The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

The opening chapter begins a novel that is split into three parts and the atmosphere builds up gradually to one of horror. The basic theme of the novel is the duality between good and evil. The description of the street in the first chapter shows us an example of this them of duality. It is an anonymous street but in it there is a neglected and run-down house. Dr Jekyll’s house stands out among the other houses. The Hyde face of the house is bleak among the well kept houses.

The character of Mr Utterson represents the perfect Victorian gentlemen and although he witnesses horrible events, he is still unexciting character. When he suspects Jekyll of criminal acts he prefers to ignore them so as not to ruin his friend. In Stevenson’s use of this character he shows Victorian society trying to maintain civilisations values over Mans darker side.

Dr Lanyon, once a friend and colleague of Dr Jekyll, is highly respected and values truth and goodness. His use in the book is to make Jekyll’s character mystic and dark. He plays a minor role in the plot but he has significance in that both he and Jekyll are respected and successful but have chosen different paths: Lanyon followed rational science while Jekyll prefers mystical science. He can not deal with the world that Jekyll’s experiments have revealed.

Until the end of the novel the two parts of Dr Jekyll are nothing alike. Dr Jekyll is popular and respectable. Mr Hyde is the complete opposite. Stevenson uses these aspects to make a key point in the novel and that is that every person has conflicting emotions in him. Neither of them is really very interesting but it is the way they inter-react that makes the story successful. Hyde begins to dominate until Jekyll no longer exists. Stevenson seems to be questioning the Victorians’ understanding of human nature and that the individual is really savage and primitive with no moral values, and barely controlled by civilisation. The author uses Jekyll to state “man is not truly one, but truly two” and he sees the human soul as a battle where the angel and the devil fight for control. The potion that he takes succeeds only in allowing the devil to assert himself: it strips away the civilised layer and shows what man is really like. Many aspects of the novel show us the significance of appearances and surfaces which hide something unseemly for example Utterson wants to preserve Jekyll reputation but more importantly to preserve Victorian society’s appearance of order and respectability even when he knows this not to be true.