preview

The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Better Essays

Frequently overlooked in favor of discourse on the duality of man or the dubiousness surrounding the characters’ interactions with Hyde, Jekyll’s portrayal of his transformations into Hyde in Robert Lewis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde has an indubitable parallel to symptoms of drug addiction. This allegory fits seamlessly into the narrative once the reader becomes aware of its presence. Not only does Henry Jekyll present symptoms paralleling drug addiction, his transformations into Hyde and how the other characters in the novel react to them are also typical of situation involving an addicted person. Finally, the ease with which a respectable member of the bourgeoisie lapses into such a degenerative state serves the …show more content…

Like a drug abuser, Jekyll’s need for a specific ‘experience’—which later becomes the high of being Hyde and living without inhibitions—causes him to become blinded to dangers that he, as a professional, should be aware of. While he entertains the notion of the possibility of death, Jekyll never once considers during that fateful first transformation that he can become addicted to the lightness that Hyde’s highs evoke (Stevenson 54). This ignorance parallels the pre-addiction pride that plagues the ‘junkie’; they arrogantly take their drug believing that degeneration will never happen to them because they can remain in control. Jekyll even relapses back to the drought after a two-month period of self-discipline, echoing the struggle of overcoming dependency on a drug without the proper support. By isolating himself in his quarters and devising a carefully-crafted second identity for Edward Hyde, Jekyll denies himself the possibility of breaking his addiction through the support of the people around him. This is a case all too common in drug addicts, who are ashamed or in denial of their problems. Utterson, who is implied to have overcome a taste for alcohol himself and who is exposed to addicts in his career, is both a success story and a case of the bourgeoisie’s oversight in the possibility of addicts outside of the

Get Access