Jekyll And Hyde Duality Analysis

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Recommended: Contrast shown in Romeo and Juliet

Duality can be powerful and needs to be controlled. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the theme of duality is expressed significantly. These astounding works of literature show how everything has two sides. Therefore, duality needs to be accepted by both sides, or else, the evil will take over. Every story has two sides. In the novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde duality is represented by the good and evil in Dr. Jekyll. His dual personalities demonstrate how each story is two-sided. Because of Dr. Jekyll’s forbidden impulses, there are multiple factors that can affect his complexion. He does not try to intentionally be evil, but he can not help his need to be Mr. …show more content…

Dr. Jekyll’s two personalities represent the extremely good and truly wicked side of human nature. When those personalities were split it created complete chaos. Dr. Jekyll needed both sides of his personality to fit in with society. When one side is stronger it creates an imbalance and brings up the true evil of his demeanor. He has to create a balance in both sides for him to live respectively. As he holds in his evil side of his personality it grows stronger and brings out a far more menacing persona than he was expecting. He did not understand how powerful his evil side could honestly be. When the evil becomes too strong his good side has lost all the ability to control both sides. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “At the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde” (Stevenson, p.139). This quote illustrates how the evil side took control completely. However, Jekyll could have easily avoided this mistake by maintaining the balance of good and evil in not creating the potion that separated his personalities. Even in the story of Romeo and Juliet good and evil were better together through the possession of love. When Romeo first saw Juliet all he could see was the good in her not the evil from her family’s hatred towards the Montagues. As their love grew stronger love and war intensified. In Romeo and Juliet Tybalt was a pure …show more content…

All things in nature possess good and evil in order to keep balance in the universe. Evil can also bring out the good in people especially when they realize how their anger or hatred causes hurt or pain in one another. In Jekyll and Hyde, his experiment was never meant to cause harm; he just wanted to get rid of the evil in him. Little did he know that he would end up killing people and causing mayhem. He disrupted nature’s balance of good and evil, causing harm to those around him as well as himself. When he possessed both good and evil, he felt like something in his life was missing because he could not always feel the pleasures that he watched others enjoy. Jekyll had an urge to do an experiment on himself to help try to bring balance to his life so he could feel happier. However, when he split his good and evil side, he ended doing the opposite: complete true good and true evil. The good side of him knew that he had made a mistake. The more he tries to split the personalities, the stronger the evil grows. The same type of situation occurs between Romeo and Juliet. The more their families try to keep them apart, the more Romeo and Juliet need to be together. Evil came from the fate of Romeo and Juliet’s love story causing them to make rash decisions. As fate comes into play, the stronger everyone’s anger develops among the families. This evil ends up causing more hurt and pain than ever before, which in turn,

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