The phrase ‘lower elements’ can also be applied to another revolutionary thinker at that time: Darwin. Maybe Hyde was lower on the evolutionary scale than Jekyll, or anyone else: he was shorter; he stooped; he was hairy and he had little or no regard for other people, morals or civilised behaviour.
Stevenson though was questioning the morality of pitting science against nature. He thought that the boundaries of science were being pushed back and back and that we should stop. This view could have been picked up from his Scottish Presbyterian upbringing.
Something else hinted at is the question of the characters’ sexuality: why do none of the characters have wives? Where was Mr. Enfield coming back from ‘about three o’clock of a black winter morning?’ Could some or all of the characters have a dark secret concerning their sexuality? In 1885 a law was passed called the blackmailer’s charter: it outlawed any sexual act between males. Blackmailers were men who found out about a respected public figure’s sexual preference then threatened to expose him. Mr. Utterson thought that Jekyll had an ‘unnatural relationship’ with a young man who is not his son and that he was being blackmailed: ‘I thought it was madness, and now I begin to fear it is disgrace’. What is this disgrace?
Stevenson also explores the ongoing conflict between good and evil: clearly Jekyll is good and Hyde is evil. Stevenson saw clear differences between good and evil but saw them in every person as ‘incongruous faggots that were thus bound together – that in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be constantly struggling.’ Dr. Jekyll tried to find a way to separate the two parts of man. But, If he created the evil part (Hyde) surely Jekyll after taking the potion to turn into Hyde would be all good: If he was all good then he would not take the potion to turn himself into an all evil person because he knew that he could cause harm to others.
I think that it is flawed to call someone all evil or all good, there is a question of where the ideas of good and evil come from, we are told that something is good or evil, we pick it up from society. Some people say that the ideas of good and evil come from God or the church: if the church or society thought that it was good to kill people and evil to save their lives would it be? I think that morality is entirely subjective.
It is hard to find an all good or an all evil person. One might use Hitler as an obvious example of a pure evil person but Hitler thought that he was doing the world a favour by ridding the world of Jews. No doubt I think that killing 12,000,000 people was wrong and I think that it was an evil deed. Hitler didn’t think that it was evil. And I think that if someone does not think they are doing something evil then they are not an all evil person.
God himself is supposed to be omnibenevolent as well as being omnipotent and omniscient but you could argue that even he could not be all good. If he knew exactly what would happen with Hitler, to be really good, he should have given Hitler Leukaemia as a child. If he did do that though, it could be seen as evil: in this way, it is hard to classify good and evil.
In Victorian times however, good and evil were clearly defined: this was partly due to the strength of the church which has clear ideas of good and evil. A Christian paper saw Jekyll and Hyde as ‘an allegory based on the two-fold nature of man, a truth taught us by the Apostle Paul in Romans 7.’
Good and evil was a main theme in the gothic genre that was popular at this time. When we think of gothic, we think of books like Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Dracula. All of these books share similar features: A liking for the strange, supernatural and magical; psychological insights especially into sexuality, fear and insecurity; Representation of fear and horror and overt symbolism.
All of these books are thought to be well known by most people although any real knowledge of the story is less common, most people have heard of the films made out of the books. I didn’t know the story of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde: I thought that they were two separate people, but I found out before I started reading it. When The Strange case was first published in 1886, people did not have any ideas or misconceptions of the book picked up from televised adaptations and adverts. 8 of the 10 chapters are written like a detective story, gradually revealing small bits of information. I think that to properly enjoy this book, even though it is by such an enduring novelist as Stevenson, you have to put yourself in the perspective of the intended audience.
Although Stevenson hints at a lot of different things or we can see parallels with many other concepts, really this is a book with two main themes or struggles: good versus evil; and science versus nature. These are two quite ordinary subjects for stories. Maybe the book does raise questions about the boundaries science should have but in the end, it draws conclusions that science is overreaching and should stop. This is a rather backward way of looking at science and clearly it hasn’t and the world continues to go round. Good and evil has been the subject of stories since the first ever book of stories: the Bible. This is hardly ‘profoundly allegorical as reviewers said at the time.
