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Similarities Between Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

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“People’s personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.”-Francois de La Rochefoucauld. This quote, having been stated in the 1600’s, shows that there was a recognition of different aspects of one person’s personality, even before multiple personalities were studied in the medical world. In 1886, a groundbreaking novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, explored the idea of multiple personalities. In the novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the two main characters could not be any different. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a well respected doctor, and is well established in the community. He lives in a beautiful mansion, is nicely dressed. He is known for his decency and charitable works. Jekyll did admit to having a dark side, which he was not proud of. He began to experiment with ways to release his dark side from himself. This experimentation would eventually lead to his friends and colleagues disassociating themselves from him. When a longtime friend and medical colleague, Dr. Lanyon was asked about his current relationship with Dr. Jekyll, he stated, "But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake's sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash," added the doctor, flushing suddenly …show more content…

Edward Hyde is described as a small, plainly dressed man with violent and cruel tendencies. Almost everyone who sees him describes him as being deformed in some way, but cannot give a definite reason why. When Mr. Enfield, a relative of Dr. Jekyll’s lawyer, first set eyes on Mr. Hyde, his reaction was much the same. “There is something wrong with Hyde’s appearance,” Enfield says. “I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point”(Stevenson, Ch.1,

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