Throughout the novel Mr. Utterson is the main character that tells us of Victorian society, he is what you would call a proper Victorian gentleman. It is through Mr. Utterson that we gain an idea that Victorian’s were very strict with themselves, “he drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages”. Meaning he liked to drink fine wine but did not want to over indulge. Utterson also enjoyed the theatre but he has “never crossed the doors of one for twenty years”. Victorian gentlemen would usually associate with people like themselves and of their own blood, or those whom they have known the longest”.
Stevenson used science as a base of his novel to suggest duality in human nature. In the same period as the novel was set Charles Darwin, a scientist had suggested that humans had evolved from apes. Stevenson portrays this with his description of the “animalistic” features of Hyde. Stevenson says ‘has Jekyll become the “ape-like” Hyde, who moves “like a monkey”? It’s as Jekyll is evolving backwards’.
Duality is an integral part of psychology and is explored in great depth within the novel. Stevenson, in the novel, explores the possibility of divisions within the mind. His idea later foreshadowed investigations as science began to probe the human mind (Freud’s theory). At the time the story was written, there was increasing anxiety about drugs. Jekyll begins with an experiment and ends up reliant on his potion. In Victorian time women were regarded as second-class citizens and it was a time of sexual repression, which is why there are no female protagonists in the novel. In the novel Stevenson refers to women as “wild as harpies”.
Robert Louis Stevenson explores the dual nature of Victorian men, and his link with an age of hypocrisy. The novel lights-up a path for us to explore and understand Victorian hypocrisy and confirms that the desire for infallibility can be lethal. This leads, one to wonder who is a hypocrite. The most obvious example of a hypocrite in the novel is that of Dr. Jekyll. In his early life Jekyll says he was “fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellow men and thus, as might have supposed with every guarantee of a honourable and distinguished future”. Meaning that he was fond of how the wise were respected in society and he too wanted to be one of the wise and respected men of society. But “the worst of my faults was a certain inpatient gaiety of disposition”. Meaning that his worst problem was he enjoyed the nightlife too much. So before he even finished his studies he had split personality, which he kept to himself. I quote “Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection and began to look around me, and take stock of my pleasures and position in this world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life”. It is from here Dr. Jekyll got his idea of making the potion, he says, “ man is not truly one, but truly two [and] I had learnt to dwell with pleasure” “on the thought of the separation of these elements”. “[If only good and bad sides could] be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable”. This was a typical thought of a Victorian man; most were living in what we call today ‘double standards’. Dr. Jekyll wanted to find a way to separate the two. One other reason he wanted to do this is to gain fame and popularity, as he had wanted to be respected, like the wise. Stevenson says Jekyll’s hypocrisy “let out the beast Hyde… who is the essence of cruelty and malice and selfishness”.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the characters from which we understand the duality between good versus evil and the dual nature of human beings. Both of them are constantly striving to survive in society without their other half but they soon find out that they are dependent on the other half to hide their true nature from society. One wonders to himself or herself was Dr. Jekyll an evil person; for all human beings are commingled out of good and evil, which makes one wonder what happened to Jekyll’s good side at the end of the novel or was his inner passion full of pure evil for which it reinforces the thought of Dr. Jekyll being a hypocrite. In the novel Dr. Jekyll is described as “a large, well, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a stylish cast perhaps.” Whereas the first description we get of Mr. Hyde is “ he was small, very plainly dressed, and the look of him, even at the distance, went somehow against the watchers inclination.” The difference between their personalities can clearly be seen from these quotations but then one has to remember that these two people were infact one person so this proves that people have two sides to them and so therefore the co-existence of the two is the only way two survive in this world. Hyde is described as small because he has just been born (created) so he is still a baby and so is plainly dressed. Because he is not fully evolved he is only half of a person, his description is beyond imagination. In the opening chapter Mr. Enfield responding to a question asked my Mr. Utterson says, “he [Hyde] is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance”. “I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scare know why.” Stevenson makes Hyde seem less than a fully evolved human, more akin to animals than the rest of mankind, with imagery as the “hissing intake of the breath” emphasises Hyde’s animality.
Making a child the first Victim of Hyde’s cruelty emphasizes the moral awfulness of his behaviour from the beginning. The readers see him trampling over a small girl in the mystic silence of the night. The incident sets the tone of the story and the readers are now accustomed to Mr.Hyde as being “wholly evil.” He bears “satan's signature” retains a “black sneering coolness” in spite of the dilemma he has caused. He is so much hated from the very first description that we get of him; that Mr.Enfield says “…gave me one look, so ugly that it bought out the sweat on me”. This shows that Mr.Hyde looked so horrible that it made people sweat with fear as to what he mite do after all he is described as “damned juggernaut”
His character is reminiscent of the devil as clearly shown by Mr.Enfield “really like Satan” but then one wonders if he is described as like Satan early in the novel why does he have good attributes to him? Maybe because in Hyde you have Jekyll but in Jekyll you have no Hyde. But that cannot be the case; later on in the novel Mr. Hyde ruthlessly murders Sir Danvers Carew an M.P. So I leave you to answer the question of whom Hyde really is, not even the characters in the novel can describe Hyde; all they are sure of is “the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.” This Mr.Hyde seems to have a thing with trampling, first the incident with the girl and then the murder of Sir Danvers Carew this shows that Hyde will go to any extent to satisfy his malice. It was a crime of “singular ferocity”. It is interesting to note the description Stevenson gives of Mr.Hyde “with ape-like fury” in contrast with the Victorian era it could suggest that Hyde’s body has been repossessed by the devil. Hyde is described as “Murderous mixture of timidity” suggesting he is trying to hide something terrible he has done. The name Hyde itself is puns as it is pronounced hide which is exactly what he is doing under the veil of respectability-hiding his actions and himself from society. As Mr.Utterson ironically jokes, “if he be Mr.Hyde I shall be Mr. Seek” This is ironic in the sense that the whole story evolves around a suspenseful hide and seek game between Utterson and Hyde.
The fight for conscience that is going on between Jekyll and Hyde is about control and lack of control. First Jekyll seems to be in control but later Hyde is in possession of the whole body. When Jekyll says “ the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde” it is unfortunately a misconception because Jekyll realises that Hyde has become a negative influence over his life, he decides to never be Hyde again but later he falls to the “assaults of temptation.” Which means that he made a potion for him to get rid of his evil side but that evil made him addicted to the potion so therefore making the evil within him grow, mentally and physically, and that very evil wiped out the very existence of Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll tries to undo Hyde’s actions whenever possible and as the plot progresses Dr.Jekyll begins to become more separated from Hyde. He is no more able to undo Hyde’s atrocities as they become bolder and more vicious each time. After the Murder of Sir Danvers Carew Jekyll vows to disassociate himself from Hyde. He is successful for two months in which he prays to God gives charity and does social work but that was not to last. He was tortured with Hyde’s longing and in an “hour of moral weakness” took the potion. The evil became so strong that to transform into Hyde he needn’t no anything but to transform back into Jekyll he needed to take double amounts of the potion. Jekyll’s conscience is making him anxious and petrified as he thinks what will happen if the society that he lives in finds out that he is Hyde, his conscience is so strong that he says, “ Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? Or will he find the courage to release himself at the last moment?” and eventually he says, “This is my true hour of death” and commits suicide. So you can see that if you give evil a chance it will give you grief; the consequences are going to be lethal and you will suffer both physically “a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death” and mentally “I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom.”
So far we have come to believe that it is only Dr.Jekyll who has a dual personality but that is wrong Mr.Utterson, the lawyer also has elements of duality and hypocrisy in him. Utterson’s job is to keep peoples wills and not comment and refuse them for personal reasons and dislike. But Mr.Utterson goes out of his way and becomes curious. He Dislikes Jekyll’s Will and when he hears about the trampling of the girl he becomes obsessed with the character of Mr.Hyde; he sets himself a mission to find Hyde. This shows that Mr.Utterson is a hypocrite; in the eyes of society he is a lawyer but we now know that he has more shades to his character. His obsession in finding this character is so great that it leads him to lurk in the dark streets, which Mr.Hyde sometimes visits. And when “six o’clock struck on the bells of the church… he was still digging at the problem.” This is an indication of the duality of his character; would “men of high social status” visit areas such as Soho in the silence of the night?
Later on in the novel, when Dr. Lanyon is deceased and has left a letter for Mr.Utterson not to be opened “until the death or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll”, Mr.Utterson is tempted “to disregard the prohibition” illustrating the omnipresence of duality within all character. Utterson is also very worried about Jekyll’s relationship with Hyde; he thinks that Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll. He looks for something in Hyde’s past so that he can help his friend but he finds nothing. Even though he suspects that Jekyll is hiding Hyde he does not say anything because part of being his friend is to help him out not to get him in trouble.
Coming to a conclusion using today’s modern science we can class Dr.Jekyll’s personality as a multiple personality disorder. In Dr. Jekyll’s confession, Stevenson succinctly summarises, “man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multi-farious, incongruous and independent denizens.” Stevenson does not indicate any-type of re-formation devices to rid evil from good in a dual personality. Does this indicate that a device is non-existing for a complete re-formation from one complete state to another? Henceforth it is pointless to say the least have any system of re-formation would clearly not work/particularly as the novel denotes that evil and good is a natural disposition/make-up of a human being. In theory, one cannot live without the other, because in the end when Jekyll kills himself, Hyde also has to die with him.
