DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
A character analysis is usually based on one character, however in this case there are two. I say this because they are both one. Sound confusing? It should, I had to read lines over and over just to understand it. You see its quite simple, there is one Dr. Jekyll and he is a typical nice doctor. However he is not satisfied with him self thus he creates another side of him, a bad side who pushes over little kids without a hesitation or feel of guilt. This side is come to known as Dr Hyde.
Dr. Jekyll is a man who is “caring“ and was “very well educated';, he like was the good side, and he had morals, and he was able to determine the difference between right and wrong when he was Dr. Jekyll. Once the potion started to backfire in Jekyll’s face because Hyde turned to evil and wants to kill him, Jekyll is upset and says only, “ Oh what a lesson I have learned! “. This shows that at least Dr. Jekyll realizes he made a mistake in the first place, he says to “ let him (me) alone to suffer for a great evil deed that I have committed';. He realizes that morally what he did was wrong. And that one shall just be as they are, and not try to change that. He tried, and he failed.
Dr. Hyde on the other hand is the evil side of Dr. Jekyll. Enfield points out that “ he (I) saw a strange, deformed man round the corner and bump into a young girl. The strange man did not stop but simply walked right over the young girl.'; This man was later figured to be Dr. Hyde, This obviously shows that he was an evil man who had no worries about anything in his life (pushing over a little kid as one of them), and he would peruse doing what he did, not letting anyone stop him.
Dr. Hyde and Jekyll have one common trait even though they have two different personalities. This trait is that they are the same people! This is uncertain until the end, there are hints by the notes and the handwritings how they are similar but with a slant but until the end it was unsure. They share a characteristic; they both are real sneaky, sneaky enough to even fool the reader.
Essentially, the two men are complete opposites. Reputable and successful, Dr Jekyll was outlined “… [possessed] every mark of capacity and kindness” (Stevenson, 1978 pg. 14) . Paradoxically, Stevenson gave a man that hides from people the name Mr. Hyde. A couple examples of crimes which reflect his evil disposition include an incidence where he “trampled calmly over [a] child’s body and left her screaming on the ground,” (Stevenson, 1978 pg. 5) and his attack on Sir Danvers where “…with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway.” I did not, however, outline the severity of criminal events in which Mr Hyde (or in case Dr Jekyll) had triggered, as it would be too unbefitting to include in the
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are the same person all within the body of Dr Jekyll. He switches between the two willingly for science and his own personal desire. This can be proven in the last chapter of the book where we see
Jekyll. Hyde commits acts of murder and assault yet can be seen as Dr. Jekyll’s id or deep desires. By trying to separate good and bad . Dr. Jekyll passed scientific and social borders to isolate his personality. In doing so, he lost control of who he wanted to be. As a last resort he created a poisonous potion that Hyde drank and died through act of suicide. Dr. Jekyll although not working with anyone took matters in his own hands which makes him seem like an outlaw hero. He did not turn himself into the police when he had control. However, Dr. Jekyll seems to have qualities of a official hero in his maturity in handling the situation. He knows how evil his alter ego is, so he isolates himself from others as a safety precaution. Jekyll tries to live a normal life, but is unable to. His status as a well distinguished doctor and sociability skills with his
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.
Though Hyde is pure evil, Jekyll is not pure goodness; he is still the same old conflicted mix of both good and evil. To cover his tracks, Jekyll rented a room for Hyde, opened a bank account in his name, and explained to his household servants that Hyde was to be allowed to freely come and go through the house. Hyde was even made Jekyll’s sole heir. At first, Jekyll delights in having his alter ego. Through Hyde, he can live out his fantasies of doing whatever he pleases, with no consequences, seeing as how he has but to drink the potion to make Hyde disappear. No accountability for Hyde’s
Jekyll does deserve his final miserable fate because he commits several selfish deeds to the point where he brings his miserable fate upon himself. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson uses Jekyll to represent how man prioritizes by putting himself over others. Throughout the book, Jekyll’s two different sides are used to show that man is consistently selfish and will usually think of himself before others. Even though Jekyll has a good side and an evil side, both sides of him are selfish. Jekyll originally takes the potion for selfish reasons, Jekyll uses Hyde to conquer his own evil temptations, and in the end Jekyll gives into Hyde and completely gives up.
Good and evil exist in everyone and any attempts to repress your darker nature can cause it to erupt. Dr. Jekyll was more evil than he wanted to admit to himself or any one before he even separated his soul. Born into a world of privilege and wanting to keep the impression of goodness and morality, Dr. Jekyll really just wanted to indulge in his darkest desires, choosing to hide behind his serum like a coward. However this became his fatal flaw and at the end of the day he could longer hide his true self.
Unlike religious beliefs, Dr. Jekyll believed that the body is the reflection of the mind. In other words, if the mind was devious, then the features of the body would reflect evil and slyness. The original body of Dr. Jekyll reflected a: ."..life of effort, virtue, and control," (p.172) since for most of his life Dr. Jekyll had kept his mischievous nature under control. However, Dr. Jekyll's new body reflected this secretive personality of his. Mr. Hyde, the name given to the new body, reflected evil and repugnance. Mr. Hyde's nature was made up of almost all evil, just as Dr. Jekyll's personality was made up of almost all good. According to Dr. Jekyll, when the evil is separated into one body, one will not know right from wrong because there is no conscience in a being of complete evil.
To begin with, duplicity is seen in the novel through the separation of Dr. Jekyll’s personality into two people. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde show the contradiction of good and evil fighting against each other in the human mind. Jekyll exhibits a good personality by being a well respected doctor who gives to charity and throws dinner parties. Many people have nothing bad to
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both suffer; however, one from illness and the other from insanity. Mr. Hyde is a sociopath, and lives in it to the full extent as well as Jekyll being a psychopath. However, Hyde was created the way he was to portray a sinful side of Jekyll, while Jekyll was himself throughout, good and bad, to manipulate and gain in the harm of
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a little different then Frankenstein in a way that the monster isn’t identified as a monster as much for his appearance as he is for his actions. Dr. Jekyll was a scientist and as a scientist he had to keep and good name but he didn’t want to be good he want to be bad. So, he decided he would have two personalities. Thinking that if he had two personalities he could be good and evil. He made a potion that transforms himself into a man without a conscience. So, He could do all those bad things that he wanted to do but then had a way to cover it up by saying it was someone else. But, eventually this plan got out of hand yes, he had two personalities of Dr. Jekyll being the good doctor and then Mr. Hyde being the murder, but he started no being able to control when he was Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. He fears that he will turn into Jekyll permanently. Society doesn’t except this because your not supposed to be two different people. Trying to be two different people is monstrous because that just doesn’t happen and him to think that is okay is monstrous. Also, for him to murder people makes him a monster. By Dr. Jekyll’s friend starting to get suspicious about this situation drive Dr. Jekyll to worry then, he turns back to Mr. Hyde and thinks it’s a good idea to kill himself. So, society drove his monstrosity to kill himself, which made him to continue to be a
I realized that many people share the same thoughts about struggling with opposing emotions as Dr. Jekyll had. They fear what others around them would think if they act a certain way. I finally understood why he had made that potion to cover his vices. He felt constrained by the society he lived in and needed an outlet for his evil urges. Dr. Jekyll wasn’t an ungrateful man, he was just human.
Dr. Jekyll is a symbol of both the good and the bad in mankind, while Mr. Hyde represents pure evil. For instance, when Dr. Jekyll is himself, he is seen as a respectable man who is adored by his colleagues: “he became once more their familiar quest and entertainer; and whilst he had always been known for his charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion” (Stevenson 29). However, when Dr. Jekyll transforms to Mr. Hyde his morals are quickly disregarded. An example of this occurs when Mr. Hyde murders Sir Danvers, shortly after Dr. Jekyll submits to the temptation of changing to Mr. Hyde: “instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me…with a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow” (Stevenson 56). Even though the carnal side of Dr. Jekyll enjoys the incident, this event also illustrates the conscience side of Dr. Jekyll because in the mist of this brutal murder, he begins to feel guilty for committing the crime.
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.
First reason how Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are different is their physical appearance. Both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have many different physical features. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a tall middle aged man. He is well looking and a man of great status. On the other hand Mr. Hyde is a short younger man, he has a hunched back and is always said to be deformed but people don’t know why he is like that. Dr. Jekyll is a handsome man compared to Mr. Hyde who is ugly and not good looking