I believe that Dr, Jekyll was an honorable man who risked too much for the sake of science. He thought that his experiment was too important for him to pay attention to anything else. Dr. Jekyll risked his life, his friends, and his social standing in order to pursue his a misguided scientific theory. First, Dr. Jekyll risked his life by drinking the potion. The potion caused him to transform into Mr. Hyde. He didn’t know if the potion would kill him or not, but after creating the potion, he was too curious to not drink it. The books said that: “ I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient
Interests in math and science. Mr Hyde had developed a potion that allowed him to turn into Dr. Jekyll. Jekyll found a way to separate his good side from his darker side, by transforming himself into a monster free of consciences. But he later found that he was turning into more and more into Mr Hyde. He started turning into Mr. Hyde in random places, the transformations got worse and worse.
The death of Dr Jekyll is not as violent, his corpse is found with a “crushed phial in the hand and the strong smell of kernels” suggesting the intake of arsenic. Although the body was found “sorely contorted
Dr. Jekyll should be held responsible for the crimes of Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll made the decision to separate out the two sides of himself, the moral self from the pleasure-seeking, reckless self. Dr. Jekyll’s experiment led to the development of two personalities fighting within him.
(40) Jekyll, in his creation of Hyde, gave into temptations yet he still refers to it as negative or “greedy”. Furthermore, the words “wise” is used twice in contradicting ways. First Jekyll uses “wise” to push Lanyon not to watch him take the potion. He then uses the word “wiser” in an effort to persuade Lanyon to watch him take the
The description Jekyll portrays upon taking the potion is illustrated to the reader as if he is being re-birthed but into a whole new perception of life. Physically, he is in such a pain because his bones are grinding, horrendous spirits are among him, and he is overcome with nausea. When it subsides, he is self-aware of his new mentality of wickedness (Stevenson 1710). Hyde sees himself in a mirror as the smaller, less robust side of Jekyll, and this is probable due to the facts of evolution because Jekyll, as a public figure, practiced more good in the world, as to Hyde, who is now getting to release his evil (Ferrer-Medina). Hyde, having an aggressive instinct, no moral or social standards, takes pleasure in violence ultimately leading to his own destruction (Singh).
When the story opens, a story is being told about how Hyde trampled a young girl. Rather than stay on the scene, he retreats. It is Jekyll who provides the family with a check in order to keep them silent about the tragedy. Mutual friends of Jekyll’s, Mr. Utterson and Dr. Lanyon, are suspicious of the possible individual who could be terrorizing London, and they begin to investigate on their own. Jekyll wanted to separate his good side from his evil impulses creating a potion that would allow him to do that physically.
Jekyll is seen performing scientific practice, attempting to achieve a goal which can be argued to exceed his mental capacity. Dr. Jekyll wished to remove his dark side, tampering with the duality of man. He expressed hatred towards is his darker side. It shows this in the quote “many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as i was guilty of;... I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame.”
“Hyde” is just Jekyll, having transformed his body into something unrecognizable". Jekyll does not make the potion to take away all evil away from himself. He created a potion that would allow himself to express his feelings without feeling guilt and facing any consequences effecting his respectable self. Dr. Jekyll in the novella is a respected professor and well known around the town. While Hyde on the other hand is almost the complete opposite.
Jekyll knew the experiment was not safe “ But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound, at last overcame my suggestions of alarm” (44). Jekyll thought he was close to a monumental finding so he decided that it was a risk he was willing to take. He took a chance by hoping for something good to happen to him to, even though there was an even larger chance of failure. The experiment was so risky that he “Knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled…” (43).
Dr. Jekyll is seemingly good, kind, and benevolent; while is not purely good he is a moral gentleman. He started his experiment so he could totally separate the bad and the good in himself into two separate beings. He did not succeed, however, for Dr. Jekyll is plagued by the feeling that he wants to become evil again, thus he wants to become Mr. Hyde. It is important to note that Mr. Hyde is completely evil; he has no goodness in him, in contrast to Dr. Jekyll who was a troubled mix. Mr. Hyde feels no remorse for any evil he has done and actually feels elated when he does commit a moral sin.
This in itself is answered and directly bought up by Jekyll in the book, with the quote: I believe that this quote explains that Dr. Jekyll feels that although Hyde is pure evil, he knows that there is also an evil side to Jekyll – he allowed Hyde to exist, fully well knowing that Hyde would be dangerous. Alongside the titular Hyde and Jekyll is Utterson – Jekyll’s best friend who is only trying to find the truth and bring righteous justice – compared to his colleagues, he is a lot less judgmental of bad actions; and will only choose to judge when he has answers. Throughout the story, Utterson is trying to find out the truth about Hyde – who he is, and where he came from, et cetera – as well as Jekyll, wanting to know information like why he entrusted his fortune to such an unknown and shady person such as Hyde – as shown in the
Dr. Jekyll is viewed as a smart man with a lot of knowledge, however, due to Jekyll not being satisfied with his life, he is determined to get more out of his live and is willing to do anything to fulfill his determination. Dr. Jekyll expresses this when he states, “[A] grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside… [t]here was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul.” (Stevenson 57).
“I would still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified, and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing toward the elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell into slavery.” (Stevenson 62) This line is very obvious at pointing how Dr. Jekyll is getting bored of his dignified and mannerly life. He is losing the balance that kept him satisfied.
Through the character of Dr Jekyll character, we can see an unwillingness of entering the social order, which is made evident by Mr. Hyde, his direct opposite. At first he drinks the drug in order to enter into a realm that has no social mores, no laws from the father to follow. He assumes a Mr. Hyde, the new identity so as to test those boundaries. Through the “monster culture” we can establish that Dr Jekylls unconscious desire is personified in Mr. Hyde, and this will enable us to see Dr Jekyll as the illusion of reality and he was not whosever he claimed to be. He possessed unconscious desires which he had to let out.
As Mr. Utterson read Dr. Jekyll's confession he began to disregard the feelings of Jekyll, and was fascinated by the transformation potion. Mr. Utterson was intrigued by the idea of participating in devious actions without any consequences. Utterson did return to Jekyll's laboratory, but did not bring the police with him, like he first intended. Since Jekyll signed over his will to Utterson, the laboratory, along will all of Jekyll's fortune, belongs to him. Utterson found the recipe for the potion in Jekyll's experiment book, and immediately decide he would attempt to recreate the potion.