DR. JEKYLL AND MR.

HYDE

Opposite, contrast and compromise

1) The novel respects Stevenson’s renounce to his conservative family, and he describes
the Victorian society, as the Victorian compromise.
2) There is the theme of appearance/reality that we can also find in Jane Austen’s pride
and prejudice.
3) We can talk about an autobiographical novel, because it’s a consequence of his disease
(tuberculosis): he lived isolated, alone and in the darkness.

Dualism
The human existence turns between evil and good, and so there is the need to achieve a
compromise between the two aspects. The use of reason must overcome the passion: strong
emotions must be balanced by reflection (Darwin, Seneca, Freud).
To have success within society man was obliged to repress something about his real nature,
it’s very dangerous to get a repression on your dark side because unless it is dangerous for the
others, you must express this dark side. Man has this dualism and he has to express this
double existence.

Origin
Stevenson had a dream with a man in a lab that drinking a drug became a different person:
the dream is the source of the novel.

Topic
The matter is that the human nature is a mixture between good and evil (theme of the double)
– Jekyll considers himself as a good man but he was completely aware of the presence of his
further identity, in continuous contrast with his good part. Even Jekyll discovered a drug that
gave him the opportunity to separate the two things, so he could get free form his dark side.
There is the will of the protagonist to get reed on this dark side in a way he disapproved Hyde
and so even the dark side of himself, but there is also a sort of attraction/repulsion, because
when Dr. Jekyll transforms himself into the hide person he was also attracted by the will to
get reed of his moral and rational side, so he had the opportunity to experience something
really true: his real part was regarded as a kind of prison.
Jekyll and Hyde are the representation of the mankind in which everybody has these two
parts, of good and evil.
Type of novel
Autobiographical novel because it comes from his religious education and the strong idea of
the present and the fight between good and evil into the human nature.

The protagonist
The protagonist is Dr. Jekyll who is a physician but in particular he is a representation of the
typical respectable and gentle Victorian man, well known for his works.

The other character

On the other side there is the pure evil side of this protagonist, Mr. Hyde: he kills people
without any reason, and so Dr. Jekyll from time to time turns into this character, but later on
this dark side prevails on the good one, and even the drug lost its power and was unable to
restore a good side of the former character: that’s why he must make a decision because he
can keep on living a bad life with crime and depravity but in the same time he makes also the
decision to cut an hand because he didn’t want the dark side to control him completely. In the
end he becomes responsible for his life and decides to get suicide.

The criticism towards society

This is also a reaction towards the Victorian society, for which the key words where morality
and respectability, even though this society is based on appearance, which obliges man to
repress a part of himself, so his dark side: Dr. Jekyll was also obliged to repress this dark side
because if he wanted to gain respect and to preserve his position into society, but it’s clear
that the message is that it’s really dangerous to suppress a part of yourself, to renounce and
try to get reed of a part of your human nature, because this dark side belongs to you and your
identity, and must be accepted by achieving a kind of balance between the two parts.

Physical appearance
The world of physical appearance / world of the Victorian society. The appearance is the good
and bad nature to man and so criminality: man apparently is a criminal. Jekyll is the world of
the appearance, so what English society expected men to be, as well as the description
Stevenson gives of Jekyll is very good, handsome man with harmonious body; hide has dark
and hairy hands, smaller than Jekyll, lame. The physical appearance is associated to their
inner life.
Appearance is the male character (outer life): what society expects him to be – Darcy is the
symbol for the role that society gave him, so what he seems to be but isn’t really. Behind the
appearance there is the realization of the self knowledge.
Setting in place
There is this duality, because above all its is described the city of London, described as the
town of the rich class and so of the respectable gentlemen of the Victorian society, but on the
other side there are the poor areas;

Setting in time
All the book is overcome by the night and there is not the light; even the crimes and the suicide
take place in the night. The lack of the natural light is associated to the dark side of the dark
side. It’s innatural to suppress a part of man, so there is no natural light.

Characters
There are no women but all men that share the same social setting, the same world.

The influence of Darwin’s theory

Even the novelist said that he was influenced by the theory of Darwin and his theory of
evolution of man’s kinship closed to the animal world (he dealt with the problem of man’s
primitive animal side): we can consider either the forunner of the uncivilized men that are in
the Victorian society, because Stevenson wanted to emphasize on the fact that Victorians were
really afraid of this animal society, even in the ordinary man and the ordinary society, and
they were afraid that this animal part could be still present into their society. In their opinion
the civilized man could even hide this animal side.

Body = prison
We are talking about a society that always tried to repress the dark side of it, so the upper
class within the Victorian society: Hyde is the symbol of everything they tried to hide, so by
just highlighting a society founded on appearance, that tried to hide the corruption and the
vices of their society under a vale of respectability. Dr. Jekyll is in this way like a victim,
because he was attracted by something that was really different from the society dominated
by the appearance, and he wanted to experience something new. We can also say that he lived
his body and rationality like a sort of prison by which he wanted to get far.

Suggest
Talking about this dualism, the suggestion is to find a balance between what the society is
and what the men are – the balance must be found into the society and the human nature
(compromise). The novel is a way to advise man of the fact that he must keep balance.
Stevenson is the first bohemian, before Wilde, because he writes from his personal
experience.