Jekyll and Hyde double personality

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In what ways does Robert Louis Stevenson explore the concept of duality in

‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’?

By Nadine Esaid

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was published in 1886 and is one of the best known of Stevensons novels. It is thought to be an example of a ‘supernatural fiction’; this is when one of the characters goes against the laws of nature. The main themes are usually good and evil, hate and love. One of the characters tries to change from one state to another and this usually amuses the reader because in some way it creates tension, excitement, pity and terror as the characters struggle to change back to their normal natural self. Stevenson explores duality in a significant number of ways; through speech, characters, setting and through society. The book was written during the reign of Queen Victoria. At this time, England was just industrialising and becoming powerful in both literature and technology. The people of the Victorian England were so vulnerable because they were forced to believe in Christianity and almost everyone practised it. They also believed that there was God and Satan. This encouraged writers to write horror novels. Most horror novels used to scare the Victorian readers because they used to have a character that opposed the readers believe or human nature like in this case, Hyde. In this novella, there are major setting factors which show the real life boundaries which occur in real cities with different classes and cultures. At the time this was written, many cities had large boundaries; the one that would have been most obvious to Stevenson would be the two sides of Edinburgh, where he grew up and wrote the story. Growing up in the Victorian era, Stevenson had a very strict, repressed upbringing. He was born into a Presbyterian way of life, and was taught the values of the belief by his families nurse; this meant that he was taught to believe the bible and nothing that contradicts it. He was also taught to respect the rich, and frown upon the poor. This often came natural to Victorian society, there was either an upper class or a lower class, and nobody would dare say that these two could clash, as reputation was everything.  The side where the rich people lived with high class, posh reputations and then there is the lower class side which is dirty, dark and dingy. This is how rebellious temptations are involved. Instead of following his usual upbringing, Stevenson hangs around the opposite places he would normally have to be in. This just proves to how even the author himslef, had a dual life. However in the book, the two places are Soho and Cavendish square, which are both in London. This is further represented in with the posh house of Jekyll that is juxtaposed to the dirty slum in Soho where Hyde lives. These influences are shown in Stevensons work in the way he writes it and how relevant Stevenson's life is to the book.

The most obvious way Stevenson explores duality is through the characters of Jekyll and Hyde.  Dr Jekyll is portrayed at the beginning of the book as a social person and gives pleasant dinners. This shows Jekyll is an entertainer and likes the company of others. However, later in the book, he becomes reclusive and the reader begins to guess that something is not right with Jekyll. Jekyll is a scientist and focuses on the concept of duality. He thinks that every living creature including humans has two sides; good and evil. He thinks he can control these two sides with a potion, which will bring out the side the person, or creature does not usually show. He invented the postion specifically to separate his darker side from his good side, although drinking it caused him "severe pain" he still felt "younger, lighter, happier in body" and "an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul". When he is Jekyll, he has a very high reputation, firstly, by fulfilling the acts of being a doctor and secondly that he is a highly respected person in society and by changing into Hyde, he feels like a burden has been lifted off his shoulder and he has nothing to feel cause for concern for so thats what makes him feel "lighter". Jekyll ends up fixated with the concept of duality and becoming Hyde.  This could also be linked to Stevenson’s own life, as he himself, experienced this Dual Nature, being an honest and innocent boy by day then sneaking off at night. In this instance, by day Stevenson is Jekyll and by night he is Hyde. Describing the heartlessness of Hyde he uses the characteristics of animals, mainly the primate, to show how brutal and careless he is. Stevenson, later in the book gives significant quotes which prove that man is truly two. “These polar twins should be continuously struggling” The polar twins is cleverly used and the two poles (Arctic and Antarctic) are on two different sides of the world, in two different hemispheres of the earth. This could be that the poles are so far apart, but similar in climate, so closer than they might think, as is the case for the two sides of Jekyll, and each is struggling to gain power over the other.

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There are many differences between Jekyll and Hyde one of them being appearance. Jekyll is described as “a well-made, smooth faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast” perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness. When Jekyll is described as, slyish this could link to his concept of duality and this is the slightest mark of his evil side. Also with the fact that he kept Hyde hidden from the world makes him seem even slyer. In contrast, Hyde is described as “pale and dwarfish; he gave an impression of deformity without any malfunction with a sort of ...

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