Theme Of Good And Evil In Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

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Recommended: Deconstruction reading of the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde

Kassidy Bartley
Mrs. Enright
Horror stories A5
November 8th, 2017

Good and Evil in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Yin and yang are the symbols of good and evil, yin- the black, is associated with darkness, or in other words, evil. Yang, the white, is associated with light, or the good in people. Neither can exist without the other or they would be off balance. In the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, yin and yang is especially relevant. Dr. Jekyll makes a potion to turn himself into Mr. Hyde in order to see if it can make a person entirely evil or entirely good. Every time Dr. Jekyll uses this potion to turn into Mr. Hyde he feels a bit of himself slip away a bit more. Dr. Jekyll makes this potion himself just as he does …show more content…

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is good versus evil, keep in mind that both evilness and good exist in each individual. This is proven when Dr. Jekyll explains his reasoning towards taking his own life, “I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man . . . if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.” (Stevenson 74) This quote is from his final letter, in the letter Dr. Jekyll is saying that a person cannot be simply evil or good, they must be both; and he knows this himself. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, man versus self is the main visible conflict. This is evident when Dr. Jekyll explains, “At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde.” (Stevenson 79) Dr. Jekyll is saying that repressing his evil side, Mr. Hyde; was just making Mr. Hyde more ambitious and alert. This connects back to the thesis of good and evil not being different from each other in nature, but instead are intertwined with each other. That Dr. Jekyll is good, and Mr. Hyde is definitely a villain, both cannot exist without the other; and it is impossible for someone to be completely good without some evil in …show more content…

Dr. Jekyll is good, however Mr. Hyde is evil, one cannot exist without the other; it is impossible for someone to be completely good without some evil in themself. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are both symbols of yin and yang; they cannot exist without the other. Therefore, to get rid of Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll must kill himself, which would also kill Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novel that shows that good and evil cannot coexist. The readers were given a novel about a doctor who wanted to make a person entirely evil or good, and can seen the results of that when ending the book. It is impossible for a person to exist without the other without destroying balance in a human being. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are both the symbols of yin and yang, or lightness and darkness, therefore, they cannot be separated, because good nor evil should be existent without the

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