“We all have good and bad inside of us. It’s what side we choose to follow that defines who we really are” (J.K. Rowling). This quote closely ties with the theme of good and evil that is present throughout the short story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. In the story, the third-person narration follows Mr. Utterson around on his investigation of Dr. Jekyll’s seemingly uncalled for disappearances and Mr. Hyde’s evil and suspicious antics. Throughout Stevenson’s mystery-thriller short story, I concluded that Dr. Jekyll really did have to seclude himself in order to protect his friends (or face the possibility of one of them getting hurt), he could have ultimately prevented his own death if he had not attempted to create Mr. Hyde (intentionally or unintentionally) in the first place, and Dr. Jekyll would have gone mad with power if the attempt to separate his good and evil sides had succeeded. …show more content…
Jekyll had to seclude himself from society in order to protect his friends. This in turn leads to a shocking discovery by Dr. Lanyon, and so forth he becomes secluded as well. Mr. Utterson observes that Jekyll is shut in, and in turn asks Dr. Lanyon “Jekyll is ill, too. Have you seen him?” (40). Utterson is suspicious about his friend’s disappearance and sudden lack of communication, all caused by Jekyll being held down by Hyde for months on end. He decides to investigate, and learns that Dr. Lanyon, too, has something to hide that he will not share. If Dr. Jekyll’s good side was not being repressed by his bad side, he would be outside more often or throw more dinner parties like he had previously. The good and evil in Dr. Jekyll’s life is controlling him day by day, almost like his life is not his to live
Stevenson uses many literary techniques to create suspense and amuses the readers. He uses the literary symbolisms such as paradox and symbolism. However the most important technique is point of view and the changing of narrators throughout the book. Many critics such as Alice D. Snyder, Peter K. Garett, and Vladimir Nabokov wrote literary criticisms about Stevenson’s use of language. Lots of the evidences come from the book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in order to support the critics’ claim. Peter K. Garett’s claim of Stevenson’s use of language is that the relation between Jekyll and Hyde is played out in terms of grammatical and narrative positions. Vladimir Nabokov’s claim was that Stevenson creates suspense and mystery by
However, as the same happens much too often in real life, Jekyll is unable to keep this promise. He has already sunken too far into his addiction and it completely controls him, which Stevenson brilliantly illustrates as Hyde gains strength and begins to take over. As Hyde becomes stronger, he usurps Jekyll's body, mind, and life - just as drugs and alcohol often do to addicts, who sometimes lose their jobs, their possessions, and their friends. Jekyll finds himself turning into Hyde spontaneously, so he has to seclude himself from society, and give up his existence as Jekyll. His addiction has gotten so out of hand that his life has been completely destroyed; he is beyond resolution, since the only way to combat his problem is to kill Hyde, thereby killing himself.
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.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are truly becoming one, isolation starts to become more of a hinderance. For the most part, this isolation he was creating helped him but it was soon to start doing the opposite. People started to see him less and less and started taking notice; “Even the master of the servant-maid had only seen him twice” (23). Since he was so secretive and hidden from everyone else no one knew of his struggles and how to help him. In another portion of the book Poole talks to Utterson saying: “You know the doctor’s ways, sir,’ replied Poole, ‘and how he shuts himself up. Well, he’s shut up again in the cabinet” (34). Dr. Jekyll was slowly getting worse in his transformations with Hyde. In every passing minute and day Hyde was slowly more and more overtaking, but he did not choose to ask for help. Instead he was slowly starting to shut himself off from the world and put himself in
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.
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde becomes Jekyll's demonic, monstrous alter ego. Certainly Stevenson presents him immediately as this from the outset. Hissing as he speaks, Hyde has "a kind of black sneering coolness . . . like Satan". He also strikes those who witness him as being "pale and dwarfish" and simian like. The Strange Case unfolds with the search by the men to uncover the secret of Hyde. As the narrator, Utterson, says, "If he be Mr. Hyde . . . I shall be Mr. Seek". Utterson begins his quest with a cursory search for his own demons. Fearing for Jekyll because the good doctor has so strangely altered his will in favor of Hyde, Utterson examines his own conscience, "and the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded a while in his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there" (SC, 42). Like so many eminent Victorians, Utterson lives a mildly double life and feels mildly apprehensive about it. An ugly dwarf like Hyde may jump out from his own boxed self, but for him such art unlikely creature is still envisioned as a toy. Although, from the beginning Hyde fills him with a distaste for life (SC, 40, not until the final, fatal night, after he storms the cabinet, can Utterson conceive of the enormity of Jekyll's second self. Only then does he realize that "he was looking on the body of a self-dcstroyer" (SC, 70); Jekyll and Hyde are one in death as they must have been in life.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “It is much easier to suppress a first desire than it is to satisfy those that follow.” This is certainly true in the situation of Dr. Jekyll, as the temptation of becoming Mr. Hyde becomes stronger as he continually surrenders to the wickedness that is constantly misleading him. Mr. Hyde is never contented, even after murdering numerous innocents, but on the contrary, his depravity is further intensified. The significance of the repression of a desire is a prevalent theme throughout the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, as the inability to repress one’s curiosity can lead to a fatal end, whereas the repression of a desire that can no longer contain itself, or the repression of confronting a guilty conscience, will conclude in a tragic ending and in this case specifically,
As the novel progresses, Dr. Jekyll becomes a prisoner to the part of him called Mr. Hyde because Hyde gains strength overtime. The rush Mr. Hyde brings him causes him to want
Naturally the body fights the tensions of good and evil by justifying right from wrong. The body is persuaded by one side but ends up conquered by the other. It is a constant battle of pain and pleasure: a constant desire of imperfection from perfection. Dr. Jekyll wanted evil to be completely separated from his goodness. Hyde was not considered a human. He was a creation that possessed life only when Jekyll self medicated himself as a form of release. “Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde are not one person but two, not a single individual compounded like common humanity of both good and evil traits, with the one or the other in the ascendant at any given moment” (Sanderson). As two separate souls inhabited a single body, conflict w...
Merriam-Webster defines ‘parasite’ as ‘an organism that lives in or on another organism and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host 's expense’.
Jekyll hid away due to his fear of being found out. When Jekyll “was seized again with those indescribable sensation that heralded then change”, he went to “shelter” in his “cabinet” before he was “raging and freezing with the passions of Hyde” (64). For he was scared for the punishment he would receive if he was found out. Such as blackmail, losing standing in his community, while also receiving life imprisonment or death from the state. With this going on and his good friend Mr. Utterson trying to find out why he was gone, Jekyll was always stressed. When Utterson and Poole barged through the door, Jekyll couldn’t be seen for what he was. He hid his true authentic self to the very end. For when Utterson called Jekyll a “‘self-destroyer’ Utterson concludes, not only because he has killed himself, but because it is self-destructive to violate the sexual codes of one’s society”(Showalter 113). For the main reason, Jekyll ended his life was because he went against what was societal norms during the time. He was gay and that was illegal. Which is why he had a double life as Hyde. Which finally led him to become a self-destroyer,
In the book The Mysterious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde one of the main focuses is how there are two different sides of man, the “good” side which Dr. Jekyll represents and the “bad” side which Mr.Hyde represents. The moral of the story is that man needs both “good” and “bad” for the two put together and how man deals with it is how man is defined. In the story Jekyll makes a drug that separates the “good” and “bad” in man and it will furthermore become true that man needs both “good” and “bad” to be defined. After reading The Mysterious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and exploring the “ good” and “bad” sides of man it will become evident that there are two sides of man.
“All human beings are commingled out of good and evil” Robert Louis Stevenson once said. In this one of a kind novel entitled The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by the wonderful Robert Louis Stevenson. Throughout this literary work, the idea of good vs evil as well as your dark side being tough to handle is greatly expressed. Which is why the theme of this novel is good versus evil and having trouble controlling your dark side.Now some people may believe that your good side almost always triumphs over your bad side mnly becasue thats what wither see or hear about, the yin and yang sign for good and evil is perfectly balanced, and some others may believe that a person cannot have two completely opposite personalities. According
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.
The power of curiosity can change your involvement in a situation. Everyone’s curiosity gets the best of them, and they tend to involve themselves in situations more than they would please. Throughout the book, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” by Robert Louis Stevenson, the theme of curiosity is demonstrated. Some folks suggest, that there are better themes than curiosity to demonstrate the book, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” by Robert Louis Stevenson. However, throughout the beginning, middle, and end of this book, the theme of curiosity is demonstrated.