Significance of Reputation in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde illustrates the significance of concealing your secrets and desires in order to maintain a flawless reputation. He creates distinctive characters with various reputations and contrasts their abilities in retaining one. Stevenson emphasizes this through Hyde’s actions, when portraying Utterson’s flawless reputation, the contrasting vulnerability to desires between Utterson and Jekyll and the creation of Hyde. As a man of pure evilness, Hyde creates disruption through his actions. His first appearance in the novella associates him with a crime of abuse. During Utterson’s and Enfield’s daily walks, Enfield speaks …show more content…
Stevenson portrays Jekyll as impotent against his temptations, due to his attempt to purify his soul. On the other hand, he portrays Utterson as one who does not succumb to his desires. Stevenson seldom ever speaks of Utterson’s temptations and instead, focuses more on Jekyll’s pleasure of the “thought of [the] separation of these elements” (61), in order to avoid jeopardizing his reputation. Towards the end of the novella, Stevenson reveals Jekyll’s belief and sole purpose to split humankind’s two natures. Meanwhile, despite the minimal mentions of how Utterson tackles his temptations, Stevenson primarily shows Utterson’s dominance over his desires. He does this to establish a black and white contrast between one who has the ability to withstand his desires and one who dwells on the possibilities of diving good and evil. In the beginning of the novella, he shows Utterson to be “austere with himself” (1) and substituted gin to subdue his taste for alcohol. Utterson, being much older than Jekyll is gifted with his ability to retain self-control, whereas Jekyll is more imaginative and dreams of the impossible. Essentially, Stevenson contrasts Utterson and Jekyll’s vulnerability to desires to demonstrate what others do in order to control their