duality of man jekyll and hyde essay

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Analysis of Jekyll and Hyde Duality in Stevenson's Novel

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• Edley, N., & Wetherell, M. (2001). Jekyll and Hyde: Men's constructions of feminism and feminists. Feminism & Psychology, 11(4), 439-457. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959353501011004002)
• Doane, J., & Hodges, D. (1989, October). Demonic Disturbances of Sexual Identity: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr/s Hyde. In NOVEL: a Forum on Fiction (Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 63-74). Duke University Press.(https://www.jstor.org/stable/1345579)
• Rose, B. A. (1996). Jekyll and Hyde Adapted: Dramatizations of Cultural Anxiety (No. 66). Greenwood Publishing Group. (https://www.worldcat.org/title/jekyll-and-hyde-adapted-dramatizations-of-cultural-anxiety/oclc/32921958)
• Becchio, C., Sartori, L., Bulgheroni, M., & Castiello, U. (2008). The case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: a kinematic study on social intention. Consciousness and cognition, 17(3), 557-564. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810007000207)
• Lacey, N. (2010). Psychologising Jekyll, demonising Hyde: The strange case of criminal responsibility. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 4, 109-133. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11572-010-9091-8)

Should follow an “upside down” triangle format, meaning, the writer should start off broad and introduce the text and author or topic being discussed, and then get more specific to the thesis statement.

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Should follow a right side up triangle format, meaning, specifics should be mentioned first such as restating the thesis, and then get more broad about the topic at hand. Lastly, leave the reader with something to think about and ponder once they are done reading.

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert louis stevenson, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Dr. Jekyll confesses to Utterson that he has for a long time been fascinated by the duality of his own nature and he believes that this is a condition that affects all men. His obsession with his own darker side gives the novel its plot but also its profound, psychological implications. Even before the climax of the story in which it is revealed that Hyde and Jekyll are the same person, the duality of their personalities creates a tension between the good, social Jekyll and Hyde who seems to revel in causing harm and mayhem, and it looks like it is Jekyll who will be overtaken somehow by Hyde.

One of the most interesting things about Jekyll’s transformation is its psychological aspect. Hyde is portrayed as an evil-looking dwarfed man with a violent temper, while Jekyll is a respected man of science, good-natured and leader of his circle of friends. Not only are these men two halves of the same person, but Jekyll describes them as polar opposites, one good and the other evil. What does it mean, then, that once Hyde exists that he slowly seems to take over, to destroy Jekyll. Is Jekyll’s theory of good and evil too neat and clean? Hyde's takeover of Jekyll seems to suggest a less clear-cut explanation, in which the human condition is not in fact double but rather one of repression and dark urges, and that once the repression of those dark urges eases or breaks it becomes impossible to put back into place, allowing the "true", dark nature of man to emerge.

Jekyll’s disorder also reflects on the other characters, and raises the question of just how upright, moral, and governed by reason they truly are. Utterson for example is introduced as a lawyerly, kind man, and seldom seems to stray from that description. But his character is so rigid and unmoving, and even impersonal, that one could imagine he too is strenuously repressing a world of darker urges.

The Duality of Human Nature ThemeTracker

The Duality of Human Nature Quotes in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

"He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point.”

“He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake's sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash," added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, "would have estranged Damon and Pythias."

"Poor Harry Jekyll," he thought, "my mind misgives me he is in deep waters! He was wild when he was young; a long while ago to be sure; but in the law of God, there is no statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace…”

The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes. "I do not care to hear more," said he. "This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop."

And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman.

An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy: but her manners were excellent.

The fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr. Jekyll, looking deathly sick. He did not rise to meet his visitor, but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome in a changed voice.

"I cannot say that I care what becomes of Hyde; I am quite done with him. I was thinking of my own character, which this hateful business has rather exposed."

The death of Sir Danvers was, to his way of thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde. Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for Dr. Jekyll. He came out of his seclusion, renewed relations with his friends, became once more their familiar guest and entertainer…

The middle one of the three windows was half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.

"O, sir," cried Poole, "do you think I do not know my master after twenty years? Do you think I do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet door, where I saw him every morning of my life? No, sir, that thing in the mask was never Dr. Jekyll--God knows what it was, but it was never Dr. Jekyll; and it is the belief of my heart that there was murder done."

“Think of me at this hour, in a strange place, labouring under a blackness of distress that no fancy can exaggerate, and yet well aware that, if you will but punctually serve me, my troubles will roll away like a story that is told. Serve me, my dear Lanyon and save

Your friend, H.J.”

"Lanyon, you remember your vows: what follows is under the seal of our profession. And now, you who have so long been bound to the most narrow and material views, you who have denied the virtue of transcendental medicine, you who have derided your superiors--behold!"

With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.

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.

I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.

Theme & Key Quotes: Duality of Human Nature

Theme & key quotes: duality of human nature, understanding the duality of human nature in dr jekyll and mr hyde.

• Stevenson presents Dr Jekyll as a decent gentleman, well-respected in society.
• Conversely, Mr Hyde is depicted as a vile and violent character, devoid of societal norms and morality.
• Key quote : “It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together” (Dr Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case).

The Franklin Experiment

• Key quote: “All human beings… are commingled out of good and evil” (Dr Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case).

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as Metaphorical Depictions

• Key quote: “In the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control…” (Dr Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case).
• Key quote: “Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.” (Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case).

This understanding is essential in crafting compelling arguments and essays regarding the theme of duality in Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Full Analysis and Themes

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The story for Jekyll and Hyde famously came to Robert Louis Stevenson in a dream, and according to Stevenson’s stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson wrote the first draft of the novella in just three days, before promptly throwing it onto the fire when his wife criticised it. Stevenson then rewrote it from scratch, taking ten days this time, and the novella was promptly published in January 1886.

The story is part detective-story or mystery, part Gothic horror, and part science fiction, so it’s worth analysing how Stevenson fuses these different elements.

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: analysis

Now it’s time for some words of analysis about Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1886 novella. However, perhaps ‘analyses’ (plural) would be more accurate, since there never could be one monolithic meaning of a story so ripe with allegory and suggestive symbolism.

Like another novella that was near-contemporary with Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , and possibly influenced by it ( H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine ), the symbols often point in several different directions at once.

Any attempt to reduce Stevenson’s story of doubling to a moral fable about drugs or drink, or a tale about homosexuality, is destined to lose sight of the very thing which makes the novella so relevant to so many people: its multifaceted quality. So here are some (and they are only some) of the many interpretations of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde which have been put forward in the last 120 years or so.

A psychoanalytic or proto-psychoanalytic analysis

In this interpretation, Jekyll is the ego and Hyde the id (in Freud’s later terminology). The ego is the self in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, while the id is the set of primal drives found in our unconscious: the urge to kill, or do inappropriate sexual things, for instance.

Several of Robert Louis Stevenson’s essays, such as ‘A Chapter on Dreams’ (1888), prefigure some of Freud’s later ideas; and there was increasing interest in the workings of the human mind towards the end of the nineteenth century (two leading journals in the field, Brain and Mind , had both been founded in the 1870s).

The psychoanalytic interpretation is a popular one with many readers of Jekyll and Hyde , and since the novella is clearly about repression of some sort, one can make a psychoanalytic interpretation – an analysis grounded in psychoanalysis, if you like – quite convincingly.

It might be significant, reading the story from a post-Freudian perspective, that Hyde is described as childlike at several points: does he embody Jekyll’s – and, indeed, man’s – deep desire to return to a time before responsibility and full maturity, when one was freer to act on impulse? Early infancy is the formative period for much Freudian psychoanalysis.

Recall the empty middle-class scenes at the beginning of the book: Utterson and Enfield on their joyless Sunday walks, for instance. Hyde attacks father-figures (Sir Danvers Carew, the MP whom he murders, is a white-haired old gentleman), which would fall in line with Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex and Jekyll’s desire to return to a time before adult life with its responsibilities and disappointments.

However, one fly in the Oedipal ointment is that Hyde also attacks a young girl – almost the complete opposite of the ‘old man’ or father figure embodied by Danvers Carew.

Nevertheless, psychoanalytic readings of the novella have been popular for some time, and it’s worth remembering that the idea for the book came to Stevenson in a dream. Observe, also, the presence of dreams and dreamlike scenes in the novel itself, such as when Jekyll remarks that he ‘received Lanyon’s condemnation partly in a dream; it was partly in a dream that I came home to my own house and got into bed’.

An anti-alcohol morality tale?

Alternatively, a different interpretation: we might analyse these dreamlike aspects of the novel in another way and see the novel as being about alcoholism and temperance , subjects which were being fiercely debated at the time Stevenson was writing.

Here, then, the ‘transforming draught’ which Jekyll concocts represents alcohol, and Jekyll, upon imbibing the draught, becomes a violent, unpredictable person unknown even to himself. (This reading has been most thoroughly explored in Thomas L. Reed’s 2006 study The Transforming Draught .)

Note how often wine crops up in this short book: it turns up first of all in the second sentence of the novella, when Utterson is found sipping it, and Hyde, we learn, has a closet ‘filled with wine’. Might the continual presence of wine be a clue that we are all Hydes waiting to happen? Note how the opening paragraph informs us that Utterson drinks gin when he is alone.

This thesis – that the novella is about alcohol and temperance – is intriguing, but has been contested by critics such as Julia Reid for being too speculative and reductionist: see her review of The Transforming Draught in The Review of English Studies , 2007.

The ‘drugs’ interpretation

Similarly, the idea that the ‘draught’ is a metaphor for some other drug, whether opium or cocaine . Scholars are unsure as to whether Stevenson was on drugs when he wrote the book: some accounts say Stevenson used cocaine to finish the manuscript; others say he took ergot, which is the substance from which LSD was later synthesised. Some say he was too sick to be taking anything.

You could purchase cocaine and opium from your local chemist in 1880s London (indeed, another invention of 1886, Coca-Cola, originally contained cocaine, as the drink’s name still testifies: don’t worry, it doesn’t any more).

This is essentially a development of the previous interpretation concerning alcohol, and arguably has similar limitations in being too restrictive an interpretation. However, note the way that Jekyll, in his ‘full statement’ becomes reliant on the ‘draught’ or ‘salt’ towards the end.

A religious analysis

As such, the story has immediate links with the story Stevenson would write sixty years later. Stevenson was an atheist who managed to escape the constrictive religion of his parents, but he remained haunted by Calvinistic doctrines for the rest of his life, and much of his work can be seen as an attempt to grapple with these issues which had affected and afflicted him so much as a child.

The sexuality interpretation

Some critics have interpreted Jekyll and Hyde in light of late nineteenth-century attitudes to sexuality : note the almost total absence of women from the story, barring the odd maid and ‘old hag’, and that hapless girl trampled underfoot by Hyde.

Some critics have suggested that the idea of blackmail for homosexual acts lurks behind the story, and the novella itself mentions this when Enfield tells Utterson that he refers to the house of Mr Hyde as ‘Black Mail House’ as a consequence of the girl-trampling scene in the street.

As such, the novella becomes an allegory for the double life lived by many homosexual Victorian men, who had to hide (or Hyde ) their illicit liaisons from their friends and families. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote to his friend Robert Bridges that the girl-trampling incident early on in the narrative was ‘perhaps a convention: he was thinking of something unsuitable for fiction’.

Some have interpreted this statement – by Hopkins, himself a repressed homosexual – as a reference to homosexual activity in late Victorian London.

Consider in this connection the fact that Hyde enters Jekyll’s house through the ‘back way’ – even, at one point ‘the back passage’. 1885, the year Stevenson wrote the book, was the year of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment ), which criminalised acts of ‘gross indecency’ between men (this was the act which, ten years later, would put Oscar Wilde in gaol).

However, we should be wary of reading the text as about ‘homosexual panic’, since, as Harry Cocks points out, homosexuality was frequently ‘named openly, publicly and repeatedly’ in nineteenth-century criminal courts. But then could fiction for a mass audience as readily name such things?

A Darwinian analysis

Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species , which laid out the theory of evolution by natural selection, had been published in 1859, when Stevenson was still a child. In this reading, Hyde represents the primal, animal origin of modern, civilised man.

Consider here the repeated uses of the word ‘apelike’ in relation to Hyde, suggesting he is an atavistic throwback to an earlier, more primitive species of man than Homo sapiens . This reading incorporates theories of something called ‘devolution’, an idea (now discredited) which suggested that life forms could actually evolve backwards into more primitive forms.

This is also linked with late Victorian fears concerning degeneration and decadence among the human race. Is Jekyll’s statement that he ‘bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul’ an allusion to Charles Darwin’s famous phrase from the end of The Descent of Man (1871), ‘man […] bears […] the indelible stamp of his lowly origin’?

In his story ‘Olalla’, another tale of the double which Stevenson published in 1885, he writes: ‘Man has risen; if he has sprung from the brutes he can descend to the same level again’.

This Darwinian analysis of Jekyll and Hyde could incorporate elements of the sexual which the previous interpretation also touches upon, but would view the novel as a portrayal of man’s – and we mean specifically man ’s here – repression of the darker, violent, primitive side of his nature associated with rape, pillage, conquest, and murder.

This looks back to a psychoanalytic reading, with the ‘id’ being the home of primal sexual desire and lust. The girl-tramping scene may take on another significance here: it’s a ‘girl’ rather than a boy because it symbolises Hyde’s animalistic desire to conquer and brutalise someone of the opposite, not the same, sex.

There have been many critical readings of the novella in relation to sex and sexuality, but it’s important to point out that Stevenson denied that the novella was about sexuality (see below).

A study in hypocrisy?

Or perhaps not: perhaps there is something in the idea that hypocrisy is the novella’s theme , as Stevenson himself suggested in a letter of November 1887 to John Paul Bocock, editor of the New York Sun : ‘The harm was in Jekyll,’ Stevenson wrote, ‘because he was a hypocrite – not because he was fond of women; he says so himself; but people are so filled full of folly and inverted lust, that they can think of nothing but sexuality. The Hypocrite let out the beast’.

This analysis of Jekyll and Hyde sees the two sides to Jekyll’s personality as a portrayal of the dualistic nature of Victorian society, where you must be respectable and civilised on the outside, while all the time harbouring an inward lust, violence, and desire which you have to bring under control.

This was a popular theme for many late nineteenth-century writers – witness not only Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray but also the double lives of Jack and Algernon in Wilde’s comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). This is a more open-ended interpretation, and the novella does appear to be about repression of some sort.

In this respect, this interpretation is similar to the psychoanalytic reading proposed above, but it also tallies with Stevenson’s own assertion that the story is about hypocrisy. Everyone in this book is masking their private thoughts or desires from others.

Note how even the police officer, Inspector Newcomen, when he learns of the murder of the MP, goes from being horrified one moment to excited the next, as ‘the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition’. He can barely contain his glee. The maid who answers the door at Hyde’s rooms has ‘an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent’.

From these clues, we can also posit a reading of the novel which sees it as about the class structure of late nineteenth-century Britain, where Jekyll represents the comfortable middle class and Hyde is the repressed – or, indeed, oppressed – working-class figure.

Note here, however, how Hyde is repeatedly described as a ‘gentleman’ by those who see him, and that he attacks Danvers Carew with a ‘cane’, rather than, say, a club (though it is reported, tellingly, that he ‘clubbed’ Carew to death with it).

A scientific interpretation

The reference to the evil maid with excellent manners places Jekyll’s own duality at the extreme end of a continuum, where everyone is putting on a respectable and acceptable mask which hides or conceals the evil truth lurking behind it. So we might see Jekyll’s scientific experiment as merely a physical embodiment of what everyone does.

This leads some critics to ask, then, whether the novella about the misuse of science . Or is the ‘tincture’ merely a scientific, chemical composition because a magical draught or elixir would be unbelievable to an 1880s reader? Arthur Machen, an author who was much influenced by Stevenson and especially by Jekyll and Hyde , made this point in a letter of 1894, when he grumbled:

In these days the supernatural per se is entirely incredible; to believe, we must link our wonders to some scientific or pseudo-scientific fact, or basis, or method. Thus we do not believe in ‘ghosts’ but in telepathy, not in ‘witch-craft’ but in hypnotism. If Mr Stevenson had written his great masterpiece about 1590-1650, Dr Jekyll would have made a compact with the devil. In 1886 Dr Jekyll sends to the Bond Street chemists for some rare drugs.

This is worth pondering: the use of the ‘draught’ lends the story an air of scientific authenticity, which makes the story a form of science fiction rather than fantasy: the tincture which Jekyll drinks is not magical, merely a chemical potion of some vaguely defined sort. But to say that the story is actually about the dangers of misusing science could be a leap too far.

We run the risk of confusing the numerous film adaptations of the book with the book itself: we immediately picture wild-haired soot-faced scientists causing explosions and mixing up potions in a dark laboratory, but in fact this is not really what the story is about , merely the means through which the real meat of the story – the transformation of Jekyll into Hyde – is effected.

It’s only once this split has been achieved that the real story, about the dark side of man’s nature which he represses, comes to light. (Compare Frankenstein here .)

All of these interpretations of Jekyll and Hyde can be – and have been – proposed, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the popularity of Stevenson’s tale may lie in the very polyvalent and ambiguous nature of the text, the fact that it exists as a symbol without a key, a riddle without a definitive answer.

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GCSE FULL MARKS, DUALITY IN J&H ESSAY

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

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GCSE English Literature, DUALITY in ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ theme essay, FULL MARKS Grade 9. Has been marked using exam board specifications such as AQA, Edexcel, OCR, and WJEC Eduquas by teachers, and it achieved full marks across all exam boards. 1100 word count total. Includes introduction and 3 analysis paragraphs spanning the whole play. 28 fully embedded quotations with in-depth analysis, referenced to Stevenson’s intentions and context.

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• Literature and Psychology

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Duality Between Good and Evil

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The duality

Literature has explored the idea of ‘the doppelganger’ on many occasions and from very different perspectives. In fact, Fyodor Dostoyevsky paved the way with a book that explored human psychology in its most complex essence: The Double (1846). Other more recent works such as Steppenwolf (1927) by Hermann Hesse also tried to explore this complexity.

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explores the consequences of trying to separate good from evil, leading to an unfolding of personality.

Jekyll was a ‘good man’, a distinguished man of good position, a man who, like all others, repressed the darkest impulses inside him. His passion for medicine and his obsession with the idea of separating good from evil led him to drink a strange potion that gave life to Mr. Hyde. The latter represents Dr. Jekyll’s opposite, a man who lets himself get carried away by impulses and pleasure.

The transformation shows Dr. Jekyll’s pursuit of the pleasures and desires so frowned upon by society. Moreover, while Jekyll is described as good-looking, Hyde is described as a caveman-looking being, with a wild and unpleasant appearance.

Intrigue and magic are two of the main components of this book. The ending is great, as it’s the moment when we discover the truth thanks to one of Jekyll’s notes. We’re referring to the truth of human nature in and of itself and the acceptance of the impossibility of separating good from evil, two powerful entities that live inside us all.

Both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were real – they both were the same, only opposites. This book symbolizes an exploration of human nature and tries to teach that good and evil can’t be separated. They both reside in us.

This text is provided for informational purposes only and does not replace consultation with a professional. If in doubt, consult your specialist.

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Duality of Jekyll and Hyde

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• v.50(3); Jul-Sep 2008

A study in dualism: The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Shubh m. singh.

Department of Psychiatry, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh - 160 012, India

Subho Chakrabarti

R. L. Stevenson's novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a prominent example of Victorian fiction. The names Jekyll and Hyde have become synonymous with multiple personality disorder. This article seeks to examine the novel from the view point of dualism as a system of philosophy and as a religious framework and also from the view point of Freud's structural theory of the mind.

Dualism derives from the Latin word duo , meaning two. Simply put, dualism can be understood as a thought that facts about the world in general or of a particular class cannot be explained except by supposing ultimately the existence of two different, often opposite, and irreducible principles. Dualism is most often discussed in context of the systems of religion and philosophy.[ 1 ]

The purpose of this paper is to examine Robert Stevenson's famous novel, “ The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ”[ 2 ] from the view point of the above mentioned systems and to discuss the novel from a psychological perspective.

THE AUTHOR AND THE NOVEL

Robert Balfour Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet. Born in 1850, he was a qualified advocate but earned his living as a writer. He was chronically afflicted with tuberculosis, and dabbled with various psychotropic drugs such as alcohol, cannabis, and opium. He is well known for his dark and sinister tales like Markheim, Thrawn Janet, and racy adventure novels such as Treasure Island and Kidnapped . Successful and famous, he died at a young age in 1894. Interestingly enough, Stevenson later claimed that the plot of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was revealed to him in a dream.[ 3 ]

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde deals with a Dr. Henry Jekyll who is widely respected, successful, and possesses a brilliant intellect but is only too aware of the duplicity of the life that he leads, and of the evil that resides within him. Dr. Jekyll covertly provides utterance to the evil in his soul by various unspeakable acts, but is afraid of doing so openly because of the fear of social criticism. In the course of his experiments, he succeeds in producing a concoction that enables him to free this evil in him from the control of his good self, thus giving rise to Edward Hyde. Edward Hyde is pure evil and amoral. Not only is his psyche different from Dr. Jekyll but also his body is grotesque and deformed. Thus, Dr. Jekyll thinks that he can receive the pleasure that both parts of his being crave without each being encumbered by the demands of the other. However, Mr. Hyde evokes feelings of dread and abhorrence in Dr. Jekyll's friends who beseech him to give up his “friendship” with this Edward Hyde. Edward Hyde gradually becomes ever more powerful than his ‘good’ counterpart and ultimately leads Dr. Jekyll to his doom. “Jekyll and Hyde” as an eponymous term has become a synonym for multiple personality in scientific[ 4 ] and lay literature[ 5 ] and the novel has also been considered a case demonstration of substance dependence.[ 6 ]

DUALISM, RELIGION, AND THE NOVEL

A religion that is dualistic admits not only that the universe comprises good and evil, or light and darkness, but also that though these are eternally opposed they are coeternal, coexistent, and equipotent.[ 7 ] This is an important distinction from nondualistic, monistic religions where evil comes about as an accident during creation of the Universe or as a result of powerful beings that can be good or bad as per what serves them or injures them and not because they are evil for the sake of being evil. Here, the good and the evil are often derived from the same source or from one another, much like the Pandavas and Kauravas in the Mahabharata . Zoroastrianism is often cited as an example of a dualistic religion where the concentration of all that is good is around Ahura Mazda, and all that is evil around Ahra Mainyu . These two forces are at constant war and only at the end will good finally vanquish evil. Interestingly, Christianity, the religion Stevenson was born into, rejects dualism and preaches a monistic origin to the universe from one, infinite, and self-existing spiritual being who freely created everything. However, the dualism of the human soul and the body which it animates was made clearer and is emphasized by the church. In the same vein, Christianity holds that evil is the necessary limitation of finite created beings and is a consequence of creation of beings possessed by free will. As an imperfection inherent in the manufacturing process of individuals, evil is tolerated by God.[ 1 ]

In the novel, Stevenson creates a hero in Dr. Jekyll, who aware of the evil in his own being, and sick of the duplicity in his life, succeeds by way of his experiments on himself in freeing the pure evil part of his being as Mr. Hyde, so that each can indulge in a life unfettered by the demands of the other. As Dr. Jekyll says, “With every day and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and intellectual, I thus drew steadily to that truth by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.” He further adds,”… that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man;… if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both”. Mr. Edward Hyde he describes as, “a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul” and that, “Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil”.[ 2 ] Thus, Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two equipotent, coexistent, and eternally opposed components that make up a “normal” individual. Here, good and evil are not related but are two independent entities, individuals even, different in mental and physical attributes and constantly at war with each other. Evil now does not require the existence of good to justify itself but it exists simply as itself, depicted as being the more powerful, the more enjoyable of the two, and in the end ultimately it is the one that leads to Dr. Jekyll's downfall and death. This is because Dr. Jekyll in the last phases of his lucidity recognizes the danger that Mr. Hyde poses to society and altruistically decides to do away with himself. Stevenson seems to discard Christian notions of monism and embrace dualism as described above.

The novel needs to be looked at in the context of its setting of Victorian London. Stevenson seems to make a comment not only about the dualism present in every individual but also in society as a whole, where the aristocracy that superficially was genteel and refined, had dark secrets to hide behind the high walls of the mansions in which they lived. Most of the action takes place in the night time and much of it in the poorer districts of London, considered the abode of evil-doers. Most significantly, Mr. Hyde enters and leaves Dr. Jekyll's house through the back door which seems a metaphor for the evil that lies behind the façade of civilization and refinement.

DUALISM, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE NOVEL

Dualism as a philosophy signifies the view that the universe contains two radically different kinds of being or substance-matter and spirit, body, and mind.[ 7 ] The ancient Greeks distinguished profoundly the soul and the body as the dictum states: “The body is a tomb.” Evil therefore was a result of an infinite soul trapped in a finite body. Plato for instance was strongly dualistic in that he expressed the view that the soul exists independently of the body. The rational soul is a spiritual substance distinct from the body within which it dwells, much like the chariot and a charioteer.[ 8 ] Dualism served a great purpose in the European Renaissance when Descartes described the mind exclusively as a substance that thinks and matter exclusively as an extended substance. This dualism enabled a wholly mathematical science of physics to come about where every fact in the material world was to be explained on basis of measurements. In this scheme, the psyche is immeasurable and thus not open to either understanding or intervention.[ 1 ]

In the novel, Stevenson creates a hero who by way of a concoction (that he compares with alcohol in course of the novel) intervenes in his “normal” mental processes and unleashes Mr. Hyde. This new persona not only is pure evil but also has a countenance that suggests “Satan's signature” and a body that is “something troglodytic”.[ 2 ] Here, not only the psyche is shown as a process that can be mediated by external tangible methods (the mysterious concoction) but also that a change in the psyche is associated with a change in the body or the soma. Stevenson seems to eschew traditional mind–body dualism to a remarkably modern monistic way of looking at the mind–body functioning.

ECHOES OF “ THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE” IN FREUDIAN PSYCHODYNAMIC CONCEPTS

The issues raised in the novel find resonance with the Freudian concepts of instincts, life and death instincts, and the structural theory of the mind propounded by Freud.

Freud defined instincts variously but most cogently as “a concept that is on the frontier between the mental and somatic, as the psychical representative of the stimuli originating from and reaching the mind, as a measure of the demands made upon the mind for work in the consequence with its connections with the body.” Freud developed the theory of instincts in relation to the concept of libido and the consequent foundation of the psychosexual phases of development. However, aggression as a component of the libidinal drives became increasingly important and could not be ignored. It was therefore elevated to the status of a separate instinct. It was further realized that humans were neither exclusively nor essentially good. Freud introduced his final theory of life and death instincts in 1920. Freud postulated that the death instinct is a dominant tendency of all organisms and their cells to return to a state of inanimateness. The death instinct represented the aggressive instincts and Freud later separated the libidinal and aggressive instincts from the ego and located them in a vital stratum of the mind which is independent of the ego. This line of thought led to the further differentiation of the psyche as per the “Structural Theory” into the id, ego, and superego.[ 9 ]

The characters in the novel manifest characteristics of the structural theory of the mind. Mr. Hyde would seem easily recognizable as the id, seeking instant gratification, having an aggressive instinct, and having no moral or social mores that need be followed. He takes pleasure in violence and similar to the death instinct ultimately leads to his own destruction. Dr. Jekyll is then the ego; he is conscious and rational, and is dominated by social principles. He has a difficult time juggling between the demands of the id, represented by Mr. Hyde, and the superego as represented by the proclaimed and implicit morals of Victorian society which prided itself on refinement and goodness, and is shocked by the seeming nonchalance with which Edward Hyde indulges in his debaucheries. In the novel, Dr. Jekyll gives in to his impulses and after initial pleasure soon cannot control their power. Rather than let Mr. Hyde go free and realizing that Hyde needs Jekyll to exist, he decides to end his own life.

Further, by labeling Mr. Hyde as a “troglodyte”, Stevenson seems to make a comment on the theories of evolution and that he considered Hyde that is savage, uncivilized, and given to passion: poorly evolved. Edward Hyde represents a regression to an earlier, less civilized, and more violent phase of human development.

A WORK AHEAD OF ITS TIME

The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can be seen at various levels. As a story, it talks about the concept of good and evil that exists in all of us. At another level, it is a critique on the hypocrisy and double standards of the society. It is also an interesting study into the mind of the author and into the theories of dualism. Finally, it can be seen as a remarkable study into human psychology that presaged the structural personality theories as detailed by Freud.

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Jekyll and hyde prediction 2024.

How does Stevenson Present Evil in the Novel?

This is a detective story.

There are three mysteries.

1.       Who is Hyde?

2.       What is his hold over Jekyll?

3.       Why did Hyde kill Carew?

The answer to each of these questions leads us to ask about the nature of Evil.

My Comments

If you can’t write this much, don’t worry. You can skip the homosexual reading.

You can argue instead that Jekyll is murderous, not because he has been wronged, but because he is simply like all of us - we would all choose sinful pleasures and evil if civilisation did not prevent us. That was the Christian belief.

Why have I numbered my explanations? Because you need over 30 to get into grade 9. You wouldn’t write it like this in an exam - you would paragraph.

But everyone asks me “what is an explanation?” Take a look at them and work it out.

Stevenson writes this murder mystery to satisfy his readers’ interest in crime and violence, to explore man’s attraction to sin, and to make us think about the true nature of evil in society.

We are first introduced to Hyde as a “ damned Juggernaut ”, stepping on a young girl he has knocked over, “ trampled calmly over the child’s body ”.

Enfield describes this and the doctor who arrives as so enraged that he wants to kill Hyde: “ I saw that sawbones turn sick and white with the desire to kill him ”, a feeling Enfield shares.

Many Christian readers would take this as proof that Hyde is so evil that people have a visceral reaction and want to remove it from the world.

However, Stevenson was an atheist, and we can see that he leaves room for a completely different perspective of evil. Hyde is “damned” because he is different, other.

This is reflected in the word “Juggernaut”, derived from Hindu worship. What Hindu considers holy, Christianity associates with evil.

Stevenson also contrasts the actions of Hyde to Enfield and the doctor. Hyde is run into, and ignores the girl who ran into him, stepping “ over ”, not on her.

This pales in comparison to the evil thoughts of the men who “ desire to kill him ”.

Then they decide to blackmail Hyde, who reminds them of “ Satan ”: “ we screwed him up to a hundred pounds ” because he was “ naturally helpless ”. Not only does this portray the evil of middle class gentlemen, it also portrays Hyde as partly innocent.

After all, an evil man would care nothing for his reputation, and therefore refuse to pay anything.

Stevenson presents us with a range of puzzling examples of Hyde’s evil before revealing, in the final chapter, further mysteries about his nature. Taking the novel chronologically, we find out that Utterson suspects Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll for some “ capers of his youth ”.

His choice of the cheerful “ capers ” implies that among gentlemen sins are ignored. We imagine these must be sexual adventures.

The central mystery in the novel is what Hyde’s sins must be. We never find out.

Similarly, we never find out what Enfield was doing when he first encountered Hyde, having come back “ from some place at the end of the world ”. This is another euphemism for sin which is so unacceptable to society that it is only on the edge of civilisation.

This implies that Hyde’s brand of evil behaviour is the same as that of other men in civilised society.

A further clue that this is so is the setting. Hyde lives in Soho, which symbolises all kinds of sin. This is less than a five minute walk from the respectable Leicester Square where Jekyll lives.

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This implies respectable gentlemen all have sinful desires which are so alluring they live close by Soho which makes them possible.

This is even more pronounced when we discover Hyde lives at the back of Stevenson’s house. The front is symbolically respectable, amongst “ handsome houses ” like the “ handsome ” Jekyll. The back of the house is “ sinister ” and “ sordid ”.

Stevenson is pointing out not just the “ duality ” of Jekyll, but also the “ duality of man ”: we “ are commingled out of good and evil ”.

This perspective suggests that dividing people into good and evil is a false way of looking at human nature.

This calls into question the Christian perspective of the novel, where evil is punished and the two main sinners, Hyde and Jekyll, are killed.

Chapter four portrays a violent murder of an MP, Sir Danvers Carew. This takes place near the Houses of Parliament, which invites the reader to imagine that no part of London is safe from evil men, just as no respectable person is safe.

The attack feels random and motiveless. However, it is witnessed by an apparently innocent maid who then takes great pleasure in dramatically recounting the story as a theatrical performance “ she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience ”.

This adds to the idea that everyone in London is attracted to evil.

Hyde’s motive to murder can only be guessed at, but the description that he clubbed Carew with “ ape-like fury ” plays on contemporary fear of Darwin’s theory of Evolution.

This undermines the Biblical origin story of Genesis, and therefore challenges Christian belief.

A further problem is that Darwin’s theory predicts survival of the fittest. So evolution does not mean we become increasingly civilised and moral. Instead, a greater capacity for evil and violence will be passed on if these qualities are more successful.

Jekyll’s confession in the final chapter shows that his evil has “ come out roaring ” as he had been kept from transforming into Hyde for some months. This implies evil is more powerful than the capacity for goodness.

However, he also tells us that Hyde is his “ bravo ”, enjoying the sinful “ pleasures ” Jekyll can experience through him.

Knowing this, we have to ask if he acts as Jekyll’s “bravo” when he kills Carew.

Although Stevenson refuses to tell us, the novel is filled with unspoken homosexuality. It explains the cause of suspected blackmail.

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