Duality of Soul in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
In real life the duality of the soul of man is studied and analyzed as a possibility. People try to investigate the prospect of this facet of human behavior and spend much time trying to determine the ways that a dual personality can affect people. Today's movies and literature deal with the possibility of a good and evil twin residing in the same body, sometimes in varying degrees. This concept first gained great prominence in the fiction work written by Robert Lewis Stevenson in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This story, first published in 1886, utilizes the duality of soul concept through example of one Henry Jekyll, showing in many ways what can and does happen when Jekyll decides to experiment with the aspect of his evil side and bring it to fruition as the character of Edward Hyde. When evil Edward Hyde commits mortal sins far beyond the comprehension of what the devilish side of Henry Jekyll could imagine, he realizes that his good side has become lost to the evil and try as he might, can never regain itself.
The character of Dr Jekyll is portrayed, as the epitome of respectability while Edward Hyde is the opposite of any kind of respectability in the 19th century. The definition of respectability in the era of Jekyll carried the meaning of propriety for decency, the rulers of the earth, dull and full of righteousness a...
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...ivings through it on ones own terms.
Works Cited and Consulted:
Camus, Albert. "The Myth of Sisyphus." Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy. Ed. G. Lee Bowie, Meredith W. Michaels and Robert C. Solomon. 4th ed. Harcourt College Publishers, 2000. 45-49.
Charyn, Jerome. "Who Is Hyde?" Afterword: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Bantam Books. Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1981. 105-114.
Mighall, Dr. Robert. A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction: Mapping History's Nightmares. Oxford University Press, 1999. 166-209.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Bantam Books. Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1981.
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