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Explaining why Stevenson wrote Jekyll and Hyde
The strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde analysis
The strange case of doctor jekyll and mr hyde analysis
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Recommended: Explaining why Stevenson wrote Jekyll and Hyde
Steven Padnick’s article, “What Everybody Gets Wrong About Jekyll and Hyde” provides a strong and straight forward opinion to the work of Stevenson’s’ novel. I have to agree with Mr. Padnick’s point of view when the idea of the potion that was ingested by Jekyll was discussed. “Jekyll did not create a potion to remove the evil parts of his nature. He made a potion that allowed him express his urges without feeling guilty and without any consequences besmirching his good name. That’s also why he names his alter ego “Hyde,” because Hyde is a disguise, to be worn and discarded like a thick cloak. He might as well have called Edward “Mr. Second Skin,” or “Mr. Mask.” It is true that mankind has dark intentions within, however; not all of mankind are able to hide it for long. Sooner or later, mankind is consumed by their dark intentions and manifests their inner “Hyde”. Very few people can control that dark side of them and others choose to be Hyde for life. Everything has a price, whether it’ll be good or bad just like the story; it is up to man to decide which part of them should be known. …show more content…
In one scene that stood out was the introduction to the dual life between the characters of Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The scene provided the audience with a subtle foreshadowing that both characters are to have separate lives but at the same time a clear indication of Hyde will consume Dr. Jekyll. Hyde was the persona that Dr. Jekyll created in order to unleash the id side of him and silencing the superego and ego side. However, it led to the destruction of Dr. Jekyll’s life where he had no choice but to destroy
Greed and duality in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Macbeth
To conclude the way that Stevenson has described Hyde and what Jekyll has done in most parts he has related it to the devil which in Victorian times was considered very dangerous, even though today he’s not considered that powerful it would still make a big impact. Stevenson has been successful in using many elements of a shocker/thriller to write a novella with a much deeper moral significance because every aspect of the story relates back to the Victorian morals of 1837 till 1901 and for a 21st century reader some parts of the novella will make them think what is really happening around them now and whether it is right or not!
From reading the last chapter, we can all see that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are easily viewed as a symbol about the good and evil that exists in all men, and about the struggle these two sides in the human personality. Hyde has a short temper and is made to look evil. “I observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near me at first with a visible misgiving of the flesh”. Jekyll is arguing that Hyde is the perfect physical embodiment of the evil inside him, implying that Hyde looks evil. Stevenson has also explored which aspect of human personality is superior, good or evil. Since at the start of the book Hyde seems to be taking over, you might argue that evil is stronger than good. However, Hyde does end up dead at the end of the story, suggesting a failure of the weakness of evil. Since Hyde represents the evil in Jekyll he is therefore symbolically represented being much smaller than Jekyll as “Jekyll’s clothes are far too large for him”. But as the plot progresses Mr. Hyde began to grow and becomes more powerful than Jekyll, and the reason for Hyde to become more powerful is due to the fact that Jekyll enjoys what Hyde does, which allow Hyde to gradually destroy the good in
...eech as human beings we all have a dark side or doppelganger that we try and repress. Some try to control it more than others while others pretend they don’t have a dark side. In the cases of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Incredible Huck and Star Wars they all prove a point that those who let that dark side take over will be their downfall.
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.
Stevenson’s most prominent character in the story is the mysterious Mr Hyde. Edward Hyde is introduced from the very first chapter when he tramples a young girl in the street, which brings the reader’s attention straight to his character. The reader will instantly know that this person is a very important part of this book and that he plays a key role in the story. This role is the one of a respectable old man named Dr Jekyll’s evil side or a ‘doppelganger’. This links in with the idea of duality. Dr Jekyll is described as being ‘handsome’, ‘well-made’ and ‘smooth-faced’. On the other hand, Mr Hyde is described as being ‘hardly human’, ‘pale and dwarfish’, giving of an impression of deformity and ‘so ugly that it brought out the sweat on (Mr Enfield) like running’! These words all go together to conjure up an image in the mind of an animal, beast or monster. During the novel...
The definition of a hero is subjective. Accordingly, Robert Ray believes the hero is able to be divided into three categories: the outlaw, official and composite hero. In most cases, a hero can be categorized into one of these categories. Through the examination of Jekyll and Hyde, the Batman movie from 1943, and film of Batman in 1989, qualities of the hero will be depicted as a function of time.
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,
Dr. Jekyll created Mr. Hyde because Jekyll is obsessed with the idea of perfection and splitting the good and evil apart. Performing this act is extremely dangerous; but Jekyll did it for the sole purpose of trying to attain perfection. Dr. Jekyll split himself into two sides, the good and the evil: “This is me, as I take it, was because all humans beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil” (108). From this statement, one can predict that Dr. Jekyll has somewhat of a guilty conscience and struggles to deal with the idea that the two forces—good and evil—can never be split into two. Dr. Jekyll grows frustrated with the idea that splitting the two forces is impossible but continues to transform himself from Jekyll to Hyde. Also--in the last chapter—Jekyll explains that when he is Hyde, it feels normal, almost like Hyde is natural identity and that he enjoys that side of himself. Jekyll states: “Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by friends and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a resolute farewell to the liberty, the comparative youth, the light step, leaping impulses and secret pleasures, that I had enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde” (114-115). Dr. Jekyll enjoys that disguise of Hyde because everyone has a desire to be a monster, or someone other than himself. Seeing as, Dr. Jekyll was unhappy with himself
When Jekyll first turns into Hyde, he feels delighted at his newfound freedom. He states: "... And yet when I looked upon /that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, /rather of a leap of welcome..."(131). Now he could be respected as a scientist and explore his darker passions. Stevenson shows duality of human nature through society.
As Jekyll and Hyde are of one body, they are completely different. The good side of Jekyll is when he is himself. When he is Jekyll, he is a very respectable and rich gentleman, representing what was valued in Victorian society. When Jekyll is transformed into Hyde, Stevenson shows that the character of Hyde is to be unrespectable, and poorer.
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 Jekyll experiences. For instance, Dr. Jekyll’s physical appearance begins to decline as he stops taking the draught. The text describes Dr. Jekyll’s physical characteristics as “looking deadly sick” when his is usually a “large well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness” (Stevenson 19-25). Not only does Dr. Jekyll’s health begin to decline, but also his behavior changes as well.
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
One of the major ideas presented in Jekyll and Hyde is the need for both good and evil to live in coexistence within an individual’s conscience. Jekyll’s experiments prove that a balance between the two sides of nature is crucial to be content in the world. He realizes that the only reason he is able to be one of the two sides of his nature is because he has the capacity to be either as long as both are present within him. He makes this clear in the quote, “I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” (125). Jekyll aims to segregate his good side from his bad side. He begins on his endeavor to create a potion that creates an entirely new identity for the evil element of his nature named Mr. Hyde. Jekyll is pleased with himself and feels that he has been successful in his undertaking. He maintains this happiness until Hyde begins to commit unspeakable crimes without Jekyll’s rationality and sense of morality to temper him. Jekyll becomes miserable trying to contend with his evil counterpart and it is then that Stevenson’s message is evident. It is difficult to maintain true happiness without both sides of nature present within one’s conscience to balance each other out and to coexist.
Jekyll knew that if he continued taking the potion that he could permanently lose control over his body. He persisted into turning into Hyde. He even said himself that sometimes in the past he would have to double his dose, and one time he even risked his own life “to tremble the amount”. He knew that they were consequences to taking the potion and turning into Hyde. He disregarded those consequences, although the type of sciences which were required to make said potion was not experimented with and Jekyll thought of this as some sort of special power that he had. “It was on this side that my new power tempted me until slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doof at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde.” (Stevenson 70). If somehow anyone else was to create this type of concoction they would keep it to themselves, but you would think that a scientist of all people would go to someone about it. The one person he showed was