Man is not truly one, but truly two. Show how Stevenson explores this idea in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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‘man is not truly one, but truly two.’

Show how Stevenson explores this idea in

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

        The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an extraordinary book that explains the human nature in a fatal way; it demonstrates how a person can possess two extreme faces. It is written by a Scottish writer, Robert Louis Stevenson, which then leads us to wonder why he didn’t set the background as somewhere in Scotland but as London. However, as you get into the story you realize why he chose London. Carefully, the distinct division between the rich and poor is created as the atmosphere of this book; in fact, how the book describes London is how the real Edinburgh was in early nineteenth-century: two sided. Edinburgh was where Stevenson grew up; it is assumed that Stevenson himself lived a two faced life by jumping from one side of the city, rich to the other, poor. Stevenson portrayed the house of Dr. Jekyll in the book based on the building that lived a surgeon called John Hunter, who surprisingly has lots of similarities with Dr. Jekyll. The building has two sides and the surgeon also had two sides. As my list goes on, you will realize how I am talking about how everything has two different faces. Therefore, the story, in an unexplainable way, is not far from real life: everyone, or in fact, every single “thing” in the world is capable of having two faces. Although the readers do not find out Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the same person until the very end of the book, afterwards they realize the author had given lots of hints throughout.

        Mr. Utterson is a lawyer and a long friend of Dr. Jekyll. He received a will from this friend, Jekyll which said that Jekyll is leaving all his assets to Mr. Hyde if he dies or disappears for more than 3 months. Mr. Utterson got very disturbed by this testament especially having heard about Mr. Hyde from his cousin, Mr. Enfield. The story stated Mr. Hyde had chased and trampled over a small innocent girl; Mr. Enfield described the scene as a sight ‘hellish to see.’ This will that Mr. Utterson received, perhaps, was the first hint to the readers that there is an absurd relationship between the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When they do find out this bizarre fact, the readers then wonder if that meant that Dr. Jekyll already knew that Mr. Hyde will overrule him someday, because if he did why would he had even started the experiment? The most adequate answer we can gain is that people have no limitation to wanting to know more: Dr. Jekyll risked his life to find out more about human nature. This links back to my first point about John Hunter. He was a surgeon who was keen to find out more about how people’s body worked; he paid people to illegally steal dead bodies from tomb for his dissection experiment. Interestingly, Hunter was a very nice and charitable gentleman who was praised by the public during the day for his intelligence which he had gained through the illegal experiments.

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Confused Mr. Utterson visited another old friend of Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Lanyon, to ask about Mr. Hyde. However, failed to gain more information of this but instead received a comment that Dr. Jekyll was getting involved in ‘unscientific balderdash’ as Dr. Lanyon portrayed. Of course, as the readers know, this was to become a totally different creature: Mr. Hyde, the murderer. This gives no wonder why Dr. Jekyll was forging for Mr. Hyde after the crime later.

Impatient as the time passed, Mr. Utterson hunted after Mr. Hyde himself. After few days of effort, Mr. Utterson finally caught Hyde going ...

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