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Addiction In Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

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Addiction; a serious problem that is seen worldwide, in different cultures, socio-economic stages, and at every age. Drug addictions are one of the most prevalent types of addictions and they have a hold over millions of people. People use drugs as a simple way to get away from the hardships of life, but this fallacy has awful effects on people whether it be on their behavior or brain chemistry in the long run. This is very apparent in the life of Dr.Jekyll as he uses his concoction to try to live two lives, one pure and one that is not. Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, serves as an eternal metaphor for internal struggles between good and evil, and he brilliantly uses the contrast of character between …show more content…

Hyde is a nasty individual who causes destruction everywhere he goes. Utterson, an astute individual who can understand people’s behavior very well, is instantly dismayed by the beast that is Hyde saying, “All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil,” (Stevenson 12). Pure evil is a very strong phrase and carries a lot of weight but according to Uterrerson it is true and Hyde is worth saying it about. On top of this, it is practically impossible not to find one good quality about someone but since Hyde was so jaded, disturbing, and revolting Utterson, a great judge of character, could not find any good in his life. Hyde is the pure embodiment of what a person becomes like on drugs, he causes havoc in the lives of innocent people and also his own. These crippling addictions have been seen throughout history, having chokeholds on innocent people, and likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. These addictions are only getting stronger with the higher availability and strength of drugs, causing abusers to become slaves to them which are explained by Comitini as she states, “When De Quincey or Coldridge describes the experience of taking or trying to quit, he depicts an individual experience of moral weakness rather than any physical or social consequence from taking or quitting the drug,” (Comitini 115). Comitini puts this perfectly, as she describes people trying to break addictions as very volatile. This parallels Jekyll since he is becoming weaker to his addiction to the point where he is essentially Mr.Hyde all the time and is never “sober”. Hyde is truly rotten to the core when it comes to his behavior, but even his outside appearance is evil. Hyde always wears a sneering grin on his face, looking very mischievous and his appearance looks

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Stevenson employs the narrative to explore the physical, psychological, and social effects of addiction, as well as the social response. The story, then, serves as an attempt to humanize and understand addiction. Though the word ‘addiction’ itself does not appear in Stevenson’s novel, his description of Jekyll and his dealings with Hyde,

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With the division of the id and the superego, Robert Louis Stevenson combines these archetypes in the Victorian-scientific fiction novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Throughout the novel, Stevenson displays these archetypes through the personas of Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde. In the storyline, Dr. Jekyll concocts a potion that subjects his persona to transform into Mr. Hyde, a grotesque, demonic creature that becomes the city of London’s perpetrator. This personality of the id overthrows the value of the superego that Dr. Jekyll truly is. Robert Louis Stevenson uses dualism in human nature to convey the characterization of both opposing and coinciding characters throughout Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

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As soon as Jekyll gave into the existence of Hyde and created a compound he also compounded his situation or made it worse, emphasizing the negativity in giving into temptation. Soon after his transformation Hyde having been suppressed for two months, kills Sir Danvers Carew. Jekyll recalls the event saying “I struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything. ”(87) The metaphor of equating murder with breaking a children's toy connects back to the first incident with Hyde where he tramples the child.

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“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson is a book that intrigues one’s mind, because it makes us question ourselves about the balance between the two opposing forces. The story starts out with Mr. Utterson, a lawyer and a great friend of Dr. Jekyll, hearing about Hyde for the first time, who is very shady and somewhat misconfigured. Mr. Utterson hears about Hyde’s bad reputation, and his usage of Dr. Jekyll’s laboratory; therefore, Mr. Utterson suspects some kind of relationship between Hyde and Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Utterson’s friend Lanyon, who is a doctor, dies after Dr. Jekyll goes into seclusion; Mr. Utterson goes to Dr. Jekyll’s house to seek the truth behind Lanyon’s death, but he instead sees Hyde dead. Mr. Utterson

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In the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, there were different themes throughout. The theme that stood out the most was “Good and evil exist in all humans, and we live our lives struggling with theses two forces.” The real world has examples of good and evil such as yin and yang, water and land, life and death. All of these examples balance each other out just like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde balance each other out. Dr. Jekyll creates a potion that transforms him into the infamous Mr. Hyde who soon will take him over.

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In Robert Stevenson’s novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (later mentioned as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Dr. Jekyll must use a potion of his own creation to transform into Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll’s transformations and later inability to control them has a connection to drug addiction, as it shows the effects of drugs, whether “tainted” or not, on individuals and intolerance. In order to transform into Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll must use a potion created from a tainted batch of a drug. This mirrors the effects of drugs on an individual’s mood and actions, as some drugs, alcohol for example, have the chance of introducing an angrier, potentially evil side to a person often without the person remembering their actions upon becoming sober.

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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde It can be very difficult to lead a respectable life which is constantly being looked upon by peers without both good and bad sides of one’s personality surfacing. “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson the author describes the difficulty of a man leading two different lives. Repression is defined as the action or process of suppressing a thought or desire in oneself so that it remains unconscious. Dr. Jekyll makes the amazing discovery about isolating personalities but his desire for leading different lives prevails due to his nobility of being good in the name of science. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a respected doctor and physician who since his youth days has secretly engaged in corrupt behavior and actions.

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story by Robert Louis Stevenson about a scientist named Dr. Jekyll who attempts to mask his evil side by caving into it by enabling the character Mr. Hyde to escape under control. Eventually, Jekyll can no longer control Hyde, and Hyde kills multiple people. To prevent more deaths Jekyll ends his life to;o rid the world of Mr. Hyde. The human condition, as revealed in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the struggle to contain the dual nature of humanity, with both good and evil present within each individual. As Dr. Jekyll moves through the story he faces an internal conflict that he attempts to solve, the conflict allows Jekyll to grow and realize his mistakes.

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Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” explores science fiction while incorporating horror and mystery into the story. The main reveal of the book is when we find out that Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the “same” person and that Mr. Jekyll kills himself to stop Mr. Hyde from taking control of their body. At the end of the book, Mr. Jekyll reveals in a letter that he slowly became addicted to transforming into Mr. Hyde, but how did Mr. Jekyll end up becoming addicted to becoming Mr. Hyde? By closely examining passages in the book and using scientific research, we can explain how Mr. Hyde’s transformation became addicting, and how Mr. Jekyll could have combatted this and relate this to modern forms of addiction. To thoroughly understand Mr. Jekyll’s addiction, we need to look into both Jekyll and Hyde’s characters.

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Dr. Jekyll is not only making it more evident that he is an addict, but also making it the addiction harder to resist. The character of Mr. Hyde is the reason Dr. Jekyll is addicted, and he can be compared to a drug addict. A drug addicts tends to go mad and are unaware of their actions, therefore being incapable of controlling themselves. With that being said, they also continuously convince others and themselves that they are completely capable of controlling themselves when in reality they cannot. The same can be said for Mr. Hyde.

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Jekyll's alter ego, Mr. Hyde, represents the evil side of his nature that he cannot control. "I felt younger, lighter, happier in the body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul." (Chapter 10) This quote shows how Dr. Jekyll's darker human nature is unleashed when he transforms into Mr. Hyde. The novel also touches on the theme of addiction, as Jekyll's transformation into Hyde becomes increasingly frequent and difficult to control.

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“Hyde” is just Jekyll, having transformed his body into something unrecognizable". Jekyll does not make the potion to take away all evil away from himself. He created a potion that would allow himself to express his feelings without feeling guilt and facing any consequences effecting his respectable self. Dr. Jekyll in the novella is a respected professor and well known around the town. While Hyde on the other hand is almost the complete opposite.

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At first he becomes scared of Mr. Hyde and vows to never become evil

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“Mr. Hyde had few familiars— even the master of the servant-maid had only seen him twice; his family could nowhere be traced; he had never ben photographed …”(17). The Victorian age was a time for Britain to find freedom, and to be restful. Except for Dr. Henry Jekyll. Jekyll had a secret identity: Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll’s erratic personality reveals that good and evil exist throughout his body.

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Struggles from Temptation Craving separation from the bonds of his negative temptations, Jekyll creates a life changing problem for himself and his town that results in death, and separation. Fighting a battle within himself, Robert Louis Stevenson, uses allegory, oxymoron, and symbolism to show the struggle of humans and their sin nature. The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde gives fantastic moral insights into the thoughts of a well off man who had internal struggles, and shows how everyone struggles with something no matter their status or outward appearance (4 Biblical Truths Illustrated in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ). Presenting the “friends” Jekyll and Hyde, it was apparent to the audience that they were a strange pair. On one hand

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