Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis

The reason The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is vital to the rehabilitation of prisoners is because it teaches a powerful lesson on actions and there consequences. By Dr. Jekyll continually choosing to change into Mr. Hyde and feeding his evil side, he enabled Mr. Hyde to overpower him and become the more dominant personality. Which is shown on p. 72 when it states, “…it seemed only by a great effort as of gymnastics, and only under the stimulation of the drug, that I was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll.” Dr. Jekyll has now been confined to his home because at any moment he could change to his other self and would be without explanation to his friends and family. Now instead of using the drug to change into Mr. Hyde, he has to use it to stay in the form of Dr. Jekyll, his original self.

Stevenson illustrates his belief that it is impossible to truly be good with Doctor Jekyll. He even comments “[M]an is not truly one, but truly two” (Stevenson 125). Jekyll has conformed to society his entire life, trying to be a perfect person. He has never had the opportunity to express his other half. Jekyll creates Hyde so he can be free of societal constraints and do things that a reputable man cannot. Jekyll releases Hyde who ultimately consumes him because he has never learned how to moderate his evil impulses.

Therefore, the audience of book can presume that Dr. Jekyll is familiar with the times, therefore subdue his natural, human needs in according with Victorian society. As a result, Jekyll, the ego, experience a tragedy of imbalance in which the morals, imposed by a Victorian superego, overwhelm the psyche. Fighting with the standards placed on humanity, he engages the help of science to physically extract the repressed human needs, or id, and from his haunted mind whose physical form is Hyde. Epitomizing Hyde as the consequence of society control, Robert Louis Stevenson strives to expose the devastation Victorian society creates on

Have you seen Batman: The Dark Knight? Well, in that movie an iconic character super villain appears, and he goes by the name Two-Face. Once a former attorney, he grew up with a hard childhood, just as all villains and heroes do; however, because of his hardships he had developed nasty mental conditions, and when a splash of acid burned half his face, it was the tipping point to his doom as the well known: Two-Face. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson discusses the issue about having a dual state or being two faced. Many instances in his book are examples on how people, and society itself can have a dual state of mind. Three pieces of evidence are, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde themselves, what exactly happens to the person when they have a duality like state, and what happens to society when someone, or something for this matter, affects the biosphere around them. When these topics are examined thoroughly, it will become clear how much society and people do not realize they are two faced.

Seeing how Jekyll is a respectable member of society, he cannot fulfill his evil desires and he feels crushed by society’s judgmental ways and begins to ponder what life would be like if he were allowed to be different. He gives into his fascination and starts to experiment using the power of science and in turn concocts a potion which allows him to transform into Hyde, his evil “twin”. At first, he was satisfied, living this other side of himself, but then it turned into something horrific, causing him to trample a young girl and killing a completely innocent man. Jekyll states in his letter to Utterman “…I was still cursed with my duality of purpose…” (page 72). Stevenson concludes that man is not in fact a purely dual being, but a primitive being, tamed and civilized by the laws of society. Stevenson portrays Hyde in highly animalistic terms – short and hairy with gnarled hands and a horrific face. In contrast, Jekyll is described in the most gentlemanly terms - tall, refined, polite and honorable, with long elegant fingers and a handsome appearance. Thus, perhaps Jekyll's experiment reduces his being to its most basic form, in which evil runs freely without considering the constraints of society and civilization.

Jekyll seems to be in control of his desires and temptations but as Hyde he can fulfil them and not feel guilty. Stevenson is stating that everybody has evil inside of the, wanting to get out and that everyone gets a thrill of letting it out sometimes.

The theme of the existence of good and evil in every human being is prevalent throughout the story. Stevenson highlights this idea by describing Jekyll and Hyde’s disparity in terms of action and personality. Dr. Jekyll, unbeknownst of Utterson, had created a potion that gave him the power to split his good and evil self into two separate beings. However, it only created Hyde, the evil of the two without the creation of the good, angelic being. With the eventual discovery of this, Utterson was clarified of the plethora of mysteries that encumbered him.

To begin with, Jekyll, in Stevenson’s book, lives behind a disguise for years trying to embrace his civilized-self and ignore his savage urges. The fear of his mask falling off at any moment pushes Jekyll to create Hyde as his only solution towards a sense of liberation. In Jekyll’s mind his identity is being ripped apart constantly making him and his alter ego, Hyde, perfect specimens, “of a double consciousness, of a ‘divided self’” (Letley 10). In his statement about the case, Jekyll declares

In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it is clear that the biggest theme of the story is the concept of good against evil. In the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the conflict exists within the same person. It is generally believed that this internal struggle exists in everyone, and that “man is not truly one, but truly two.” It suggests that everyone has a dual personality , and a good and evil side exists in everyone. The struggle supposedly is usually a close fought battle that is close to a stalemate. But in the story, is there a clear winner of this internal battle? Does Mr. Hyde completely take over or does Dr. Jekyll ultimately resolve the situation? The battle is very tight, and there is, in fact, a clear winner in the

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde authored by Robert Luis Stevenson is one of the most famous dualistic novels in history. In this novel, we are able to respectively identify the two personalities of one Dr. Jekyll; the good and the evil. All humans are born with positive and negative characteristics, yet only one is prevalent. Dr. Jekyll is the ideal model for the “average” person, whose good side dominates the evil. Though one side of a person may be evident to society, the other still exists deep within the soul.

Most people struggle with themselves in many different ways and respond in different ways. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story that takes place in the 1800s during the Victorian era. The author, Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote this story about Jekyll, the main character, who finds a way to separate his personality between good and evil even though things get out of hand. In the novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde, Stevenson argues about the duality of man and states that all mankind have a good and evil side; if one favors one side more than the other, it becomes unbalanced causing one to get out of hand. Chapter 3 shows the internal struggle that Jekyll is going through while trying to maintain himself balanced and not

Jekyll formulates an argument based on personal struggles that man has two natures, good and evil. His own words back his fascination when he states, “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; and from an early date . . . I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements”( Stevenson). The battle of the natures wages on for nearly his entire life until Jekyll’s great discovery, the potion, shines a glimmer of hope in his favor. When creating the potion he aims to eliminate man’s evil side by fear. If man can see its evil side and witness the horrors associated with it then man would convert to its good nature and never want to return to its wicked ways. This could not happen because man will likely falter when faced with every

Through Dr. Jekyll’s detailed statement, Stevenson unleashes a torrent of his philosophy upon mankind’s nature. After indulging in his evil side for a while, Jekyll finally decides to choose “the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by friends and cherishing honest hopes” (Stevenson 91), an example of one’s choice of who they truly are as a person. Through the loss of his dreams, the doctor

Jekyll is drawn to an experiment concerning human nature both by his own belief “that man is not truly one, but truly two” (104) and his desire to indulge once again in the wilder aspects of life without the judgement of society. Anxious to experience a pleasure not afforded to a man of his class and reputation, Jekyll sets about using science to prove his theory of an individual being both moral and immoral. Jekyll, through this experiment, allows himself to experience the pure evil he believes lies within each person without fear of facing consequences socially or monetarily for his actions. Despite the chaos and wickedness of his actions when left unchecked by a moral figure, Jekyll maintains his conscience to a degree that he is aware that he must be stopped. Jekyll is seen constantly conflicted by his decisions, at war with his decision to partake in his social experiment. Choosing to die rather than allow the destruction caused by said experiment to continue, Jekyll commits suicide as an act of heroism that conveniently also salvages his reputation(Singh and Chakrabarti). In order for Jekyll to stop Hyde’s unruly and destructive behavior, he must not only kill Hyde but himself as well in the process. Jekyll’s conscience maintains the idea that while good, and evil are equipotent, good conquers evil due to the ability of conscience to recognize times in which wrongdoing crosses an unspoken line and take necessary precautions

People would rather be miserable and pretend to be someone else, than risk judged for who they really are. In the novella, Stevenson uses Dr. Jekyll’s experiment to show how far people are willing to go to be freed from judgment of society. Dr. Jekyll conducted an experiment that split his personality into two people, the good and evil side of him. Dr. Jekyll knew he was risking his life before he started but he thought it would be worth it to get to be the other side of him for once. “I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death.” (57) Dr. Jekyll was willing to risk everything to experience his other side. When Dr. Jekyll drank his chemical solution, he transformed into Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde was completely free to be evil without his conscience telling him it was wrong. No one really knew who Mr. Hyde was so he had no reason to fear judgment from others. He was completely free to act as himself. This relates to the real world in that people use drugs and alcohol to transform into their dark side. When using drugs or drinking alcohol, your body loses all control over your consciousness. The substances are more powerful and led people to do things they would normally not even think they are capable of and might regret when experiencing withdrawal of the