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Jekyll and Hyde: Dual Nature of Man - Coggle Diagram
Jekyll and Hyde: Dual Nature of Man
Jekyll believes there are 2 sides to every individual
Before he creates Hyde, Jekyll feels that he is leading a double life
Jekyll is an established gentleman with 'the respect of the wise and good' in society.
On the other hand he is guilty of 'irregularities' - sins and desires that he keeps hidden
Jekyll decides that this duality applies to all of humanity, saying that 'man is not truly one, but truly two'. Jekyll states this as fact he is so convinced he is right, leading him to risk everything.
Jekyll is more self aware than the other characters - he feels like the good and evil sides of his personality are struggling against each other and decides to take action by separating them, failing to fully separate his 2 sides because he is 'radically both'
Jekyll underestimates how closely the good and bad sides of his personality are bound together. He also underestimates the power and attraction of his purely evil side - in the end Hyde and the bad part of Jekyll outweigh the good part of Jekyll.
The 2 sides can be seen as sinful and virtuous
Without Hyde, Jekyll live a virtuous life and is 'distinguished for religion' and charity, but he is also an 'ordinary secret sinner'. All people, including Jekyll, are a mixture of sin and virtue.
In contrast Hyde is the purely satanic side of Jekyll, writing all over Jekyll's religious text with 'startling blasphemies'. Jekyll calls Hyde 'my devil' and Utterson thinks that 'Satan's signature' is written on Hyde's face.
Hyde is created because of Jekyll's desire to rid himself of sin, rather than deal with it. Jekyll says that Hyde could have been created as 'an angel instead of a fiend' if only the experiment had been done with more 'pious' intentions (for God's glory not his own).
Although Stevenson shows the dangers of letting this sinful side take over, the novel also shows complex attitudes to sin
Tempting: Jekyll feels 'younger, lighter, happier' as Hyde
Powerful: Hyde takes over in the end
In the Victorian era, a branch of Christianity called Evangelicalism taught that all mankind are inevitably sinful because Adam and Eve sinned. Stevenson frightens his readers by taking this further - the sinful side isn't only inevitable, it can also be stronger.
The 2 sides can be seen as civilised and uncivilised
Hyde isn't just the sinful side of Jekyll - he's also the uncivilised side, disrupting the ordered, civilised world that Jekyll and his friends live in
Some upper class Victorians thought that people who committed crimes, or disrupted the social order, were less evolved. They dried to use Darwin's theory of evolution to back this up
Stevenson forces his readers to consider the possibility that there is a savage within all people even if they seemed civilised. Hyde behaves 'like a madman' and is 'ape-like' but he is a part of Jekyll. This suggests that it is the civilised side of Jekyll;s personality that exercises restraint - without it, all that is left is the pure evil of Hyde.
This also applies to other characters to a certain extent. Poole is a loyal 'well-dressed; servant but he shouts at another servant with 'ferocity'
Darwin argued that humans shared a common ancestor with apes. Some upper class Victorians accepted his theory of evolution but interpreted it in a different way - they felt evolution would eventually lead to the creation of a 'perfect' creature, and on this basis they saw themselves as more highly evolved than the rest of society.
Stevenson uses man's dual nature to comment on society
Stevenson uses the idea of duality to criticise respectable society, suggesting that the gap between appearance and reality in the people and places of Victorian London is hypocritical.
Jekyll appears respectable until he puts on the 'thick cloak' of Hyde. This is mirrored in Jekyll's house - it 'wore a great air of wealth and comfort' from the front but it is secretly connected to the shabby door to the laboratory. Stevenson uses imagery of clothing to show how people and places can put forward a misleading appearance to the world.
Characters are proud of their reputations so they prioritise the appearance of respectability over honesty. The gentlemanly characters look down on immoral actiities in public and then do them anyway (most obviously in Jekyll's case). Stevenson shows that this behaviour can have terrible consequences - Jekyll's fate is a warning about trying to hide who you are.
In contrast, Hyde's evil nature is shown clearly in his 'displeasing smile' and 'extraordinary appearance'. He is the only one who doesn't hide behind appearances - Stevenson may be suggesting that appearances can only conceal so much.
Victorian society had a particularly rigid set of moral values. To maintain a good reputation gentlemen had to repress many of their true feelings and desires