"With Close reference to the text discover the nature of good and evil and duality of a person's nature in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

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21/03/04

Nicole Saunders

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

“With Close reference to the text discover the nature of good and evil and duality of a person’s nature in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Dictionary definition of Duality: Being twofold. The theory that in any domain of reality there are two independent under laying principles, e.g. mind and matter, form and content. The theory, that the forces of good and evil are equally balanced in the universe.

We are first introduced to Mr Hyde in a story told by Mr Enfield to Mr Utterson, a lawyer. Mr Enfield tells a strange story connected with a door that is in a bright little street in a dingy part of London. The door belongs to a sombre Building at one end of this street. Very early one morning Mr Enfield had passed this place. He saw a strange man, who we later find out to be Mr Hyde, collide with a young girl and knock her over. Instead of stopping he trampled on her and kept going. Mr Enfield had stopped him and the child’s parents arrived with the doctor. The people present decided to force the man to pay compensation to the child’s parents; he agreed and went through the grimy door to the sombre building. He returned with cash and cheque, but, he was obviously not trusted instantly as the cheque had been signed by another person. This to me was the first indication that there was something odd about Mr Hyde. We are first introduced to Dr Jekyll in the same story. Mr Enfield tells Mr Utterson that the name on the cheque was of a good honest man: Dr Jekyll, and he comes to the conclusion that Hyde must be blackmailing Jekyll.

We are introduced to the clear definition of good and evil in this story, it also indicates the truth about society in the 19th century. There were strict codes of conduct in those days. Respectable men sleeping around, having many mistresses, lurking in back allies, trampling children in dingy parts of town, this was unheard of at the time. It doesn’t mean to say that it didn’t go on, in fact it was more common than it is now. All of this happened under pretence; the men put on false faces and let their reputation go before them to disguise what happened on the inside. Just like the way Dr Jekyll discovered his face, quite literally, he found a way that he could easily get away with these unrespectable, down grading things. At first he hated it, but then he became addicted to it and he started to love it.

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Utterson then discovers in a strange Will made by Dr Jekyll that stated everything was to be left to Mr Hyde in the event of the doctor’s death or disappearance for more than three months. Later on in the story, as the mystery behind Jekyll and Hyde is starting to unravel, we see that when Dr Jekyll made this Will he still didn’t know what life he wanted to lead; a life of no conscience, Prostitutes, drunken pleasures and darkness or a life of Morals, good reputations, a conscience and principles.

Robert Lewis Stevenson was pointing out two facts: ...

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