Stevenson was concerned to highlight the dual nature of man’s personality because he was living in a Victorian society which was deeply hypocritical. The Victorians prided themselves on being respectable, but many ‘upright’ citizens were living a double life. During the Victorian period there was much Gothic Literature and fiction, these features included terror, mystery, the supernatural, ghosts, haunted houses and Gothic architecture, castles, darkness, death, decay, doubles, madness, secrets and hereditary curses. Also, during Stevenson’s time, Charles Darwin’s revolutionary book On the Origin of the Species was published in 1859 and had a tremendous effect on the popular mindset. Victorians were shocked that they could be descended from apes and afraid to admit they might be capable of behaving like animals, Stevenson uses this information to show the dual nature of man’s personality being that they know it’s true but don’t want to hear it, or make it exist.
In the novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde the character Dr Jekyll is seen to be a respectable man of good origins, however something wasn’t right about him from the start, Stevenson shows this by saying in the description of Jekyll ‘ A large, well-made, smooth faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps’ upon reading this quote we can pick out that Jekyll was not as he first seemed as the starting descriptions says, ‘a well-made, smooth faced man of fifty’ showing that he is good man and has a respectable character as well. However, the ending of the quote show a complete and utter contradiction as it says ‘ with something of a slyish cast perhaps’ showing that the reader should not just base their assumptions on looks and thus not to ‘judge a book by its cover.’
In the novella, in the chapter Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement, Jekyll felt that to lose Hyde forever he had to always take this potion and be Jekyll, Stevenson shows that Jekyll would want to be himself as he says, ‘Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other.’ This quote shows the reason for why Jekyll wanted to make that potion as, when it says ‘even as good shone upon the countenance of the one’ it shows that the ‘good’ was in fact Jekyll however as he wanted a dual personality in the first place he couldn’t really be seen as good more of an estranged being.
The language and imagery used by Stevenson is very effective, especially when describing both Jekyll and Hyde. Firstly when describing Jekyll, Stevenson uses various techniques when describing him as when he says ‘a large, well-made, smooth faced man of fifty’ an image immediately jumps to the reader’s head of a man who looks handsome and respectable, this shows that Jekyll was a man who was a high figure in society. Although Jekyll is a man who is fine-looking, he has a peculiar character on him as this quote shows, ‘the large handsome face of Dr Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes.’ Stevenson put this quote in to show the other side to Jekyll as well and also show a sinister side to him.
To describe the other major character known as Edward Hyde, or Mr Hyde for short, Stevenson describes his appearance and his physique to create an effect to the reader, for example when he says ‘Mr Hyde was pale and dwarfish; he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile.’ This shows a very thorough description of Hyde and uses an effective metaphor when he says, ‘he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation’ this quote’s exact meaning is that the deformity in Hyde’s body is there but the speaker can’t pick it out. Another way that Stevenson describes Hyde is by using an oxymoron, this being ‘with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness.’ This shows what his character seems like just from his body and initial appearance. Also this oxymoron makes a dramatic effect on the reader as first they see Hyde to be a crazy, villainous person but then when they see this quote it shows he has a calm side to him as well, meaning this ‘calm side’ is actually Jekyll in the dual personality.
This language used to describe both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has a very contrasting nature even though the personalities are both from the same person. There are major differences in both Jekyll and Hyde, firstly Jekyll is described to be a large, well made man however Hyde is pale and dwarfish, these differences throw away any assumptions of them both being the same person at the start. Also the dual nature is shown as both the personalities are varied hugely, as Jekyll is a respectable and highly regarded gentleman in society but on the other hand Hyde is seen to be a criminal who is a murderer as well.
In The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, it is too simplistic to view Hyde as evil and Jekyll as good because from the novella we can see that they have two sides to their character. The first reason for why Jekyll isn’t all good, is because if he was good then why would he was a split personality with one side being good and the other side a villain and a doer of evil deeds? Also another reason for why Jekyll isn’t all good is because as Stevenson wrote ‘The large handsome face of Dr Jekyll grew pale to the very lips and there came a blackness about his eyes.’ This shows that when Utterson talks to Jekyll about who Hyde is and why he left a large sum of money to him it shows a darker side to his jolly life with a more menacing outlook. However it’s too simple to view Jekyll as good and Hyde as bad because there are more sides to the story about them and they all have different outcomes.
Furthermore, Stevenson was so concerned with getting his message across that he also highlighted the theme of duality in a number of other characters in the novella. A character in the novella which hints to duality when Stevenson describes them is Mr Hyde’s maid; Stevenson says ‘An ivory-faced and silvery haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy but her manners were excellent.’ To show duality in this character Stevenson intuitively used adjectives to describe her, also when it says ‘She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy but her manners were excellent’ it means that even though she was evil her manners were a complete opposite and thus Stevenson had created a dual nature in a character. Another character that Stevenson interpreted duality in was Mr Utterson in the very start of the novella, the author says ‘a man of rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow loveable’ this show a physical description of him with mental aspects of his description as well. This is shown in the part ‘lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow loveable’ it shows a dual nature of his character and so Stevenson has put this in just to show that everyone has two sides to them.
The structure of the novella is very unique as the first chapters are mostly all background information about the two people and how their lives are affected by each other, but the last two chapters are the most significant, with the first showing the reader the major storyline and question being who is Jekyll and who is Hyde and why do they know each other? However, these questions are answered in the final chapter by the man himself Dr Jekyll. It shows the dual nature in both.
To conclude, R. L. Stevenson conveys the dual nature of man’s personality in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by using ideas about the differences of both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, also with their differences in appearance with Hyde being small and dwarfish and Jekyll being ‘upright’ and respectable. Another way in which he conveys dual nature in a man’s personality is when he shows that all the different characters within the novella have ideas in them showing that they too have a theme of duality and lastly Stevenson’s moral message is that every person in the world has a dual nature however good someone is there must be once in their life that they have sinned.