Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Duality

How does rober Louis Stevenson Explore the nature of good and evil and the dual nature of man’s personality in the novel Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?

In the novel Jekyll and Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson explores the dual nature of humanity. He believed that every person has good and evil side to him. He also says mych about Victorian society hypocricy which means they were making impression of good people but they were corrupt and rotten inside.

The characters of Jekyll and Hyde show Stevenson’s theory about the duality of man’s personality. Jekyll is good, respected character “Born to a large fortune” and “fond of respect of the wise and good among my fellow men... with every guarantee of and honourable and distinguished future”.
Dr Jekyll like people in Victorian society was obsessed with respect and he also had his evil side to him. He hated doing evil things like gambling, drinking and having sex with prostitutes so much that he decided to make a poison to split both sides of his personality into two “...doing good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil”. He was ashamed because of his evil side and he wanted to do good. That explains why he made a poison. When he first became Mr hyde, evil side of his personality he felt as he describes “younger, lighter, happier in body” that is because his evil side was not that developed as his good side. Being Hyde “braced and delighted me like wine”. He enjoyed being Hyde because he could do evil things without consequences and other people finding out about it. He did not need to feel guilty about his sins anymore that is why he was so happy about becoming Hyde at first moment. But later on in the novel everything turns to be wrong. Hyde is going out of control and kills Mr Danvers Carew what causes Jekyll to commit a suicide to stop Hyde from doing so bad things.

Hyde was representing pure evil by his physical appearance but also by his moves and thoughts as Jekyll describes “Edward Hyde...was pure evil” there was no good in him and everybody disliked him since they first saw him.
Jekyll also says that Hyde is “less developed, much less exercised and much less exhausted”. Hyde was weaker than Jekyll but later on he develops and starts to take over the control. “At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion” hyde was doing more and more evil things and Jekyll felt so ashamed that he couldn’t cope with this anymore. Other people disliked or hated Hyde even more that some of them wanted to kill him “Every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw the sawbones turned sick and white with desire to kill him”. People wanted to kill him because he shows what they hated the most, evil. They have seen no good in him at all. It caused them to feel like that because sins like gambling or drinking were very unacceptable in their society and nobody wanted others to found out about this. But Hyde could not show any good. That provoked people the most to want to get rid of him. As Mr Enfield said “It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut” people’s impression on Hyde looked like that since they first saw him.”Well we screwed him up to hundred pounds” Enfield blackmailed Hyde when he trampled over little girl. He said if Hyde will not give a hundred pounds to the girl’s familly he will tell local people about that
act.

Jekyll’s house is set in dangerous and dirty neighbourhood “the street shone out in contrast to its dingy nieghbourhood, like a fire in forest”. Local people like shopkeepers were trying to make the street look better by tiding up their shops and paths around. They wanted that place to be “with an air of invitation” for other people visiting it. That agrees with Stevensons theory about Victorian society. They tried to show up good in front of others but really they were rotten and bad inside. Jekyll’s house was a “certain sinister block of building” what says it looked different than other houses in that area. It looked dirty and distained. “Tramps slouched into recess and struck matches on the panels... schoolboy had tried his knife on the moulding” It says that the house by its physical appearance represented Hyde.

Stevenson creates dark, scary mood in the novel by using fog. “Although the fog rolled over the city in small hours... a great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven” It was a mixture of smoke and pollution of the area and also natural evapourating water. It helped hyde to cover his evil acts and also helped people in victorian society to keep their secrets and what they were doing overnight.

Robert Louis Stevenson shows his theory about good and evil by every characters appearing in the novel. Mr Enfield is the best example of this. When he saw Hyde trampling over little girl he said “i was coming home from some place at the end of the world, at about three o’clock of a black winter morning”. It suggest that he could be visiting prostitutes or drinking, what was seen as unrespectable act in Victorian society and he was trying to hide it from others. Enfield was also blackmailing Hyde by trying to force him to pay a hundred pounds. Another good example of Victorian’s hypocricy is the policeman trying to solve Sir Danver Carews murder case. When he found out that killed person is a famous politician “his eye lighted up with professional ambition” what shows he is very selfish and he does not care about victim but he wants to catch the murderer just to get promoted. The last good example of hypocricy is Hyde’s servant. When Mr Utterson comes to Hyde’s house whilist just his servant is inside and he asks her for permission to see his room “A flash of odious joy appeared on woman’s face. ‘Ah’ said she ‘He’s in trouble! What has he done?” It suggests that she did not really respected Hyde and she disliked him inside. She was happy to find out that Hyde was in trouble. By giving that many examples Stevenson proves his theory about rotten inside Victorian society and duality of man’s personality. Secrets in their society were needed to cover their sins and corrupt sides.

In conclusion author Robert Louis Stevenson is trying to tell us that nobody is perfect and everyone has less or more evil inside and even if we would try to separate both sides it will never succesfully work