On page 55 "but from the high views that I had set before me I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame". Dr Jekyll has a high self image that is why he kept the "Hyde" inside himself for a very long time. He knew that he was not living up to his own expectations. Dr Jekyll created Hyde so he could express himself. His society does not allow him to express himself, his irregular desires they were all pushed down. Dr Jekyll can not be responsible for his actions as he tried to hide them but he could not after a long time, these feelings will just explode out if you keep on thinking about them.
Dr Jekyll is a doctor that is how he produced the potion to separate himself and Mr Hyde. It was his decision to take the potion; he went out and brought all the salts. Dr Jekyll created Hyde, because he didn’t want to live like this anymore, he wanted to be able to express himself but without society knowing who he is then society will not be able to recognise him therefore they won’t judge him. Dr Jekyll is responsible for letting Mr Hyde out but he is not responsible for the crimes Mr Hyde commits.
One way which Stevenson blurs the distinction between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is that they have the same handwriting. On page 29 " the two hands are in many points identical, only differently sloped". Here it proves that they have similar handwriting but they are a bit different as Dr Jekyll knows what Hyde is doing but he still allows Hyde to slope it in a different way. Dr Jekyll has made another handwriting style for Hyde as he knows society will know that it is him if he keeps the handwriting exactly the same but by slanting it they may not be able to recognise it. Dr Jekyll is not considered responsible for Hyde’s crimes here.
Dr Jekyll writes “but this danger was easily eliminated from the future by opening an account at another bank in the name of Edward Hyde himself and when by sloping my own hand backward I had supplied my double with a signature". Dr Jekyll was totally aware of that situation, he knew what he was doing and he could have prevented this from happening but he didn’t. He still was afraid of what would happen if society found out it was him, so by supplying Hyde with another bank account may make people realise that they are two different people.
On page 63 “My two natures had memory in common". Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde have memory in common; they know when each other are doing what they are doing. Stevenson has made the outside of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde different but the inside is the same. Dr Jekyll is responsible for changing the outside of himself into Hyde but they are still the same person inside. Mr Hyde does not know the limitations so he can not be blamed. Dr Jekyll does know of the limitations, but he can’t be held responsible for his actions as only society pushes him to do so, therefore Hyde can’t be responsible either.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the same person but they make different decisions. They both knew what they were doing. Dr Jekyll would have never killed that man, seeing as he is a coward but Hyde is not and so he made the decision to kill him and he did. When Hyde has killed that man he turns right back into Jekyll. Mr Hyde is immoral though, he is just acting upon the feelings that Dr Jekyll has made him do. But society has made Dr Jekyll make these decisions. “The seal of our profession", Hyde thinks that they are the same person as Hyde does what Dr Jekyll is telling him to do. They make different decisions but what pushes them to make these types of decisions, society.
In the beginning Dr Jekyll liked the separation he was enjoying it very much. He liked exploring Hyde and seeing what decisions he is going to take, as Dr Jekyll would never make those types of decisions. "I was radically both" page 56, meaning that that he is only one of the people but he is both, exactly both. He then didn’t like the separation after a while because he was becoming weaker and weaker and Hyde was becoming stronger and stronger. Dr Jekyll was just finding it a lot easier to express himself in the body of Hyde that’s is why he did not stop taking the potion, even though he might have hated what he did when he was in Hyde’s body. When you can not do something you are more eager to do that. As society did not allow any type of wrong behaviour he that made Dr Jekyll want to do it even more. Dr Jekyll can not be held responsible for Hyde’s actions.
On page 62 "I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worst". Dr Jekyll hates what he is becoming into but he knows he is. On page 68-9 "The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the hate that now divided them was equal on each side". Dr Jekyll is having a problem accepting the evil side of him. He does not want to compromise anymore between good and evil as he has been doing so, he is fed up with it; he thinks he has to choose. The only reason he wants to choose is that he wants to think only one way now and now he is not afraid of showing Hyde to the world as Hyde has got more confident over time. He wants to believe that he should not turn into Hyde anymore but then he knows that he will because of all the temptations to. He wants to show society one side of him, he does not want to keep changing his mind about what he is going to do. He doesn’t know whether he should or should not listen to what society I telling him to do.
Stevenson has made this story like a case. It is as if we are the jurors and throughout the whole story we get to see the evidence. We do not hear from Mr Hyde as Stevenson wants us to make our own conclusion to the case after seeing all the evidence. "I was in a position to judge of its importance" he is inviting us to judge and he keeps on inviting us to judge throughout the whole story.
Dr Jekyll can not be responsible for Mr Hyde’s crimes. Society pushed him to do this. Dr Jekyll has tried to fool the society, by slanting his hand in a different way and changing his appearance that it is a different person who is doing all those crimes but it isn’t it is him, he is only changing what people see but his memory is still the same. But he can not be held responsible for the crimes. Society has pushed Hyde to go out late at night in the wrong part of town, and it has pushed him to kill a girl. Dr Jekyll can not be responsible for Mr Hyde’s crimes as he is not responsible himself.
