Compare And Contrast Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

“We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the side we choose to act on, that’s who we really are,” Sirius Black. In the book Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson, Jekyll tries to separate himself into two versions- good and evil. This book can be easily put into the category that states good and evil lives in all of us and the struggle we find naturally with the two sides. Jekyll battles the two, until he finds that the evil he found inside him, Mr. Hyde, has become stronger than the good. When Hyde is found dead it shows that there was a weakness in the evil. The question to ask is whether you can separate the two from each other. Other people believe that you can separate the good
and evil inside of you, but you can’t. Many people want to see only the good in people. In the book Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson, the theme is you can not separate the good and the evil in a person. Jekyll explains that there is temptation that makes us want to separate the two, soon learned that the more you use the evil inside you the stronger it will become, and lastly the evil that you are allowing out will soon be who you are.
To begin with, Jekyll is writing to Utterson about when he first realized that a man is not good without evil, or evil without good.
As he discovers that man is not one person, but two. Jekyll believes that if “each could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable, the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspiration and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure” (61). This is what Jekyll believes the world would be if you could separate the two identities. He begins to want to separate the evil from himself and using potion that he created himself he was able to do so. Jekyll knows that he risked death because any drug that could control the fortress of identity, but the temptation he was facing for a discovery took away all his worries. He drank the potion and the evil inside him arose, therefore the birth of Mr. Edward Hyde. After Jekyll sees that he can become Hyde by drinking a potion, he starts to like being able to use his new power. While writing his confession letter to Utterson he continues to explain how he found it humorous at the time, until he finds that his new power does not contain all the good he thought. Jekyll writes, “ It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell into slavery,” (65). When Jekyll writes that his new power tempted him into slavery, he starts to realize that
trying to separate the good and the evil within you will start with temptation and continue with temptation. Jekyll has been becoming Hyde for a while now and the evil inside him was becoming stronger than he wanted. He was not able to control his evil side of himself. This side of him wanted to be out so badly that Jekyll didn’t even have a choice. Jekyll recorded that he “had gone to bed Henry Jekyll and had awakened Edward Hyde,” (68). Jekyll was surprised about what had happened, he could not explain. The temptation of wanting to separate the good from the evil only ended in temptation.
Next, when Jekyll first drinks the potion, he notices that the evil inside him was slightly smaller than his normal body. Jekyll notes that, “the evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed,” (64)
This explains that Jekyll knows that the evil inside him was more weak than the good that he just put away because he chooses to live his life doing good. As Jekyll keeps putting away the good inside him for the evil, the evil inside him becomes stronger. He does things that he never would have thought he was capable of doing. Jekyll records a time when he had said his guilty pleasures were undignified, “but in the hands of Edward Hyde , they soon began to turn toward monstrous,” (66) This shows that Jekyll knows that Hyde is smaller than he was because he has tried to be good for most of his life, but as Hyde is taken out more often Jekyll finds that his guilty pleasures are being filled because the evil inside him is getting stronger. As Hyde is getting stronger Jekyll finds it hard to keep the evil locked away. He finds it hard to stop the evil from taking over the good. Hyde has become so strong that Jekyll’s good was barely there anymore. Jekyll knows that the only way to stop the Hyde from taking over him is to commit suicide. Jekyll finishes his letter to Utterson with the words, “as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end,” (78). As Jekyll prepares to end his life, he knows that Hyde will no longer be there, nor will his good. Jekyll knows that he can no longer control the evil inside him and he became unhappy. So in the end Jekyll was able to use the last of the good he found inside of himself by taking the power away from the evil. Jekyll learns that trying to separate the good and evil into two different people will only make one or the other stronger, through all the temptation, Jekyll comes to the only conclusion, destroy the evil inside him with the last of the good. Lastly, Jekyll believes that he is not really Hyde, that Hyde is only a piece of him.
Jekyll thinks that since everyone thinks that Hyde is a separate person, he can get away with using the evil inside of him. Jekyll writes about how he, “mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to succeed, that he was suddenly, in the top fit of my dilium, struck through my heart by a cold thrill of terror,” (71). Jekyll was writing about how he felt when Hyde was committing murder. At first he felt nothing, then all of the sudden he felt the evil inside him. He knew that what was going on needed to be stopped. He knew that Hyde was becoming who he was a person. After Jekyll was starting to realize that Hyde was becoming who he was as person, Jekyll refused to use the evil inside him anymore, He explained how he, “locked the door that he had so often gone and come, and ground the key under my heel,” (72). Jekyll does not want Hyde to be able to get the freedom that he had been getting because he knows now that Hyde was becoming who Jekyll was as a person, and Jekyll was done with Hyde controlling him. He locked the cabinet with the potion and broke the key. Jekyll was still struggling with keeping the evil away from the good. He had already broken the key to the cabinet and locked away the potion and yet Jekyll still wrote, “ the measure was filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of
my soul,” (73). Jekyll has admitted that Hyde had taken over the balance of his soul. He was no longer more good than evil, he had let the evil become who he is as a person. In the end,
Jekyll Jekyll had let the evil get the best of him. He let the evil define who he is as a person. Jekyll could not separate the evil from the good. In summary, you can not separate evil from the good inside of you. It is clear to see that trying to separate the good and evil within someone or yourself, you will only end in temptation, the evil will become stronger than the good, and the evil you let out will soon be who you become. All these reasons prove that the theme for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, is that everyone has good and evil and everyone faces a battle between the two. Jekyll explains that his mission to separate the evil and good inside him started with temptation and ended with temptation. He explains that in the beginning, his good side was stronger than the evil, yet the more he used the evil, the stronger it became. Sirius Black once said, “ “We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the side we choose to act on, that’s who we really are.” Maybe if we were to stop trying to battle the evil inside all of us with the good, the evil would be weaker. So in conclusion, you can not separate the good versus evil that lies in all of us.