Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel is the simple portrayal of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and takes the view that each person is born with a combination of the two, good and evil, and that people tip the balance by their actions, showing them to society as either ‘good’ or ‘evil’. His characters, Jekyll and Hyde, are stereotypes of people who are ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The good is the upstanding, friendly doctor (the caring profession) and the evil is the hunchbacked, hunted murderer. <br>These two stereotypes combine to create the average man who has the capacity to be both ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and they have both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ thoughts and emotions. All people have the same emotions, some good and some bad and, like Hyde, when you follow the evil emotions like hate, jealousy and revenge, you are considered evil yourself. Jekyll and Hyde both have these ‘evil’ emotions but what makes Jekyll ‘good’ is that he represses them, Jekyll is driven by reason whereas Hyde is driven by desire, he’ll do what he wants when he wants.<br>The basic human emotions that drive people are Love and Hate and within these two come other emotions, less powerful ones like sympathy, forgiveness, revenge and jealousy. Hyde’s life revolves around the emotions within Hate, he has no knowledge of Love which prevents him from stopping himself doing or feeling regret for the things that he does. Despite this Hyde takes great pleasure in his actions, suggesting perhaps he does know Love, but this love is derived from Hate, he loves his Hate emotions and actions. He enjoys satisfying his needs but his actions are what we would class as wrong. Jekyll knows both of these raw emotions and this combination brings a new emotion; guilt which is powerful enough to drive him away from evil and all that is considered ‘bad’ and, eventually, it drives him away from Hyde.<br><br>As a young person (during 'Henry Jekyll's Full Starement of the Case'), Henry Jekyll describes himself as being like everyone else, with a 'primitive duality of man', in the sense that everyone has a good and evil side. But, being from a family in the public eye, and eventually getting a job where he was scrutinised by the public, but needed to be a 'good' person, his 'evil' side was surpressed. Henry Jekyll was not born more evil or more good than anyone else, he just chose to ignore and put away his evil side.<br>Then, when given the chance (using the potion), the evil side that has been surpressed for so many years is given the pertunity to come out, and it does so, in the form of Mr Hyde. My Hyde is so small and deformed because, for the last thirty years or so, this evil nature has been in hiding, and hasn't had the chance to grow and develop like more other people have had the chance and abilty from being used and exercised. I think that Mr Hyde is the personification of Dr Jeyll's lifetime of anger and hate, and is his surpressed 'evil' side.<br>One branch of philosophy insists that human beings are ‘dual creatures’. By this is meant the animalistic side of a human being, being separate from man’s unique ability of rational thinking. This duality in humans is the not quite so obvious ‘lower level’ of meaning in Robert Louis Stevenson’s allegory The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The much more obvious, ‘higher level’ of meaning is that of a horror mystery. Stevenson puts across this duality in every human mainly through Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. The story also demonstrates how an innocent curiosity about our darker side of our nature can get out of hand. In all of us there is a seed of evil.<br><br>Anyone having read the book will know that Henry Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde when having consumed a special potion. The brew awakens a dormant or hidden character; this is emphasized by a physical mutation. This physical mutation from a tall, slim, man of older age to a, younger, stronger, smaller and hairier build has an important imagery to it. The contrast between the suave, distinguished gentleman and the impulsive ‘animal’ is notable. Dr. Jekyll’s clothes do not fit Mr. Hyde; they are too small for him. Hyde therefore personifies the idea that the primitive evil is smaller, and that it can be controlled. Dr. Jekyll is a socially acceptable, repressed individual who still has a dark side. He can hide it though. Hyde on the other hand is the completely liberated.<br><br>Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde don’t represent ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The experiment described in Jekyll’s letter didn’t turn out as it was intended, which was to fully separate good and evil, with a character embodying each side. Instead, Hyde seems to personify the pure evil side of human nature. But Jekyll on the other hand, is not of pure good nature, he represents the control one has (or not!) over primitive spontaneous passions and desires. Dr. Jekyll thus symbolizes the idea of repression in a respectable individual. Hyde is completely liberated from Jekyll’s repression through the potion. He is the boundless entity that gives in to all desires. Hyde is not purely evil either, after having ‘trampled calmly’ a little, girl, Hyde himself speaks in a sincere manner and offers compensation for his acts. In that way, both sides of Jekyll are both good and evil.<br><br>The two characters also don’t make a divide between love and hate. Hyde does seem to have self-love; he dedicates himself to his egotistic desires, and in this sense seems to fulfill his need for both love and hate. Jekyll is seems more subdued, he feels both of these emotions, but has control over them. He does this in order to confirm to society. One could say that the underlying basis of this duality in Jekyll is his desire to be closer to what he feels from his ‘lesser’ self. He can’t behave the way he wants to because of the risk of the loss of his high social status, one of a respectable gentleman. In the disguise of Hyde, he can lurk around Soho and other dark, red-light districts, where he can fulfill his sinister desires, without putting his important reputation at risk.<br><br>In the last chapter Henry Jekyll claims to have control over Hyde. He says he can be rid of him when he chooses to. He is addicted to his other side nonetheless. Near the end, the reader learns that his excursions as Mr. Hyde are more and more frequent. This addiction and need to succumb to his primitive self develops into an almost complete loss of control. This is conveyed when Utterson and Enfield decide to go visit Jekyll, who has decided to close himself off completely, even from his friends and servants. Jekyll seems to be very weak at that time, reflecting his ‘weaknesses’ on controlling Hyde. He has to make his leave, because of what seems to be a ‘Hyde impulse’ he is trying to hide. He can control this impulse fully, so he has to hide away from his friends.<br><br>One could also assume that the duality in Stevenson’s novel is about a curiosity of, or the need to discover one’s primitive impulsive side. If we look at Utterson’s character, there is also this need to know about Hyde. When Mr. Enfield tells about Hyde, Utterson develops on obsession in knowing more about the mysterious dark character. He goes as far as being tempted ‘to disregard the prohibition’ of reading Dr. Lanyon’s narrative, which is only meant to be read if Dr. Henry Jekyll died or disappeared. In this way he also illustrates the existence of duality in every individual. He does restrain himself to following through his desire though, which shows that one has control over their animalistic side.<br><br>The moral of this interesting story is that which many Christians recite daily: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. One needs to be in control of their darker side of human nature, and to stop this seed of evil from growing larger. Perhaps, the moral is that we cannot control evil once unleashed. Jekyll tries to ‘use’ Hyde to give in to his temptations without damaging his social position. This spirals out of control. The cost of Jekyll’s curiosity turned out to be a deadly reversal of dominance.<br><br>the book is very very good