The Notion of Good and Evil in Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

The Notion of Good and Evil in Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

The book entitled 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' was

published in 1886. Although in the book Stevenson does not ever state

the exact year, it was at the time recognized immediately as a grand

work.

The main theme running throughout the book is about the duality of

human beings and the battle in all humans between good and evil. This

book is very allegorical because the characters and events are

representing other things and symbolically expressing a deeper

spiritual and moral meaning.

For humans the battle between the potential for extreme good and

extreme evil is in the mind, but Jekyll's experiment has given one man

a split personality of the two extremes in the physical realm.

The book also involves a theme of hypocrisy, as shown by Jekyll and

Hyde of Victorian society. On one hand it was pleasant society,

respectable, conventional, deeply religious, and polite. On the other

was a much more bohemian England, symbolized by dishonesty and

darkness. The combination of the two aspects in contrast to each other

made an impression on Stevenson. This was a world of appearance not

truth with Victorian oppression, fighting against basic human nature.

Throughout the story is an omniscient narrator who tells the story

from full view of different people with different perspectives (e.g.

the view of the maid lets us into her feelings and attitudes towards

Hyde). The author could have chosen another route by possibly telling

the story as a confession from Jekyll's point of view. The author

chose not to write in this way because he wanted to give a view of...

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...This is a warning from Stevenson to the reader not to

take the easy way out. It also proves that Stevenson wants the reader

to judge Jekyll harshly as he was weak and took the "cowards" path

out, which lead to his death.

Although Jekyll seems to have no control over Hyde, once he has

transformed, it is Jekyll's original attitude towards evil in the

first place, which brings him trouble. He sees the ability to lose

moral control and be free from the ties of society as a kind of

liberation, which is why the transformation into Mr Hyde is so

appealing to him. It is not that he has no regard to society as a

whole, or he wouldn't need to turn into Hyde, but that he cannot

tolerate that certain behaviour is prohibited. By becoming Hyde,

Jekyll can follow his wildest imaginations without worrying about the

consequences.