The Power Of Individual Choice In The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

The Power of Individual Choice Each individual is gifted with the ability to make choices. From the time one wakes in the morning to the time they go to bed at night, individuals make both conscious and unconscious decisions throughout the day. From what one will wear to how one will speak, and those decisions, which people give very little regard to like stepping over a stone rather than tripping over it. It is this ability to make choices in the conscious state that gives individuals power over our own lives. A power that if used or treated with disregard can bring about an unwanted outcome. In Robert Louis Stevenson novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the power of individual choice is a conscious decision, which provides

Utterson’s tragedy is the loss of two old friends to events he can not seem to understand until it is all too late. “ ‘I have buried one friend to-day, he thought: what if this should cost me another?’ ” (Stevenson 27). Lanyon’s tragedy is his own death. “My Life is shaken to its roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror sits by me at all hours of the day and night; and I feel that my days are numbered, and that I must die” (Stevenson 47). For Jekyll, tragedy comes as he anguishes over the realization that his evil side Mr. Hyde has grown so strong that the transformation occurs without the need of science. “I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde” (Stevenson 59). Jekyll’s tragedy is that he realizes he has unleashed a monster and this monster also has the power of personal choice. Jekyll has to in the end give in to Hyde’s power and allow him to choose their fate. “ ‘Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment?’ ” (Stevenson