Duality Of Man Analysis

In the novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson incorporates numerous dual images to support the theme of the “duality of man”. The novel revolves around with the juxtaposition of Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Mr. Utterson, Mr. Enfield, and Dr. Lanyon. Stevenson also uses the setting of Jekyll’s house and the house in Soho to represent the “duality of man”. Stevenson develops dual images in many ways throughout the novel.

Throughout the entire novel, there is an ongoing theme of “duality” is exchanged between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the novel the two characters appear to be two separate individuals, as we read we notice that they are two different individuals living the same body. Jekyll, a successful doctor who experiments with

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are very different individuals Jekyll is handsome and “good” in the eyes of the community, whereas Hyde is ugly, “evil” and describes as “like a money” when viewed through society’s glasses. Hyde is illustrated as animalistic and deformed mainly to evoke an evil character. When the murder of Sin Danvers Crew happens, Hyde showed the symbol of evil, by beating up Mr. Crew so hard with the cane that his bones are “audibly shattered”. Dr. Jekyll tells the power of evil Mr. Hyde through a letter he wrote to Mr. Utterson, “I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my though, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde,” (78). Dr. Jekyll was unable to control his dark self spontaneously, without the aid of his potion and while he was wide awake. Jekyll’s theory of dual nature, is humans being half criminal, and half virtuous. In his experiment his goal is to separate the two elements of being pure good and pure evil. Ultimately, Jekyll succeeds only separating out the evil in Mr. Hyde, and Jekyll remains a mixture of evil