Jekyll and Hyde: Duality of Man

• closely linked to Darwin's theory
• "the animal within me licking the chops of memory"

  • when Hyde first takes over Jekyll with no medication he's sitting on a bench
  • to Jekyll there isn't anything inherently evil about Hyde - just acting on natural instinct like an animal
  • but this animal is within all of us as we have evolved
  • in his mind animals aren't considered evil but in the Christian audiences mind they are
• "I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one but truly two"

  • deliberately doesn't describe Hyde as evil
  • the idea that we all contain good and bad impulses - good and evil
  • Stevenson is asking for a more mature understanding of this then condemnation of people doing things they shouldn't
• "that in the agonised womb of consciousness these polar twins should be continuously struggling" 1

  • the use of the word "twins" instead of opposites suggests we cannot get rid of the evil inside of us but to understand it
  • every description of Hyde portrays him as evil however if we think about what Hyde actually does, he doesn't commit a crime
  • "trampling over a girl" wasn't his fault because he could not stop walking - hes so intense he ignores her but the other people who arrive want to kill him, Enfield and the Doctor, Hyde is being unjustly treated
• 1

  • Stevenson refuses to tell us what Hyde gets up to when hes left alone with his own devices, he might not be doing anything evil but incorrectly seen as evil
  • we may see the chapter at the beginning as evil but we interpreted it wrong
  • Stevenson does this deliberately to question society because his message is that the impulse we have to give in is normal but society judges it
  • however Hyde kills Carew but this only occurs when Hyde is locked up in Jekyll for a year, urging to fulfill his desires
  • Hyde is full of rage and his mind is in derange because of how Jekyll has treated him
• "I was conscious of a heady recklessness ... disordered sensual images running like a millrace" 2

  • He could do things society doesn't approve of
  • He got to give in to his central desires not necessarily anything evil but society that makes it appear evil
  • He's no longer feeling tied to what society says - he describes this as an "unknown but innocent freedom of the soul"
• 2

  • When Jekyll first created Hyde he was an innocent character because he was free but the problem with our society is that we take our own freedom away to be ourselves by introducing moral rules but we can see this in Stevenson's own life - leaving Britain to search for a more free life
• • being Hyde "braced and delighted" him "like wine" stating it is a natural pleasure and we should all be allowed to enjoy it
  • he cannot afford to upset his Christian readers - he mentions "wine" to make them believe being Hyde was addicted to alcohol - a sin, biblical reference