Jekyll and Hyde

October 3, 2013

Flaws of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Not everyone is perfect. We all have weaknesses and character flaws. Some people drink too much; others smoking or spending too much money. Many people lead a seemingly moral and righteous life, but have secret, dark thoughts or desires. Mr. Hyde has all these flaws and he flaunted them openly. Actually, when you examine his character on a deeper level, the “respectable” Dr. Jekyll is actually and deeply flawed and immoral character. Mr. Hyde is just another part of him, his immoral subconscious, who, because he is given free reign, does the immoral things that Dr. Jekyll couldn’t do because of his reputation. The greatest flaw that Dr. Jekyll has starts with the incident in his laboratory. He experiments with chemicals and discovers another side of himself. Stevenson characterizes Dr. Jekyll as a desperate man dependent on his symbolic drug to escape the moral confines of Victorian society. When Dr. Jekyll tries to go clean for two months. Stevenson describes this writing: For two months, however, I was true to my determination; for two months, I led a life of such severity as I had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an approving conscience. But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and longings. Here he repeats the phrase “two months”, this repetition shows how he is emphasizing two months as if it is a vast period of time when in fact two months is not much. This characterizes Mr. Hyde as a desperate man, because it has been two months since he has changed and since he has seen a prostitute and the wait has already started to torture him and he is longing for his old life as Mr. Hyde again. After Dr. Jekyll wakes up as Mr. Hyde one morning it takes a double dose of the potion for him to turn back. Dr. Jekyll locks himself up in the laboratory and communicates with his servants only with notes. This being abnormal, Poole the house butler goes to tell Mr. Utterson about what has happened. Once back at the house Mr. Utterson sees once of the notes and it reads:

In the year 18 -- , Dr. J. purchased a somewhat large quantity from Messrs. M. He now begs them to search with most sedulous care, and should any of the same quality be left, forward it to him at once. Expense is no consideration. The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated. So far the letter had run composedly enough, but here with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had broken loose.
First of all this quote characterizes Dr. Jekyll as desperate man for that specific salt which he needs in order to turn into Mr. Hyde. In his letter to the chemical company he says that he “begs them to search with the most sedulous care” he has gotten to the point of begging. Also after reading the letter Stevenson describes Dr. Jekyll’s handwriting as if “the writers emotion had broken loose.” These examples characterize Dr. Jekyll as a desperate man because firstly he begs to the chemical company, which people only do when they are left with no other option and in the time of extreme need. Secondly, when Utterson describes Dr. Jekyll’s handwriting as “emotions had broken loose”, by this Utterson, means to say that Dr. Jekyll has lost it, gone completely mad. By looking at this quote one could infer that Dr. Jekyll has lost his mind due to the fact that he is not able to turn back into Mr. Hyde to continue along his path of immoral deeds. Another example of In the article “The Guardian”, a poet Hugh Williams has expressed the main essence of this story in one sentence as, “ God give me strength to lead a double life.” This statement clearly captures the plot of this story because it shows Dr. Jekyll’s cry out to god, as a desperate man asking for help. This is his favor to ask god to be in two places at the same time and to be able to do immoral deeds without having a guilty conscience. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is indeed a very strange case. Similar to a regular person, once you go on that path of drugs there is no turning back, even if you think you can. This story is an example of all those people who think turning around is an option. Once you start, there is no turning back. Dr. Jekyll made that clear, when in the last sentence of the book he writes that he brings the life of Henry Jekyll to an end. He writes this because the power of the potion was so overwhelming that he couldn’t control it. This is what happens when you go to far.

Works Cited
Cambell, James. "The Beast Within." The Guardian (2008).

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York: Penguin Books, n.d.
—. "Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library ." 1994. etext.virginia.edu. 3 10 2013 .