Jekyll_and_Hyde

How does Robert Louis Stevenson explore the duality of human nature in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' In the year 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson wrote ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. In the Victorian period, society was concerned with a number of things and the writer touched some of these by describing Hyde as “ape like” and “far from human” or “more animal than human”, and he tries to get across that in the Victorian period the poorer people were not graded as very human and they were looked down on by the richer and more wealthy people. Stevenson’s character ‘Dr Jekyll’ was a respected member of the society, he however is dissatisfied because he wanted to show another side to his personality and he could not do that because his reputation as Dr Jekyll show him as a good well behaved, well mannered man. He does not wish to ruin his standing in society he doesn’t want to be not respected, but he also wants to split his personality in half, one for the bad/evil and one for the good/honoured. When he first seeks to separate the two he does not expect the evil to be so extreme, “I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life”. He also says that a normal human has two sides “I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth by who’s partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that a man is not truly one but two”. He was aware that “In my own person that I learned to recognise the thought and promote duplicity of a man.” He has been trying to suppress his bad side, and hopes science can help him and needs to show both sides of his nature. He begins experimenting to split both sides then he can have what he wants. The writer emphasises and describes the transformation in great detail because he wants to make it sound frightening and difficult and it possibly shows this is not a normal thing to do. Dr Jekyll states “I risked death”. When he took it his physical transformation was horrific, he felt a painful, bone grinding and deadly nausea. When he wakes up it was like waking up after a great sickness, however there are also excited feelings which spurred him on, “yet something indescribably new had awoken”. He also feels changed “I felt younger, lighter happier in the body” and felt as if he had been able to express his other nature and personality. Mr Utterson is a “good man” who thinks his friend Dr Jekyll is being blackmailed because of the letter that Hyde wrote. He thought that Jekyll had forged his signature, and offers to help him, a big part to the book because he shares some of the narrating points, like when the child got trampled. Mr Utterson was a wealthy man and he often offered to help Jekyll. He behaves and acts differently by being more of a “wicked” person by performing activities he wouldn’t normally, leading to a child being trampled. Robert Louis Stevenson stated “it was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell into slavery”. He also says “my second character”. The writer describes the scene from two different views, one from Mr Hyde and the other from Mr Utterson. The second weird and monstrous behaviour was the death of the Danvers Carew and that was in the maid’s account also in Dr Jekyll’s account. Between those two events Dr Jekyll realises that he’s transforming into Hyde without taking the potion. However, he has to choose whether to stay as Mr Hyde or Dr Jekyll, both completely different personalities. The contrasting description of Jekyll and Hyde is described in detail to show that they are two completely different sides to human kind. Stevenson tells us that Hyde is “Satan’s signature” and “child of hell” which tells you instantly that he’s not a nice person or he’s on the evil side, where as Jekyll he is described as much more of a gentleman and how he’s “high in society” and wouldn’t hurt or cross the line with anything. The physical description of Hyde is “pale and dwarfish” and “impression of dwarfish” and when Enfield first sees him he says “he wasn’t like a man” and he is often described as ape like or animal “the animal within me licking the chops of memory.” Whereas Jekyll is described as a clean, well looked after man who loves to be in the high ranking. The structure of the book also has a duality – One could also assume that the duality in Stevenson’s novel is about a curiosity of, or the need to discover one’s primitive impulsive side. If we look at Utterson’s character, there is also this need to know about Hyde. When Mr. Enfield tells about Hyde, Utterson develops on obsession in knowing more about the mysterious dark character. He goes as far as being tempted ‘to disregard the prohibition’ of reading Dr. Lanyon’s narrative, which is only meant to be read if Dr. Henry Jekyll died or disappeared. In this way he also illustrates the existence of duality in every individual. He does restrain himself to following through his desire though, which shows that one has control over their animalistic side.The moral of this interesting story is that which many Christians recite daily: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. One needs to be in control of their darker side of human nature, and to stop this seed of evil from growing larger. Perhaps, the moral is that we cannot control evil once unleashed. Jekyll tries to ‘use’ Hyde to give in to his temptations without damaging his social position. This spirals out of control. The cost of Jekyll’s curiosity turned out to be a deadly reversal of dominance