Similarities Between Good And Evil

Anywhere you look, you are staring into the eyes of evil. You might not see evil staring back, but it’s there, trapped behind a wall of morality. It is always scheming, preparing to burst out of its confinement. It may find a hole for some time, but it can never win; good will triumph in the end. Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson, the authors of Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde respectively have this view of the world. Their novels illustrate that good and evil are constantly vying for control both in our lives and in the environment around us. The works differ in how their main conflict between good and evil is structured. In Dracula, the aggression takes the form of person-vs.-person interaction, while in Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde differ in the main conflict that exists between the forces of good and evil, they both use supernatural elements to increase the disparity between them. Count Dracula lives as a vampire for hundreds of years because of his magical powers. Stoker writes, “He has the strength of many of his hand[,] ... he can transform himself to wolf[,] … he can be as bat[,] … he can come in mist which he create[,] … he [can] become so small[,]… [h]e can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything[, and] ... he can see in the dark” (258). Of course, the human characters have none of these advantages, but they do have strength in numbers. If Dracula did not have these powers, his story would have ended much sooner and fail to show the near-balance of power between good and evil. Likewise, the plot of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde requires supernatural elements to amplify its conflict. The characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both share the same physical body and, as such, cannot both exist at the same time to conflict in a traditional manner. Originally. Dr. Jekyll induces the transformation between his two forms with a special salt, but later it begins happening automatically. Dr. Jekyll writes, “At all hours of the day and night, I would be taken with the premonitory shudder; above all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened” (Stevenson 68). This automatic, magical

In Dracula, the protagonists use Christian symbols, such as communion wafers and crucifixes, to defend against vampires. They later use these symbols in conjunction against Lucy. First, they chink the door to Lucy’s tomb with a paste of mashed communion wafers; then, they surround her whilst holding up crucifixes. Stoker writes, “[F]or full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry” (227-228). Traditionally, these symbols are used in defense from Satan. By showing that vampires are vulnerable to these symbols, Stoker implies that they are the devil incarnate. This also implies that the conflict between the protagonists and the vampires is as severe as the conflict between the goodness of God and the evilness of Satan. On the other hand, in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Hyde is not implied to be the devil, he is only compared to him. Stevenson writes, “[T]here was [Mr. Hyde] in the middle, with a kind of black, sneering coolness … carrying it off, sir, really like Satan” (8). Unlike Stoker, Stevenson does not imply a link between his character and Satan, but he does use Satan to show the magnitude of Mr. Hyde’s evil. Although the two authors use the symbols differently, both works use religious symbols to show the weight of the struggle between good and