The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

1267 Words3 Pages

Innocence is a trap. It is strangled with the ideals of perfection and suffocates the cravings of curiosity. Goodness is expectant and evil is poisonous. However, good and evil resides in even the most innocent of people. Both are nefarious and pestilent to easily corrupt targeted souls in sinister actions. Both equate to uncontrollable factors. Goodness tends to covet the sensations of evil since it depreciates its own purity. In the oscillating novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, goodness was trapped by evil just as Jekyll was trapped as Hyde. Jekyll’s pure spirituality desired the holy richness of evil and all its wrongdoings. His laboratory experiments discovered his desire to feel the sensation of evil without truly being evil. His laboratory experiments discovered a way for him to escape. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fought the battle between good and evil proving the apparent strengths and weaknesses that overall transformed two souls into a single corpse.
Naturally the body fights the tensions of good and evil by justifying right from wrong. The body is persuaded by one side but ends up conquered by the other. It is a constant battle of pain and pleasure: a constant desire of imperfection from perfection. Dr. Jekyll wanted evil to be completely separated from his goodness. Hyde was not considered a human. He was a creation that possessed life only when Jekyll self medicated himself as a form of release. “Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde are not one person but two, not a single individual compounded like common humanity of both good and evil traits, with the one or the other in the ascendant at any given moment” (Sanderson). As two separate souls inhabited a single body, conflict w...

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...12&hid=119&bdata=JnNpdGU9bHJjLWxpd mU%3d#db=lfh&AN=103331MSW23949850001393>. Kerr, Calum A. "Literary Contexts in Novels: Robert Louis Stevenson's 'The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'" Literary Reference Center. Great Neck Publishing, n.d. Web. 22 Jan.
2014.
detail?vid=5&sid=3444e551-d8e2-4bca-a03f-8eded569a9f6%40sessionmgr110&hid=4104&bdata=JnNpdGU9bHJjLWxp dmU%3d#db=lfh&AN=23177120>. Sanderson, Stewart F. "Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde: Overview." Literature Resources from Gale. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420007716&v=2.1&u=cinn88186&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=726cdbcace38570e9a908f2902008de3>.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories.
Pleasantville: Reader's Digest Association, 1991. Print.

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