What Is The Relationship Between Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

The secrecy and lies that it took for Dr. Jekyll to explore that part of himself that he had suppressed for so long did not just affect him but it also had an impact on people that considered him a friend. Take Mr. Utterson for instance, he worried for his friend, Dr. Jekyll, to the point that he would wait around in the middle of the night in search of Mr. Hyde. The friendship of Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll suffered as a result of Dr. Jekyll’s pursuit in releasing himself from social pressures. Dr. Lanyon informed Mr. Utterson that he thought that Dr. Jekyll had “began to go wrong, wrong in mind” (1784). Along with the years of strain that was put on Mr. Utterson and Dr. Lanyon friendship with Dr. Jekyll the final impact resulted in Sir Danvers Carew, Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll’s death, the ultimate consequence of a lifetime of repression.
In Robert Louis Stevenson novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it could be argued that social standards on how a person should act can result in dire consequences from not allowing a person to explore their darker desires. The Victorian conservative social etiquette forced middle-class gentlemen to struggle everyday not being able to be themselves and then suffer the aftermath if they did slip into their darker side. Dr. Jekyll’s dark desires are withheld from the reader and therefore Stevenson has given the reader an opportunity “to yield a bit to the inner Hyde” in all of us