Addiction In Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

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

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