Mr Hyde Dualism

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“People couldn’t become truly holy...unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked” -Terry Pratchett. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson clearly represents the quote by Terry Pratchett because of how the author portrays Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde throughout the novel. With the use of a door, Stevenson brings this idea into full effect. The purpose of the door in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is to display the dualism and transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde and vice versa. In the first two chapters of the novel, the reader gets his/her first glimpse of the door and how Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde use it. “There is no other door, and nobody goes in or out of that one but, once in a great while, the gentlemen of my adventure” (Stevenson 5). The “gentlemen” Mr. Enfield refers to in this quote is Mr. Hyde. Prior to this comment, Mr. Enfield describes his first encounter with this “man.” At the conclusion of his story, Mr. Hyde enters through the door, which Mr. Enfield later reveals that, although not often, someone does go in through that door. “The door, which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained” (Stevenson 2). This beat up door the author describes belongs to Mr. Hyde, and this is the door in which he enters. The description of the door also portrays Mr. Hyde’s …show more content…

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but each description helps the reader understand the contrasting characteristics of each character. “An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoother by hypocrisy” (Stevenson 18). Although there is no direct description of the door, the reader can still infer that it belongs to Mr. Hyde because of the very similar characteristics, such as the evil face, between the old woman and Mr. Hyde. This evil-natured side of Hyde further represents the dualism between himself and

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