Two Sides of Man
Uploaded by priyanka97 on Feb 16, 2013
The Two Sides of Man
There is always a thin line between good and evil. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louise Stevenson, it clarifies the darkness and evil within the mind of every man and how evil is able to control someone’s goodwill. The book shows the constant struggle between the good and the bad and how at one point either the good or evil will take over. The main dual personalities are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll is a nice and well known man who has a high dependability in society. He believes that man is not truly one, but truly two and by that creates a potion to separate each of the sides within himself which leads his evil side, Mr. Hyde to takeover and lose control to his evil mind. The struggle within Jekyll shows that evil is taking over the good in him and therefore, evil is stronger than good.
Dr. Jekyll a clever, honorable, and rich man who creates a potion that transforms him into someone entirely different and completely opposite of who he is. Before making his potion, he refers his “two natures contended in the field of my consciousness” (82). After he drinks it, he transforms into Hyde, which is represented as the figure of Satan, the evil representation of Jekyll with a small body and ugly face. He wanted the potion to separate his good and bad qualities that had always existed within him and letting the desire in him out. Drinking the potion for two months eventually makes Jekyll’s evil stronger and him not being able to control it anymore since he didn’t expect it to be a lot stronger. The evil in Jekyll had dominated his true self which leads to his death in the end.
There are many elements that contradict Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that show the differences between the good and evil in them. As Enfield tells Utterson a story that connects to a door they pass by, he describes Hyde that “he gives a strong feeling of deformity” (32). The word “deformity” gives an impression that he has a sense of ugliness and that his evil is not only physical but it also attaches to his mind than just his physical form. Jekyll doesn’t always act on his impulses and pushes them unlike Hyde where he welcomes it and accomplishes his...