Can Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde be seen as a commentary on Victorian Society?

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Celine Mulrean

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Can Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde be seen as a commentary on Victorian Society?

In the Victorian times of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, keeping an impeccable image and social profile is of great concern to upper middle-class professionals. But behind the strict rules of their society lie desire, temptation and curiosity. Robert Louis Stevenson focuses on three professionals, two doctors and a lawyer, who are representative of this contradictory aspect of Victorian society. They both value the façade of a proper life and have a secret side that contradicts it.

        Doctor Jekyll can be seen as portraying a victim of desire. He is a wealthy, successful and well-liked doctor, describing himself as “fond of the respect of the wise and good among [his] fellowmen”. Yet those qualities set aside, he is consumed by a darker, more evil side. Though he craves to set it loose, he is embarrassed by it and feels the need to hide it: ”Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded them with an almost morbid sense of shame”. The pressure that Jekyll endures to adapt to the rules of society and therefore to suppress his desires and evil impulses provokes the decision to split his contradictory sides in two, thus to create a separate Hyde to embody the negative elements.   He hopes this will allow him to appear to follow a righteous path, while allowing Hyde and therefore his more unacceptable impulses to also be freed: “If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure”.

        “Separated” from Hyde, we see that Jekyll has actually become the victim and lost control. Jekyll is repulsed by Hyde and admits he is “pure evil”. When Hyde dominates, however, Jekyll asserts he is “conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome”. Even when Jekyll attempts to suppress Hyde completely, Stevenson depicts him as the weak link: his inner demon tempts him and drags him back to falling into desire. Hyde becomes uncontrollable, as evil is, and eventually comes to permanently replace Jekyll.  

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        Stevenson uses Edward Hyde to convey a range of ideas about the nature and power of evil as well as about our response to it. Hyde raises a fear and deep repulsion in other people, as seen in Enfield’s story of the door. “I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight” Enfield claims, suggesting that Hyde’s mere physical appearance brings out the worst in people.  Hyde, as asserted by Jekyll, is purely evil and is constantly compared to Satan or a primitive creature. He is described by Jekyll as having “ape-like spite” and by Enfield as ...

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