The Divided Nature of Human Personality in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1123 Words3 Pages

How does Stevenson explore the Divided Nature of Human personality abd

Victorian Society in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Hyde?

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a Gothic Horror story

written by Robert Louis Stevenson in the 19th Victorian Century. The

story is told from the point of view of John Utterson, a lawyer and

friend to the brilliant scientist, Dr. Henry Jekyll. After relating a

disturbing tale of an angry fiend assaulting a small girl, Utterson

begins to question the odd behaviour of his friend. As he investigates

further into the life of Dr. Jekyll he uncovers a story so horrific,

so terrifying, that he can hardly believe it.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel is the simple portrayal of ‘good’ and

‘evil’ and takes the view that each person is born with a combination

of the two, good and evil, and that people tip the balance by their

actions, showing them to society as either ‘good’ or ‘evil’. His

characters, Jekyll and Hyde, are stereotypes of people who are ‘good’

and ‘evil’. The good is the upstanding, friendly doctor (the caring

profession) and the evil is the hunchbacked, hunted murderer.

These two stereotypes combine to create the average man who has the

capacity to be both ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and they have both ‘good’ and

‘evil’ thoughts and emotions. All people have the same emotions, some

good and some bad and, like Hyde, when you follow the evil emotions

like hate, jealousy and revenge, you are considered evil yourself.

Jekyll and Hyde both have these ‘evil’ emotions but what makes Jekyll

‘good’ is that he represses them, Jekyll is driven by reason whereas

Hyde is driven by desire, he’ll do what he wants when he wants.

The basic human emotions that drive people are Love...

... middle of paper ...

...y no one questioned God so the idea

of something happening which isn't controlled by God would be unusual.

I think the main theme in the book is duality - How London is split

(the upper class and lower class - there was no middle class), good

and evil, scientific fact and experimental new ideas.

I'm disappointed with the way the book ends because I think Mr

Utterson should have expressed his opinions since we see the story

through his view even though the book is written as the third person.

Also I think writing everything that hasn't been concluded in one

letter at the end was a way of just trying to finish the book quickly.

Also concluding to my final part of my essay mischief and

selfishness occurs, which gets a gentleman he is Dr Jekyll into a lot

of trouble. If there were more people like him in this world, this

place would be a total disaster.

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