what is dr.jekylls quest

[tunaski]

what is dr.jekyll looking for and what does he find? please help quotes would help please help me figure out how to write 4 pages of this

[chmpman]

Think about how his approach to science differs from his friend's, whose name escapes me. The other doctor who he has a falling out with over their approach to science.

[Lote-Tree]

what is dr.jekyll looking for and what does he find? please help quotes would help please help me figure out how to write 4 pages of this

Free himself from all responsibilities?

[dragonz]

he is lookin to create a fully good being but instead succeds in creating a completly evil one

[Impi]

It may help to see the movie, Spencer Tracy is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He doesn't realize he has that 'evil twin' within himself. I'm not certain that Dr. Jekyll isn't a representational model for science overall.

[David40]

he is lookin to create a fully good being but instead succeds in creating a completly evil one

I think, if I understand correctly, that the idea was that he could distill out the good and evil sides of his nature through the use of his drugs. Hence there is a "down to Hyde" drug and a "back to Jekyll" drug. He figures that by isolating the evil side of his nature in Hyde, the remaining Jekyll character will be perfectly good.

I think his problem is that, although the original Jekyll character is clearly not as evil as Hyde, there are all sorts of hints in the novel that Jekyll is not really that good a guy to begin with, although Jekyll (and Stevenson) remain secretive about just what evil things the original Jekyll has done.

As such, once he has given himself the choice to pursue either his purely good nature or his purely evil nature, he makes the choice to explore only his evil side. You will notice that he never, ever, uses the "back to Jekyll" drug for the purpose of actually trying to explore his good side, but only when the practical demands of his life require that he resume the Jekyll front for awhile to ensure Hyde's survival. He has the opportunity to explore both good and evil to their fullest and chooses to explore only evil. It is not long before he is only interested in Jekyll because Jekyll provides the necessary cover for Hyde to exist. As such, the Hyde side becomes more and more dominant. I suspect that even had he been able to recreate the original chemical compound, it would not have been long before Hyde would have lost the ability to transform back to Jekyll. The "experiments" have gotten completely out of control--Jekyll has completely given in to Hyde--and the outcome at that point is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

He claims to have been trying to create a completely good person but his choices do not support that claim.

[David40]

Hence there is a "down to Hyde" drug and a "back to Jekyll" drug...

Actually upon re-reading Jekyll's "confession" it seems most likely that there was only one drug that served both the "down to Hyde" and "back to Jekyll" purposes. However, the drug could have been taken, by Jekyll in his original form, with the goal of producing a character of pure good. But it is the person's intentions that seem to be key, and Jekyll never takes the drug with positive intentions--hence Hyde just gets stronger and stronger.

Also, carefully reading the "confession" gives me a strong sense that over the years, even before he ingests the drug for the first time, Jekyll has been evolving away from good and towards evil. As a young man, he claims to have been a basically good guy with just a couple of minor vices. Later, when he first conceives of his experiments, he has shifted from being good to being neutral--wanting to give people the chance to fully realize their deepest intentions both good and evil. Finally, when he is ready to actually perform the experiment and take the drug, his intentions seem wholly evil.

His transformation towards Hyde, it seems to me, began long before he actually ingested the drug he invents.

[mackenzie25]

Think about how his approach to science differs from his friend's, whose name escapes me. The other doctor who he has a falling out with over their approach to science.

*whispers* his name was lanyon :)