Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Rhetorical Analysis

Humans are faced with decisions to make every second of the day. For some, the choice between doing good and doing bad is obvious, but for others, the choice might not be so clear. There are always obstacles that can make the choice hard, be it peer pressure or pressure that people put on themselves to be something different; the option to do the wrong thing is always hanging in front of them. Robert Louis Stevenson represents the archetypal theme of this idea in multiple ways in the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. During the Victorian Era, in which the story is set, there was a certain way that a person should act. If anyone strayed from that ideal setting and did something that the rest of society frowned upon, they were

considered foolish and shunned by everyone. Dr. Jekyll strayed from this ideal; Dr. Jekyll believed that there were two parts of every person and to create the best person he would have to separate the good part from the bad part. In doing this, however, Dr. Jekyll became addicted to what he had created and instead of using his creation for good; he let it do all the bad actions he couldn’t do. Even though Dr. Jekyll’s experiment succeeded and he was able to separate his personalities between good and bad, there was still a part of Dr. Jekyll’s consciousness when Mr. Hyde was in control. Despite Dr.

Jekyll not being able to control his body, he was still able to see and understand all that was going on; Dr. Jekyll chose to allow Mr. Hyde his criminal activities over and over again even though he knew what he was capable

of.
Dr. Jekyll assumes that if he were to separate the good personality of oneself from the bad, then he can create what humanity is meant to be: all good, no evil. However, once Dr. Jekyll succeeds in separating his personalities, he becomes enthralled with the idea of being someone else. His impression with the new Mr. Hyde is so gratifying, that after learning of his other half, Dr. Jekyll described the experience as follows: “Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair” (45). Dr. Jekyll realizes, after becoming Mr. Hyde, that there is no way for him to improve; as Dr. Jekyll, he has reached all forms of accomplishment that a man of his stature, at the time, could. Until that point, Jekyll is convinced that he is as perfect as any man could be. When he reaches his older years and begins to reflect on his life, he realizes he has not yet accomplished all that he could: “Hence it came about that I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stoke of my progress and positing in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life” (103). After this enlightenment, Dr. Jekyll decided to branch off into new works of science to discover the evil part of a persons’ personality as well as their good that he had already known. With his new personality to experiment on, Dr. Jekyll realized that to him, it was much more gratifying to do evil than the good he had until then become accustom to.
Dr. Jekyll comes to the realization that he could use Mr. Hyde to fulfill his desire to continue his experiments on the boundaries of human compassion without sullying his hard-attained reputation. Dr. Jekyll, being the society man that he was, was unable to release his true passion when it comes to his anger. Mr. Hyde’s lose grip on reality made it easy for him to erupt in long repressed anger: as is described in the book: “all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping his foot, brandishing his cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman” (14). Dr. Jekyll would never let his anger get that far away from him, his close kept grip on his emotions made it even more enjoyable to be Mr. Hyde because he could let go of all the pent up rage he had held inside for so long. However, his previous experience as Dr. Jekyll made it significantly easier for him to function in society and pass off as a respectable man, even if Mr. Hyde could make a person run at first glance. This respectability was not overlooked when an elderly man came into contact with Mr. Hyde in the dead of night: “When they had come within speech (which was just under the maid’s eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness” (14). Dr. Jekyll’s past experiences of societal politeness and Mr. Hyde’s ability to let go of his emotions and let his human instincts take over, makes it very easy for Mr. Hyde to get away with actions that Jekyll could not, Hyde can infiltrate a situation using his conscious knowledge of Jekyll’s etiquette, and his own ability to release all that he truly is. Hyde is the “pure evil” version of Jekyll he does not have to deal with the same type of consequences that Dr. Jekyll would have, if he had been caught as himself doing the deeds that Mr. Hyde committed since he was first released onto the streets.
Dr.

Jekyll’s intention to create his other half, in order to free him from the temptation of evil, instead causes him to become obsessed with the deeds he was able to do. He uses the part of him that, even disguised as Mr. Hyde, was still Dr. Jekyll to control just how much Hyde did or did not do. However, instead of using Hyde to stop himself from performing these unthinkable acts, Jekyll allows Hyde to continue with his rampaging. The first time that Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde he realizes that this person was not the man he had thought he had known himself to be: “I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine” (45). Jekyll knows that perhaps he is no longer the man he had been but in fact this new him that he did not know. Dr. Jekyll’s conscious remembrance that he was doing an experiment and that he had to make sure it had worked before he could do anything else, proved that after the potion to turn the one man to the other was taken the man that was replaced still had conscious knowledge of what was occurring to and around his body. Jekyll’s knowledge of Hyde’s actions also allows him to realize when he becomes addicted to the potion. Jekyll goes so far with his love for this other half that he takes on the role of Hyde as if he were in a stage play, finding enjoyment in the new

side of him: “I had but to drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume, like a think cloak, that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at the notion; it seemed to me at the time to be humorous; and I made preparations with the most studious care” (109). Since Jekyll found such joy in his second person, that he believed was the worst part of him, this shows that when exposed to the choice between good and bad, some will chose the path less fallowed. Also proving that Hyde was not so much the “out of control maniac” that he was perceived to be, but actually an extension of Dr. Jekyll himself that he allowed to preform unthinkable tasks.
In conclusion, every person is faced with the choice to either do something bad or do something good. Whether they act upon these choices is completely up to them. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a novella by Robert Louis Stevenson represents this idea terrifically. He uses the daily struggle of a doctor who has found a way to separate his good from his bad to show readers that the choice between good and evil may not be quite as easy a decision as they may assume it to be. Dr. Jekyll chooses to allow his “evil” half Mr. Hyde to do unspeakable actions that Dr. Jekyll could not possibly do without ruining his good name, which in Victorian England is all anyone had. Dr. Jekyll uses his original good intentions for the experiment to justify what he is doing as testing the boundaries that humans could push until it was too late to go back.