‘Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde… grasp of conscience… his good qualities seemed unimpaired he would even make haste… to undo the evil done by Hyde’
Evil is part of human nature from when we are born to when we die because when we do something that we feel is right without thinking, we are showing primitive instinct. All humans evolved from apes, which is why humans have the instinct to protect their territory, which can be brutal, bloody and inconsiderate towards other people. This could be the reason why Stevenson describes Hyde as ‘ape-like’. There is a conflict inside us between good and evil and which will win because we have to make these choices. Evil is effective, while good is the right thing. These choices that tear us apart are shown as the two personalities within the same body because Hyde proceeds with his darkest thoughts without the slightest concern of the consequences. So Hyde is almost not fully evolved, ‘ape-like’ and extremely primitive. Hyde is the opposite of Jekyll in every way. Notice how their names are phonetically linked to two completely different images: Jekyll is linked to jackal (a cute furry animal), while Hyde is linked the to word hide (this could symbolise Hyde hiding under the blanket of London, fog and mystery).
The behaviour of My Enfield and Mr Utterson tell us a lot about human nature because they are a living example of how people are really evil, but try to conceal it. In the incident of when Hyde trampled over the girl, Enfield blackmailed Hyde: money in exchange for not blowing the incident out of proportion and handing him over to the police, when Enfield himself had been returning from ‘some place at the end of the world’, a place that would ruin his reputation forever if anyone found out, therefore Enfield had no right to blackmail Hyde. In the Victorian Era reputation was the most important thing for a man, and a man without one was worthless. People were willing to do anything to save their reputation from being shattered.
The behaviour of the minor characters, such as the policeman and the maid, can tell us more than you would expect about the view of human nature that Stevenson presents in his novel. The policeman’s real only motivation for solving the murder of Sir Danvers Carew is for his own glory, as the victim is popular and has a reputation:
‘And the next moment his eye lightened up with professional ambition. ‘This will make a great deal of noise’.’
This shows us that he is hypocritical and that he prefers to solver murders of popular victims than just ordinary people. The maid however, had a cruel and sadistic.
‘A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman’s face. ‘Ah!’ said she, ‘he is in trouble! What has he done?’
Her evil nature is also portrayed in her appearance, but her manners were far more important than how evil she was:
‘She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy: but her manners were excellent.’
Stevenson describes London as being a city of contrasts. The setting and the weather is perfect for a novel about hidden truths and double lives. In the times that this book was set, the industrial revolution was occurring, and this meant a lot o smoke, pollution, disease and crime that are spreading. This was a perfect place to situate a person like and Hyde because he could hide under the blanket of all these escalating problems, and he would hardly be noticed. Another thing that made it gloomy and yet perfect for Stevenson’s purposes was the mixture of fog and smoke, often called ‘smog’, and the maze like streets since in maze-like streets you can get lost, there are many dead-ends, and you are usually alone in mazes. The main reason however, was that nobody cared about anyone else. London is also used as on immense metaphor as the River Thames was used as a dumping ground for among other things human waste, and as it runs through the centre of London, it can symbolise the foul elements within the whole book.
The Victorians were infatuated with death, black, ghosts, mourning and spiritualism, although they did not admit to it and acted as if they were fascinated with fairies and the kind. Death was the influence of ghost stories, which is why books like ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ were published. Jack the Ripper was also dominant then, and he influenced the book about Sherlock Holmes and more crime novels and realistic case studies. One of the founding fathers of spiritualism was Arthur Conan Doyle who was a great writer.
In conclusion: The views of Stevenson on human nature in the book ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ are one of primitiveness, evil and the dark side of human nature. It shows the inner struggle of good and evil, and how dominant evil is no matter how much people try to suppress it.
