The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Divided Self

Assignment: It is suggested that the text the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde is preoccupied with the theme of the divided self. Referring to structure, character and plot, analyse the way in which stevenson has conveyed the sense of division in this text.

In The strange case of doctor jekyll and mr hyde, R. L. Stevenson describes London during the nineteenth century. In that time the society was divided into distinct social classes and their corresponding communuties. If you were born in a low class there was a small chance you move up to a higher class and if you had a high status there were certain things you could never do, although you may want to do them.

Because as a high class person it was rather easy to ruin respectable, good status into a bad one.

If you look closer to the word 'case' in the title 'the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' you may wonder what it means in this context.

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It may be a case of a disease or to a case of investigation by the police or other detective agency. Both a medical as a detective case are appropiate in this context and are clearly available to Stevenson since as we see he uses both cases. The psycholical disease and the detective investigation case.

In the story, Henry Jekyll,is such a man of good status. He is a doctor who is rich, clever and successful in life. Loved and respected by all.

But although he has it al, he always had a desire to forfill certain pleasures. Pleasures which a man of his postition in society cannot have. But he always wanted to carry his head high and to be considered a serious and important person. Therefore he felt ashamed to let people know of his pleasures. He is afraid that people might think he was no better than others. The pleasures that he had were such as many other men would have spoke proudly of, but from the high views that he had set before him, he looked upon them with shame. It was thus that he had great ambitions in live that the distance between good and evil were greater in him than in other man. Long had he ignored this desires of his second nature but when he gets the chance to forfill his pleasures and at the same time stay the same man of respect he grabes that chance. He had found that the connection between body and mind is not so strong as people believe and that certain chemicals have the power to seperate that body and mind apart. Seperate his two natures; the good, dr Jekyll and the bad, mr Hyde. Stevenson describes Hyde as short monster with animal features: "pale and dwarfish: he gave an impression of diformity, without any namable malformation..." "Something troglodytic, shall we say?' muses Utterson. [...] Hyde proceeds 'with ape-like fury'. While Jekyll is described as the most polite, respectable, tall and hansome looking gentleman. Perhaps jekyll changes during this experiment to his most basic form, in which evil takes control without paying attention to the constraints of the society.

Some readers think the new ideas about the working of the human mind pre-dates the Freudian psychoanalyse. This psychoanalyse involves a treatment in which a person tells their thought, fantasies and dream aloud to the analyst. By doing this you can see the unconscious conflict of the patient giving the analyst an insight for solutions of the patients problems. By this treatment you can see how patients unconsciously are their own enemies. If this was done to Jekyll, his second nature Hyde would soon come out. The characters Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are the two seperate natures of the same person. I think every person has different sides of their self. Maby not as strong as mr Jekyll, who claerly has a good side and a bad side. But I think we all sometimes have a disire to do something which is not allowed. The question is how much and what is this desire of the person. Generally spoken the good side prevails and the badself sometimes does something which is punished by the goodself. However some people don't get punished by their goodselves and therefore the badself is too much taking control. When Hyde kills the kind looking man on the streed Jekyll decides to stop taking the chemicals and to take charge again of his own life. But Hyde has became to much of a personality that he starts comming without Jekyll taking the chemicals. Jekyll intended with the chemicals to separate his goodself from his evilself in his personality but not to become only the bad one. Jekyll unconsiously has become his own enemy.

To build up the mystery and tension Stevenson have used several narratives in the structure of the story. The story begins in third person, with Mr Utterson who is making his usual walk with his nephew. He tell us he is Jekyll's lawyer and old friend. He gives us a global idea of his personality, life and starts the story with his suspicions about Hyde, the mysterious friend of Dr Jekyll. He tells it from his perspective. Stevenson intentionally stays with Utterson as narrative because we assume the role of Utterson. Therefore we are kept in the dark, share his sense of mystery and are couriously wondering what is about to happen. We are investigating what the connection between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is along with Mr Utterson and we are therefore, besides turning pages, more focussed on the man's nature of evil and good and his divided self, which is also the theme of the story. Somewhere in the middle of the story there is letter written in first person perspective by Dr Lanyon who has seen Dr Jekyll change to Mr Hyde. We are reading this letter through the eyes of Laynon, who is a friend of Jekyll, and we are therefore still feeling sorry for Dr Jekyll. Altough we know more about the link between Jekyll and Hyde we still remain unsatisfied by revealing the truth. The final part of the story is also the revealing part in which Dr Jekyll gives his own statement of the situation. This was done by a letter written by dr Jekyll in firstperson. This narrative point of view is a confession and gives us the opertunety to find out our selves what is going on and gives us sympathy for Dr Jekyll.

Everybody has a good and a bad side and there is always one dominant. As you see in Jekyll the 'good' is first dominant and the 'bad' becomes dominant and takes his first nature over later on in the story. Not only are Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde different in nature but also in appearance. Stevenson describes Hyde as short monster with animal while Jekyll is described as the most polite, respectable, tall and hansome looking gentleman. Other examples of duality in this story is how london is portayed by stevenson. London is descibed as depressing, dark and foggy and as a beautifull and well kept city. You could see that not only men have good and bad elements, so does society. The theme of the book is preoccupied with the divided self because Dr Jekyll is also Mr Hyde, only Mr Hyde is the second bad-nature of Dr Jekyll. A duality nature which everybody has in its own form. Jekyll claimes this too: "man is not truly one, but truly two".