Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde – The theme of the double -

“And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance,
rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself... This, as I take it, was because all
human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil”
This quotation comes from “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, written by Robert Louis Stevenson in
1886. The story talks about a respectable man, Dr. Jekyll, that experiments a powerful
“drug” on himself. With this drug the worst part of his personality comes out as an evil and
ugly man, called Mr. Hyde. This man commits horrible crimes and begins to grow, taking
control of Dr. Jekyll’s good side. The doctor decides to end his crimes by killing himself,
killing Mr. Hyde too. The novel ends with Dr. Jekyll’s letter sent to a friend, Mr. Utterson,
before dying.
This story represents the double nature of the Victorian society; on one hand we see Jekyll,
who represents the good and respectable side: he represses his instincts and passions to
keep his good image; on the other hand, we see Mr. Hyde, who is the complete opposite of
Dr. Jekyll, he follows the instinct and wants to satisfy every desire. He represents the true
soul of the Victorian society, the side of the exploitation and of the poor people that lived in
England in that period.
The story represents the double nature of the man. Dr. Jekyll embodies the respectable
Victorian man: he is reserved, formal and known for his charitable works; on the other side,
Mr. Hyde embodies the uncivilised part of the society, the deepest desire of the human
being and his irrational behaviours. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll alter ego, the representation of his
dark side. Jekyll creates Mr. Hyde because he likes being a bad person without paying the
consequences of his actions.
At the beginning the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde is harmonious, there is a balance
between good and evil, between right and wrong. Through the story this relationship
overturns, Jekyll is attracted by his dark side and Hyde starts to gain power and
independence from the doctor. To stop this evil side of his personality, Jekyll commits
suicide.
Even the names of the characters represent the nature of the society of the time: Jekyll is
formed by “je”, first singular person in French and “kill”, that means “I kill”, Hyde comes
from “to hide”, that means that the respectable society wants to hide the worst part of their
personality to keep a good image of themselves.
The double is the main theme the novel, we can see it in the descriptions of the characters:
Dr. Jekyll is a wealthy doctor, he is kind, handsome and honest and he lives in a pretty house
with a nice façade; Mr. Hyde is physically repulsive; he is a short and violent man.
The theme of the double is evident in Jekyll’s house too, the doctor uses the front door, this
facade is associated with light and luxury, while Hyde’s entrance, who uses the door in the
anatomy laboratory, is dark and quiet.
The events narrated can be related to the life of the author, Robert Stevenson. In his life he
had a change, that turned him into a bohemian man that refuses the society and the money,
because art is just for art’s sake
The end of the 19th century is characterised by a strong crisis of the individual, that also will
characterise the beginning of the 20 th century. This crisis is evident in the literature of the
time, where the authors try to describe this internal division, an example is Thomas Mann, a
German author. His most famous work is “Tonio Kroger”, where he describes the gap
between the life of the bourgeois and the life of the artist.
The main difference is that Stevenson describes different aspects of the same person,
pointing out how people have a double personality; Thomas Mann, instead, describes two
different young boys, in which he reflects his personal life, because he is son of a bourgeois
man and a south American bohemian woman.