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The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

Decent Essays

As Robert Grudin said in _______, “there is an almost tragic duality between outer and inner worlds, between the rush of experience and the immobility of awareness”. Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, brilliantly exemplifies the philosophical phenomenon that is the duality of human nature through the 2 main characters that coexist interdependently together, Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. According to Webster’s dictionary, the duplicity of human beings is based on the contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action; the quality or state of being twofold. Stevenson’s novel touches upon a variety of factors and concerns, one of which being the duplicity of man. The subject is articulated through the exploration of comparing and contrasting opposites; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s physical attributes, their mentalities/personalities, and finally, the manner by which their environmental surroundings aid in contrasting their characterizations. To begin with, Dr. Jekyll is a well-rounded, well-respected man descending from a highly intellectual and respected Christian family of doctors and lawyers. He is nothing short of the ideal Victorian gentleman: tall, polite, honorable and refined, physically portrayed as being “a large well-made man of fifty,” and as having a “large, handsome face” (Stevenson, 19). Opposed to this seemingly impeccable man is none other than Mr. Edward Hyde, a short, hairy, ‘troglodyte’ man with a horrific

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