men to uncover the secret of Hyde. As the narrator, Utterson, says, "If he be Mr. Hyde . . . I shall be Mr. Seek". Utterson begins his quest with a cursory search for his own demons. Fearing for Jekyll because the good doctor has so strangely altered his will in favor of Hyde, Utterson examines his own conscience, "and the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded a while in his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there" (SC, 42). Like so many eminent Victorians, Utterson lives a mildly double life and feels mildly apprehensive about it. An ugly dwarf like Hyde may jump out from his own boxed self, but for him such art unlikely creature is still envisioned as a toy. Although, from the beginning Hyde fills him with a distaste for life (SC, 40, not until the final, fatal night, after he storms the cabinet, can Utterson conceive of the enormity of Jekyll's second self. Only then does he realize that "he was looking on the body of a self-dcstroyer" (SC, 70); Jekyll and Hyde are one in death as they must have been in life.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dual nature of man is a recurring theme. Jekyll constantly struggles with good and evil, the expectations of Victorian society, and the differences between Lanyon and Jekyll.
Utterson was very curious in Dr. Jekyll’s will, that states “This will stipulate that in the event of Jekyll’s death, all of his wealth will go to a man named Edward Hyde.” Mr. Richard Enfield, who is Utterson cousin, was the first to mention Hyde. He tells the story of Hyde being a psychotic man that knocks over a small child through a doorway. After reviewing Jekyll’s will, Mr. Utterson knew that he must find Dr. Hyde to see if he was the same man his cousin told him about. Utterson finds Hyde, and to his surprise gets the door slammed in his face.
Jekyll is portrayed as respectable, big hearted, and a generous man. While Mr. Hyde is described as a brutal, barbaric, unsightly man. To the reader this can be foreshadowed as Jekyll representing the good half, and Hyde being the evil half. In the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster states that most of the things in books symbolize something else specific. (Ch. 12)
Many mysterious events occur throughout this novel. Stevenson foreshadows the imminent end of Dr. Jekyll in the very beginning. As Utterson reads the will of Dr. Jekyll, he is perplexed by the statement that “in the case of Dr. Jekyll’s disappearance” (6), all of his money will go to Mr. Hyde. This questionable intent of Dr. Jekyll leads the reader to assume that there is something for complex connecting Mr. Hyde with Dr. Jekyll. Utterson not only tries to protect Dr. Jekyll from Mr. Hyde, but Utterson wishes to solve Jekyll’s entire problem. In the first description of Mr. Utterson, the reader learns that he is “inclined to help rather than to reprove” (1). This simple description implies that Utterson will be helping to solve a problem in this novel, though it is not identified whose problem he will try to solve. This also foreshadows a problem in the book; Utterson leads the reader to believe that a horrid situation will arise between Jekyll and Hyde. Mr. Hyde is driven purely by the temptations of evil; the urges that Dr. Jekyll is unable to act on. This temptation causes Mr. Hyde to murder Sir Carew with the wal...
In conclusion, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, represent many themes of duality in human nature. This is represented by the characters of Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde, Hastie Lanyon, and John Utterson.
Mr. Hyde is the monstrous side of Dr. Jekyll from their book “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” In their story, Dr. Jekyll is a brilliant scientist who has created a formula that turns him into Mr. Hyde. It is stated that, at some point, Dr. Jekyll became addicted to the potion. Though it is unclear what would cause the addiction, since it would be Hyde who would experience the “high” and not Jekyll himself. Hyde is the contrast to Dr. Jekyll, and is considerably more brutal and immoral. Modern incarnations depict him as becoming incredibly muscular after the transformation, though in the original work it is only implied that Hyde is stronger, retaining his previous physique. It is consistent that Hyde is shown to be ugly, perhaps even deformed.