The idea of humanity is a complicated case when people begin to challenge the one of many definitions of being human. In the story of "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," we get a taste of someone having a split personality. I can argue that the split personality of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are just one personality, but the other personality is just a cover up of his true self. The side of Mr. Hyde shows his anti-human side by doing many evil acts that hurt many people. Dr. Jekyll tries to keep the status of his reputation spotless while having a careless attitude in his anti-human side of being Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll chooses to have another persona in Mr. Hyde to do the hateful crimes that he does when Dr. Jekyll is in some type of an angry mood. This novel shows the theme of the duality of human nature as it goes through the two opposite personalities both into one human. …show more content…
The duality of human nature consists of the double personality of being good and evil.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can be viewed as our struggle with these two sides of the human personality of being good and evil. In this world, we try so hard to be the best versions of ourselves by being just an all-around good human being. For example, we try to be nice and treat everyone the way you would want to be treated. In this book, the duel of being good and evil is put at full display by this individual. As a reader, you tend to think about who the real person is. We wonder who the personality is taking over the other personality. We read that Hyde sometimes tends to take over Dr. Jekyll, so I can argue that the thoughts of evil overpower the thoughts of good. Although, Mr. Hyde ends up dying at the end, so we can wonder if this is suggesting an overall weakness of evil. I believe that these two personas are not separate. I believe this is the normal behavior of human beings, however a more of an extreme situation, but you can still ponder if this makes us anymore
human. The conflict of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde go along way and can be linked to many different themes such as reputation, curiosity, and violence. However, everything ends up going back to the duality of the human nature between Jekyll and Hyde. In the context section, literary talks about the double life that this individual lives. Our minds are a powerful part of our lives. Some people think that if you have a problem that it is mostly physical, because some people believes that physical problems trump everything. I argue that you must mentally stable to understand what is going on. "...and nursed the sense that the mind could be a strange compound of this or that contending power" (Miller 125). I believe that mental problems are stronger than physical problems, because no one can really help you fix your own mental issues besides yourself. The mind can be a strange place, because it really takes over your way of thinking and your everyday feelings. One day you can be happy but then the next day something happens to you and you feel another way. In Karl Miller's take in the literary context, he talks about how living a dualistic life is very common. "Dualistic productions were becoming an established genre" (125). I believe having another side of you is normal and it is nothing out of the ordinary, because sometimes we grow to dislike the person we have become, so we look to create a new persona to search for happiness. Karl Miller also talks about how us as humans seek to find out who our true selves are and who we inspire to be. "One self does what the other self can't. One self is meek while the other is fierce. One self stays while the other runs away" (Miller 126). This quote explains how humans can become frustrated with some parts of our lives, so we create an alter ego to be the opposite of the person we normally are. An alter ago is a person's secondary or alternative personality, which explains the situation between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In my opinion, Dr. Jekyll is the person that Mr. Hyde is taking over from time to time. Mr. Hyde is the person that Dr. Jekyll becomes when he is feeling a type of way, so he must do something about it, but at the same time he thinks about his reputation as Dr. Jekyll and realizes that he must keep it pure, so he goes to his secondary personality to do what his inner self wants to do at the very moment. In other words, the reader can see Mr. Hyde as Dr. Jekyll's evil side. Jenni Calder was another writer who I thought her take about the literary context in this story was fascinating. "He had written before of the corruptibility of human nature but he was now to write of the susceptibility to the devil as inherent in human nature itself" (Calder 126). Calder writes about how our evil side can inherent in human nature by its own. I believe human nature is mainly about our feelings and how our mentality is at the certain moment. We can be fine at one moment but then something changes and our whole mood shifts. "It is the acknowledgment that evil has won, and that giving oneself up to it is comforting" (127). I can agree and disagree with this statement. I agree that if we let our evil side to take over and turn to that side of us to make us feel comfortable then yes evil has won. However, everyone is different. Some people knows how to hide their bad side and their feelings better than others. Some people may have mental health issues, so they do not know how to express themselves like those other people do who knows how to not let the bad side out. In this circumstance, evil has not won. It is our own mind and the type of person we are that is taking over. "It is the Calvinist view that man must maintain a constant struggle with evil, that the slightest lapse in vigilance will allow the Devil to triumph" (127). In life, everybody goes through their own struggles every day. Calder explains how if we put in some much effort into fighting off evil that if one little lapse in judgement will allow evil to win. I believe it is unfair for Calder to judge people and lump them in a group. Once again, everyone is different, and everyone goes through their own struggles. Not everyone will react to the same lapse that happens to someone else. I do agree with her idea of saying we could go back to the evil side if we have a lapse. Sometimes if we are in an angry mood, we can go to the side of us where it can be looked at as "evil." In this story, the main objective is that Dr. Jekyll looks to escape his life to try to keep his reputation good, so he mentally transforms into Mr. Hyde and does some hateful crimes. When he mentally goes into the mode of Mr. Hyde, as a reader we can understand that Dr. Jekyll is a bad place before the transformation. He is thinking of negative things, because he is human. "...both sides of me were in dead earnst; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the reflect of sorrow and suffering" (Stevenson 48). In this quote, we can understand how good and evil exist in equal parts in Dr. Jekyll. He understands that in life that wherever you escape to your baggage and your thoughts will still follow you wherever you go. As a reader, we can realize how hard it would be for Dr. Jekyll to realize that he is still going to have negative thoughts even as Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll feels that good and evil should be separated from each other because he cannot handle them when they are together, hence him creating the persona of Mr. Hyde. In the criticism essay of Vladimir Nabokov, he gives the real of what is going on with Jekyll and Hyde. He talks about how Jekyll is not good, because he is really mixture of bad and good as a result of his other persona of Hyde. Even though Jekyll will not take responsibility of the crimes that Hyde commits, he is still responsible for everything Hyde did. In reality, Hyde's personality is Jekyll's other thoughts besides his normal behavior as being Dr. Jekyll. "Hyde is mingled with him, within him. In this mixture of good and bad in Dr. Jekyll, the bad can be separated as Hyde, who is a precipitate of pure evil...Jekyll is not really transformed into Hyde but projects a concentrate of pure evil that becomes Hyde, who is smaller than Jekyll" (Nabokov 185). Hyde is the other half of Jekyll. He comes out when Jekyll is feeling angry, disturbed, or just thinking evil thoughts. He mentally transforms into Hyde, so he can keep his character positive with no problems attached to his name. Jekyll wants everyone to see him as the good and Hyde as the bad. Back in the 19th century, having a split personality can be considered strange and people may see you as mentally unstable. They would want you to go seek for some help. In my opinion, I feel like this is a more of an expected thing in 2018. Everyone is not shy to express themselves in whatever way. The events that Hyde did is much more hurtful and serious than the common person with an alter ego, so we can argue that maybe that is why people found this situation strange. Nabokov also contradicts himself by talking about how Jekyll and Hyde are not really who they are or portray to be. "Jekyll is not pure good, and Hyde (Jekyll's statement to the contrary) is not pure evil, for just as parts of unacceptable Hyde dwell within acceptable Jekyll, so over Hyde hovers a halo of Jekyll, horrified at his worser half's iniquity" (186). Jekyll is not all good and Hyde is not all bad. Jekyll sometimes thinks negative and evil thoughts, although he does not commit any crimes. If Jekyll was pure good, did everything the right way, and had no imperfections whether it be mentally or physically, he would be considered perfect. In this world, no one is considered perfect. We all have our own definitions of what perfect is, so we do not know what truly makes someone perfect. Jekyll has some bad and good in him just like his alter ego Hyde does. Going through life can be very difficult at times. Everyone cares about how others view them and portray them. We try to do the right things to keep our reputation at its best. We try to be the best versions of ourselves, but for some people if we have even the slightest lapse in our journey then our whole world gets messed up. The matter with Jekyll and Hyde is that Jekyll cared so much about what other people thought about him that he created an alter ego to put all his negative thoughts and evil ways into another person or persona. However, at the end of the day his negative thoughts and feelings were classified under Hyde. Jekyll showed the duality of human nature makes us human. We have many insecurities that makes us have another side of us that shows everyone that no one is perfect.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dual nature of man is a recurring theme. Jekyll constantly struggles with good and evil, the expectations of Victorian society, and the differences between Lanyon and Jekyll.
From reading the last chapter, we can all see that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are easily viewed as a symbol about the good and evil that exists in all men, and about the struggle these two sides in the human personality. Hyde has a short temper and is made to look evil. “I observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near me at first with a visible misgiving of the flesh”. Jekyll is arguing that Hyde is the perfect physical embodiment of the evil inside him, implying that Hyde looks evil. Stevenson has also explored which aspect of human personality is superior, good or evil. Since at the start of the book Hyde seems to be taking over, you might argue that evil is stronger than good. However, Hyde does end up dead at the end of the story, suggesting a failure of the weakness of evil. Since Hyde represents the evil in Jekyll he is therefore symbolically represented being much smaller than Jekyll as “Jekyll’s clothes are far too large for him”. But as the plot progresses Mr. Hyde began to grow and becomes more powerful than Jekyll, and the reason for Hyde to become more powerful is due to the fact that Jekyll enjoys what Hyde does, which allow Hyde to gradually destroy the good in
Despite being published in 1886, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson remains to be recognized and referred to as one of the initial studies of the duality of human nature and mans struggle between two natural forces – good and evil. The story takes place during the Victorian Era in which society is already somewhat constrained and cruel and explores the human struggle between being civilized and facing the more primitive aspects to our being. According to author Irving S Saposnik, “Henry Jekyll’s experiment to free himself from the burden of duality results in failure because of his moral myopia, because he is a victim of society’s standards even while he would be free of them.” Henry Jekyll, an English doctor faces duality when he comes into battle with his darker side. Creating a personification under the name of Edward Hyde in order to fulfill his desires, Dr. Jekyll feels as if he will be able to control the face that he wants seen to public vs. the one in which he wants to keep more private. “Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me, and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life.” (10.1) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story about how people are scared to acknowledge personal duality so they keep silent and in this case, create a personification in order to fulfill evil desires without thinking through the consequences of such actions.
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.
...ve duality of man;… if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” Thus, Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two coexistent, and eternally opposed components that make up a “normal” individual. However, here, good and evil are not related but are two independent entities, individuals even, different in mental and physical attributes and constantly at war with each other. Evil now does not require the existence of good to justify itself but it exists simply as itself, and is depicted as being the more powerful, the more enjoyable of the two, and in the end ultimately it is the one that leads to Dr. Jekyll's downfall and death. Stevenson creates the perfect metaphor for the never-ending battle between good and evil by using Jekyll and Hyde. However, this novella is perhaps one of the few that truly show the power of Evil.
Duality is a recurring theme in literature; both modern and classic works reference in numerous ways. It is the idea that everything, no matter what, is two sided, hence it being called duality. There are two works of literature that are considered the best to represent what duality is and what it can stand for: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. These two discuss the effects of duality and the duality of the human nature.
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a major theme in the story is the duality of good versus evil. In the novel, a character by the name of Dr. Jekyll believes in the dual nature of human beings, for he states, “ With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not
Jekyll plays man as a whole, good and bad, he was “wild” and also “smooth-faced” at the same time. Both characters lack vital emotional outputs that make humans socially, even though the psychopath is more cunning than the sociopath. “…lack of conscience, remorse or guilt for hurtful actions to others….There may be an intellectual understanding of appropriate social behavior but no emotional response to the actions of others” (“Psychopath vs. Sociopath” -- http://www.diffen.com/difference/Psychopath_vs_Sociopath). Both are social defaces, and cannot be helped; however to the naked eye, these two characters are savage. Both victims of anti-social disorder are lacking factors that make humans acceptably sociable, one lacking empathy while the other lacks sensibility. Diffen, a website, tells us, “Psychopaths…lack of empathy; no conscience…sociopaths…high impulsivity” (“Sociopathy versus Psychopathy” -- http://www.diffen.com/difference/Sociopathy_versus_Psychopathy). Dr. Jekyll shows no empathy by using and manipulating people close to him, and Mr. Hyde, as intended, has no sensibility to act with caution resulting himself in trouble for barbaric actions. This, in turn shows the comparison and contrast of the psychopathic creator and his sociopathic creation which in reality are two halves to a whole.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a riveting tale of how one man uncovers, through scientific experiments, the dual nature within himself. Robert Louis Stevenson uses the story to suggest that this human duality is housed inside everyone. The story reveals “that man is not truly one, but two” (Robert Louis Stevenson, 125). He uses the characters of Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde, Dr. Lanyon, and Mr. Utterson to portray this concept. He also utilizes important events, such as the death of Dr. Jekyll and the death of Mr. Lanyon in his exploration of the topic.
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, the dual nature of man is a main theme. Jekyll says: "Man is not /truly one, but truly two"(125), meaning all people have both a good and a bad side. Dr. Jekyll creates a potion to fully separate good and evil, but instead it awakens a dormant character, Mr. Hyde. Throughout the novel, Stevenson uses society, control, and symbolism to tell the reader about human nature.
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.
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the author Robert Louis Stevenson uses Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to show the human duality. Everyone has a split personality, good and evil. Stevenson presents Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as two separate characters, instead of just one. Dr. Jekyll symbolizes the human composite of a person while Mr. Hyde symbolizes the absolute evil. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who are indeed the same person, present good and evil throughout the novel.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are both different is morality. Both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have highly different morals. For example Dr. Jekyll’s morals are to contain the evil inside him and to keep his good side away from his bad side. Eventually Dr. Jekyll’s for trying to isolate his evil side it took over him. Dr. Jekyll’s mind was too weak that is how Mr. Hyde took over. Which now lead to Mr. Hyde’s evil mind, Mr. Hyde is the evil side to Dr. Jekyll and now he has full control. Mr. Hyde is the moral downfall of Dr. Jekyll.
Due to their concealed yet present inner evil, humans are naturally inclined to sin but at the same time resist temptation because of influence from society, thus illustrating a duality in humanity. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde focuses on how humans are actually two different people composed into one. The concept of dual human nature includes all of Hyde’s crimes and ultimately the death of Jekyll. Jekyll proposes that “man is not truly one, but truly two,” and describes the human soul as a constant clash of the “angel” and the “fiend,” each struggling to suppress the other (Stevenson 61, 65). Man will try to cover up his inner evil because once it rises to the surface everyone will know the real...
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