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Differences Between Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Decent Essays

How can a book about assault, murder, and suicide possibly teach someone about man’s goodness? The 1886 mystery by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, is about the struggles of Dr. Jekyll when he creates a substance that allows him to become a secondary, immoral personality that eventually leads to his death. The plot of this novella follows Mr. Utterson’s account of Jekyll’s fall into lunacy, starting with his learning of Mr. Hyde’s actions, to his witnessing the changes that occur in Jekyll, and ending with his confrontation of Mr. Hyde. This novella proves that ignoring temptations leads to an eventual release of these desires through acts of sin. This claim is supported by the character transformation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. …show more content…

An example that follows this could be how there is a noticeable difference between and appearances of both individuals. Many characters in the novella look at Jekyll as someone who is handsome or stylish while they look at Hyde who “was pale and dwarfish,” and “gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation.” (Stevenson 18). Hyde and Jekyll also differ greatly when each person’s personality is compared to each other. Hyde has some instances where his insanity is shown best such as how “he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, and carrying on (as the maid describe it) like a madman,” during Carew’s murder (25). Jekyll is told to have “every mark of capacity and kindness,” (21). All of these details describe how the looks and personality show that Hyde is a person of dread and despair while Jekyll is a good-natured citizen. Characteristics of both characters are not the only way that duality is …show more content…

The places of the characters Jekyll and Hyde represent the good and evil expressed in the story. Jekyll’s home is a place of luxury in which he has an assortment of servants of his choosing and how his house is located in a wealthy part of town. Hyde place, when compared to Jekyll’s, produces a feeling of poverty and blandness and “nothing but a door on the lower story and a blind forehead of discolored wall on the upper.” (5). These two examples show that Jekyll is on the positive side of duality while Hyde represents the negative. The contents of both residence show how each side differs. Jekyll’s abode has large rooms, fashionable furniture, and a feeling of warmth throughout. The contents of Hyde’s cell, on the other hand, is filled with used pieces that were given from Jekyll and no examples of Hyde expressing himself other than the emptiness of anything of worth. These again support the theme of the novella. One finale factor affects the theme of this story: the

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