Paper on The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

                                                                                   Pedro Samuel de Moura Torres


It is a novel about a London lawyer who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the misanthropic Mr. Edward Hyde. The plot of the novel starts with the lawyer called Mr. Utterson which is the narrator of the story. Utterson is a notorious lawyer and it is described by others as a man with rugged expression, a little backward in sentiment and yet somehow lovable. Others think that despite Mr. Utterson being rather dry and boring, he is a good friend and a good-natured man.

Mr. Utterson and his cousin Mr. Enfield begins to talk about an incident that happened nearby when Mr. Enfield that he saw in the early morning a man trample over a girl. People, who witnessed that, felt like exterminating the so-called guy, thus, the man whose name is Dr.Jekyll attempted to subordinate Mr.Enfield to not reveal it to the authorities by offering him a check for almost 100 pounds from a bank account of an apparently decent man. Afterward, Mr. Utterson inquired Enfield the name of the aggressor when he came to know that it was Mr. Hyde.

Mr.Hyde is described in the novel as a small, deformed, disgusting man somewhat younger than Dr.Jekyll and who has no profession of his own. Edward Hyde´s image is portrayed by Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield as having features with something indefinably evil and horrific.  With that portrayal the author provokes the reader´s imagination by displaying its mystery and ambiguity.  The main setting is in a street of London which is depicted with various tendencies such as: a pleasant and splendid or a threatening and dark place.

The salient aspects of the novel are the duality and ambiguity that have always existed in human sphere. At the time of Victorian age they used to live in a very rigid system of behaviors, there were rules that should be kept for the good of the society.

At the Victorian period the cities started to grow and develop vastly then it allowed even more Jekyll’s double life. His duality is manifested when Mr. Jekyll retains the status of a gentleman seen as civilized and decent person while Mr. Hyde is labeled as an outlaw and a thug.

A society firmly ingrained to its own pre-designed convictions, which establishes and imposes conducts of Puritanism and morality, is not concerned about the negative side that it may bring. As a result of those repressions people cannot handle it and is inclined to mislay searching for their own freedom.

In a society with exceedingly precisionism and prude morals, the repressed feelings of a person would surrender by living a dual life expressing and externalizing it in a forbidden and illegal way. Deepest sexual wishes and inner odd desires excite the person to perform their acts secretly and concealed from the judgment of society.    

That is one of the most important reasons that lead Mr. Jekyll’s at having repressions feelings which are the motives for his dual life. Stevenson expressed Dr. Jekyll as a prominent middle-aged doctor who is tall and handsome. He is recognized as a prosperous man and an esteemed doctor.

 On the other hand, in the course of reading, the reader perceives the controversial behavior that personifies him as a man of conflicting personality. Dr. Jekyll considers the duality of good and evil existing in the whole nature and search, in his experiments, to dissociate both.

Making himself the guinea pig, Dr. Jekyll took these experiments to liberate himself from the respectable cover of Dr.Jekyll. When he drank that portion produced by himself, he became a dreadful creature what came to be called Mr.Hyde who started to commit atrocious crimes, thus becoming a threat to the society.

With double personality Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are only one, but expressing their ways in different and convenient contexts. Mr. Hyde is a threatening and dangerous presence, he is not simply an observer, but a participant in crime, vice, and probably the harassment and abuse of women, as when Hyde slaps a match-girl on the street.

        
              
                                                                                                      Pedro Samuel de Moura Torres

 

REFERENCES

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_morality

Accessed on March 25, 2011.

http://engling.truman.edu/SeniorSem/PDFpapers/Besserman%20paper%20PDF.pdf

Accessed on March 26, 2011.

 

STEVENSON, R.L. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Collins Classics. 2010.