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STEVENSON: DR. JEKYLL AND
MR. HYDE
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish writer of the 19th century that expressed more than
others the dichotomy between good and evil, in his psychological novel “The strage case of
Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde”, in which is also described the hypocrisy of the Victoria society.
The double is a second self, an alter ego, which appears as a different and distinct being,
perceived by physical senses, but existing in a dependent relation with the original.
“Dependent” doesn't mean “subordinate”, in fact usually the double comes to dominate, control
and usurp the function of the subject.
Dr. Jekyll is what Victorian people loved to look like, he represented the respectable one, but
Mr.Hyde is what everyone really is and must remain unseen.
Their division represent a true fail cause this means you can only be one, and you have to choose
between good and evil, not both. Victorian people chose to live one by one. He wanted to
connect both, just to go against the hypocrisy around him.
Through the potion Dr. Jekyll finds the way to give life to the “monster” inside him. When Mr.Hyde
shows is like a newborn, little and described with tne Darwinian characteristics, like a regression,
even if is a birth. But it's not just a physical transformation, it is also a psychological one. Mr. hyde
is the only creature of this type, because others are a balance between good and evil: he's pure
evil.
It's different from Mary Shelly's novel cause Frankenstein created from the bottom his monster,
when Jekyll has already it inside him and found the way to give it life. Mr. Hyde represents
everything is forbidden in Victorian society, a society with a good appearance at day, and at night
there was life only in the slums, with drugs, crimes and
prostitution.
This story is firmly connected to his biography; when he was
just a child he was always hill, and constricted to stay all day
in bed. He couldn't travel with his body so he travelled with
his mind. His nanny was a calvinist that used to read him
creepy chapter from the Bible and she thought that humans
being were naturally evil. Stevenson will mature the idea that
humans are both.
He died in Samoa, and all his life from the University years
are a rebellion against the Victorian society. So evil could be
considered just as what society cannot accept. Jekyll’s evil
part is functional because he doesn't managed to live his life
in a complete way. But the only way to eliminate Hyde is
suicide, and that's what Jekyll does. As long as it's wrong to
separate good from evil, is well seen by Victorian people the
murder of the evil part. At the end Jekyll cannot controls
Hyde anymore.
Writers of this period never really went after the society's
rules, that was impossible.
In this story there's no female element, expect the children
beated, and that's why there was the stereotype that women
were completely good and rational.
There are 4 different narrators in the story, and they look at
the same reality in four different ways.
There the idea of overcoming science and limits: in Dr.Faust
the only limit is death, in Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and
Mr.Hyde, the only limit is society, death is just an expedient.
How the double works? Everything has to parts: two doors,
Jekyll's front door and Hyde's back door.
