Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story were written in the 19th century in London. In this book we understand the conflict between the good character of Dr. Jekyll and completely evil character from M r. Hyde, who fight for control of their shared body. As the readers, read the story there is a big concern about homosexuality, murder and the duality of human nature. Their personal characters where by Dr. Jekyll is known to be tall and pale gentleman who seems to be attractive, well respected and somehow liked among the everyday common citizens. As people oppose to Mr. Hyde who is unappreciated by everyone. Just by the look and appearance of Mr. Hyde leaves people to think of him in horror and hatred. He was also ignorant and only cared about himself; …show more content…
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stevenson has put in a clever name for Jekyll’s other personality. Hyde is a good as it is pronounced hide and it is what Mr. Jekyll is doing, using a mask to Hyde his face so no one will recognize what he is doing '(42). I have written them down as two individual people, but in reality they are not. In reality they are the same person but Mr. Hyde is just an excuse to commit sins and 'evil '. In 'Henry Jekyll’s full statement of the case ', Jekyll writes about his past and of his frustration at Victorian society. Before he was able to turn into Hyde, Jekyll was a very respected and well-liked scientist. Jekyll committed sins as himself and as a result he did not feel happy about this and decided that he did not want this evil to be a part of him. This eventually led to Jekyll creating a potion that would make him turn into Hyde. This character would commit the same kind of sins that Jekyll would have done. However something went wrong and Hyde just became too evil. At this point, he committed murder. Just like most of the Victorian people in this time, Jekyll would not accept this evil to be a part of him. He feels as though the real Jekyll is the one that is the upper class gentleman that is well respected and is a very likeable guy, whereas in fact, the real Jekyll is the man who acted like a gentleman around colleagues and friends, but also liked to commit …show more content…
Jekyll needed something, or someone to represent the evil which has built up inside of him. He created this through experiments, which lead to a potion. This transformed him anytime he wanted. He was transformed into Mr. Hyde. I believe evil is just a small portion of men, that is why Mr. Hyde had a dwarfish appearance. The main point of Dr. Jekyll tried to lead two different lives with two different personalities. However, he realized that one faces many difficulties when one side of their personality is suppressed. Even people who do lead different lives seek some semblance of balance between good and evil in both their lives. Not to have a good conscience means it is easy for someone to submit to temptations. Also it is difficult to lead a comfortable life without something to balance the good side of one 's nature being, was that the potion took over his life, and Dr. Jekyll finally realizes he is unable to transform back into his goodness. He attempts to commit suicide, as this is his only way of destroying Mr. Hyde. The nature of this wildness was not
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.
Within the text of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson portrays a complex power struggle between Dr. Jekyll, a respected individual within Victorian London society, and Mr. Hyde a villainous man tempted with criminal urges, fighting to take total control of their shared body. While Dr. Jekyll is shown to be well-liked by his colleagues, Mr. Hyde is openly disliked by the grand majority of those who encounter him, terrified of his frightful nature and cruel actions. Throughout Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson portrays the wealthy side of London, including Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll, as respected and well-liked, while showing the impoverish side as either non-existent or cruel.
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.
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
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.
For this reason I’ll be explaining Jekyll’s mental health. Jekyll has as what we now call Multiple Personality Disorder; “I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could be rightly said to be either, it was only because I was radically both,” Stevenson 57.) The disease was first discovered by Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot. He would ask patients symptoms that he found common in MPD. Many patients know about their alternate personality but refuse to acknowledge it’s existence. In some cases they may even refer to it as a separate person entirely. In this case Jekyll is very much aware of his alternate personality, going as to so far as to willingly change into him. However despite this he also categorizes Hyde into a separate being. For example when Hyde does something unappealing or distasteful he blames it on a separate person. Consciously though he is aware that he is Hyde and Hyde is him. (MD, Arnold Lieber. "Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder." PsyCom.net - Mental Health Treatment Resource Since 1986. Vertical Health LLC, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2016).
Duality has an impact on everyday life. Every action one takes could be intended to be a good action, but others might think of it differently Duality means things that appear to be purely good have a dark side. It could be good or evil, black and white.
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
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.
Jekyll is given as a respected man raised in a wealthy family. During the era, people are meant to be well-mannered and polite without any sign or thinking of violence and crime; however, Dr. Jekyll secretly has a desire to perform evil. Conflicted with the ideal of society, he has repressed his emotion through many years and eventually he decided to conceal his pressure as he said, “And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public. 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.” (48) From this quote, Dr. Jekyll discloses that he’s not desired to be cheerful, as many do, and decides to fake his pressure in front of the public eyes. After many years, he then realizes he was only hiding his true emotion. Eventually, to resolve his situation, he is inspired to create a potion that could transform himself to Mr. Hyde that could free him from the struggle between protecting his reputation and following his emotion and
... man. Society in the Victorian era was consisted of two classes, trashy and wealthy. Jekyll was expected to be a gentleman, but he wanted to have fun. This was the reason he created Hyde, so he could both be respected and have fun. He was delighted at the freedom he now had. Lanyon was overly contolled, but Utterson knew all men had both good and bad within them and could control it. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, the dual nature of man is a main theme.
Jekyll himself. 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. This guilt drives him to have “clasped hands to God…tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds that his memory swarmed against him” (Stevenson 57). As a whole, the text demonstrates that Dr. Jekyll’s alter ego, Mr. Hyde, is the mastermind of pure malevolence who participates in activities that Dr. Jekyll cannot
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
Henry Jekyll’s innermost vices, but since he held himself to an extremely high standard of moral excellence, he needed to find another way of releasing. He creates Hyde as his way of getting these primal urges out. During this time period, the focus on reputation and credibility was huge, and this is how men were judged. He had many urges that he was internally repressing, as a result of existing in the Victorian era, which was well known for how incredibly stuffy and repressed it was. Jekyll was widely respected in the community as a doctor and he had many friends, so it is understandable that he didn’t want to lose his reputation, which came first for men of his social standing in this time period. He went to great lengths to create and cover for Hyde, including renting a place for Hyde to live, and making a bank account for his alter ego. The creation of Hyde turns out to be way more sinister than Jekyll initially imagined. Hyde’s own name is a pun, as he is the part of Jekyll that he must keep hidden away for fear 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