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Duality In Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

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With addiction, there is a popular phrase, “slay your inner demons” but do drug and alcohol addictions actually involve demons that need to be slain? In the Novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson uses the characters of Jekyll and Hyde to explore the duality of human nature and classify said demons and good guys. Jekyll’s addiction to Hyde reveals the subconscious battle between good and evil through Jekyll’s will to be the smart scientist that people look up to in society, all the while he is drawn to the dark and violent life of Hyde. In town, Jekyll is a well-known member of society and a big scientist who everyone looks up to. At the end of the story, after the massive reveal, we find out how Jekyll felt …show more content…

Jekylls sort of alter ego that soon threatens to take over Jekyll’s life and represents the forces of evil, or the hidden nature of mankind. Right from the novel's start, Hyde’s terrible looks and characteristics such as “A face of deformity and disease” (Stevenson 16) show the reader that he will be negatively looked at for the rest of the story. Hyde represents the power of evil and its ability to alter a person's behavior much like an addiction. At the same time, Dr. Jekyll serves as a metaphor for an individual's moral convictions. Adding on to this, Patricia Comitini agrees with the subject letting the reader know, “This critical focus on the double has also become part of popular culture in that many versions of the story present Jekyll and Hyde as the representation of the struggle between good and evil that occurs within everyone.” Jekyll’s addiction to the drug is what caused him to transform into Hyde, and it is this addiction that leads him to commit evil actions. Hyde is also a symbol of addiction because he represents Jekyll's inability to control his darker impulses. Alyssa Valentine from the Clearbrook Treatment Centers describes these impulses. “Addiction doesn’t care where you’ve come from, what accomplishments you have achieved, or how nice you are. It will completely erase all of that and turn you into a monster; someone that doesn’t care anymore about what happens to others.” Furthermore, Jekyll is unable to resist the temptation of the drug, and this leads him to become Hyde and commit the evil acts that Hyde is known

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During the course of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stephenson duality is the central theme, as all the actions that take place revolve around it. The duality that takes place is the 2 sided nature that exist in all humans and the desire to live 2 lives: a life that is burdened onto people by society and are expected to live, and life in which humans desire to fulfill their darker desires. Jekyll and Hyde show sharp contrast of human nature as the qualities of good and evil. Duality is revealed in Jekyll and Hyde through the use 2 separate, opposite aspects of human nature that exist as one character. Dr. Jekyll can be viewed as a good natured, respectable, and upstanding man in the narrative.

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After a while he started to slip back and forth so he put the drug down for some time but then uses it again and Hyde ends up murdering an elderly man (Chapter 10). Meaning Hyde is a result of Dr. Jekyll experiment that gone wrong. Additionally, he swapped back and forth freely until complications came along and knowing the complications he did it again and someone died. Even if you say that it’s not his fault because it was Hyde not Jekyll, which is true to an extent, but Hyde is a direct result of Jekyll actions.

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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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Overall, Stevenson’s presentation of the duality of man is conveyed by the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde because towards the end of the novel. Jekyll begins to realise that the schism which once caused them to despise one another, help them understand each other situation. Jekyll even begins to ‘pity’ Hyde toward the end of novel, praising his ‘love for life’ by calling it ‘wonderful’, as his creator he consequently acknowledges the condescending attitudes towards Hyde, unfairly for his appearance, however rightfully so for his actions. Moreover, like Darwin’s theory, Hyde could never be accepted into society, often being characterised as a ‘brute’. Additionally, Jekyll’s actions would be condemned by the Victorian readers, as he was

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1545 Words | 7 Pages

The description Jekyll portrays upon taking the potion is illustrated to the reader as if he is being re-birthed but into a whole new perception of life. Physically, he is in such a pain because his bones are grinding, horrendous spirits are among him, and he is overcome with nausea. When it subsides, he is self-aware of his new mentality of wickedness (Stevenson 1710). Hyde sees himself in a mirror as the smaller, less robust side of Jekyll, and this is probable due to the facts of evolution because Jekyll, as a public figure, practiced more good in the world, as to Hyde, who is now getting to release his evil (Ferrer-Medina). Hyde, having an aggressive instinct, no moral or social standards, takes pleasure in violence ultimately leading to his own destruction (Singh).

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On the other hand, he also represents the evolution of humans into a new, more evolved species, that is marked by cruelty and aggression. Another piece of textual evidence, “I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” (Stevenson 43). Jekyll acknowledges that he has two distinct sides to his personality, which are in constant conflict with each other. He cannot be good or evil, because he is both. This duality is embodied in the characters of Jekyll

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Through the character of Dr Jekyll character, we can see an unwillingness of entering the social order, which is made evident by Mr. Hyde, his direct opposite. At first he drinks the drug in order to enter into a realm that has no social mores, no laws from the father to follow. He assumes a Mr. Hyde, the new identity so as to test those boundaries. Through the “monster culture” we can establish that Dr Jekylls unconscious desire is personified in Mr. Hyde, and this will enable us to see Dr Jekyll as the illusion of reality and he was not whosever he claimed to be. He possessed unconscious desires which he had to let out.

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