Lit. analysis #4
Mrs. Delmartini
English 8 Accelerated
November 15, 2009
The Yin and Yang of Man
Mankind has two sides of his soul; he has the good side and the evil side that can
sometimes overpower the good. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s fictional novel Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde, this is exactly what happens. Dr. Jekyll, a well-liked elderly man, makes a
potion that if drunk turns him into the opposite of himself and releases his evil side, Mr.
Hyde. The evil Jekyll starts to take over Dr. Jekyll’s mind, body, and soul, that shows
Jekyll his dual sides. Through motivation and conflict, Stevenson proves that there are
two sides to all of us.
potion to transform him into his evil counterpart, Mr. Hyde. Craving freedom to
express his darker thoughts and deeds and escape respectability, he is inspired to drink
the concoction and be transformed. Jekyll has always thought that people have two sides
to themselves, so he is motivated to create a potion to find and utilize both sides of his
personality because he is a scientist and wants to prove his hypothesis true. The
possibility of living out both sides of his personality thrilled him: “I was the first that
could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment,
like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty” (83).
By creating this other identity, Jekyll does not need to bear the responsibility for Hyde’s
evil actions, which drives him to use the potion more frequently. He is motivated
because he is a scientist and has an internal drive to prove his hypothesis so he might be
able to search this new side of himself. Although an entirely separate identity with very
different lives, Jekyll still can recognize the evil part of himself embodied in Hyde:
“… I… managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from
their supremacy… none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore
the stamp of lower elements in my soul” (79). Jekyll can see how horrible the acts are
that Hyde is committing, but in a feat to prove his theory and explore this new and
horrible part of his soul, Jekyll has no enthusiasm to change Hyde’s nasty ways.
Stevenson illustrates how Dr. Jekyll’s motivation drives him to change into the repulsive
side of himself.
Another use of motivation to show that Jekyll has two sides to himself is when he
tries to keep his dual personalities a secret. Jekyll is driven by the feeling that people will
realize he is the same person as Hyde, so he makes two different lives. Jekyll is
motivated because if people find out that he is also Hyde he will be punished for murder
and other evil deeds so he makes Hyde have a separate life. Jekyll was meticulous about
Hyde’s other life: “… I made my preparations with the most studious care. I took and
furnished that house in Soho… and engaged as housekeeper a creature whom I knew well
to be silent and unscrupulous” (82-83). By creating this other life Jekyll could change
between his two sides as much as he wanted with no worry of getting caught. He is
motivated because as Hyde continues to do more wrong the stakes are higher if he gets
found out so, he makes more distinctions between his dual personalities. These
distinctions put him at ease: “ … this danger was easily eliminated from the future by
opening an account at another bank in the name of Edward Hyde himself… I thought I
sat beyond the reach of fate” (84-85). Jekyll is protected by his motivation to create two
separate lives because the possibility of people finding out about his dual personality if
Hyde has his own life is very slight. Stevenson uses motivation to show how Jekyll is
motivated to make two separate lives for his dual personalities to not run the risk of being
found out that he is Hyde.
Stevenson also uses motivation to illustrate how Jekyll has two different sides to
himself when he tries to rid himself from Mr. Hyde. Even though Jekyll has enjoyed
being able to express himself freely because of the two different personalities, he starts to
feel that Hyde is taking over, and he becomes motivated because he is losing control over
Hyde, who is trampling, beating and killing innocent people, which means he is losing
himself, so he tries to find a way to stop transforming. He starts to see how much more
he enjoyed Dr. Jekyll “ Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded
by friends and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a resolute farewell to the liberty… and
secret pleasures that I had enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde,” but at the same time, he
realizes that he will miss the freedom that Mr. Hyde had (88). Jekyll becomes motivated
to stop the use of the drug by the fear that his other half will do more wrong and continue
to take Jekyll over. When Jekyll thinks that he has finally rid himself of Mr. Hyde, he
rejoices, “Hyde was thenceforth impossible… I was confined to the better part of my
existence; and, oh, how I rejoiced to think it! with what willing humility I embraced anew
the restrictions of natural life…” (90)! The ongoing fear of the lack of control he has on
Hyde is the best motivator for Jekyll to suppress his duel personalities. By the use of
motivation in Jekyll ridding himself of Hyde, Stevenson demonstrates that losing the evil
side of his soul Jekyll still wants to have certain aspects of his dual side.
As Stevenson describes the conflict of how Jekyll’s friends want to stay friends
with him but at the same time are frightened of him, he shows how individuals have dual
sides to themselves. Jekyll’s friends are scared of what Jekyll has become and they know
that there is something going on with him. His friends are conflicted by the problem that
Jekyll has been doing wrong and playing with his dual side, which scares his friends from
wanting to be his companions. Jekyll seems to be almost a different person, “… ‘Henry
Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong- wrong in mind… Such
unscientific balderdash,’ added the doctor, flushing purple, ‘would have estranged
Damon and Pythias’” (14). His friends see that he has changed into something else
entirely which proves as the conflict of how his friends want to stay friends but are
frightened of what he has become. By describing how wrong in mind Jekyll has become,
the author makes the connection that Jekyll has more then one side to him. These sudden
changes in Jekyll were unexpected: “ ‘Sir,’ he said, looking Mr. Utterson in the eyes,
‘was that my master’s voice?’ ‘It seems much changed,’ replied the lawyer, very pale but
giving look for look” (53). His friends are scared of this new and different personality so
they don’t know if they should continue to be Jekyll’s friend. Stevenson describes the
conflict of how Jekyll’s friends want to be friends with him; however they are afraid of
him to illustrate that all mankind has two opposite sides to their souls.
Another example of conflict to show that people have two sides of their souls is
found in the conflict between Jekyll’s love for Hyde’s liberty and his disgust with Hyde’s
horrible actions. Jekyll has always had to be respectable and a good influence but he
wants to venture into his dual side and have the freedom to do whatever he cares to do,
but he feels disgusted by the crimes; the trampling of a child and the murder of a man, he
committed. Jekyll was torn between his dual sides: “… This familiar that I called out of
my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign
and villainous… Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde”
(84). Jekyll is conflicted because he cannot chose between his love of the freedom and
the hate of crimes committed of his dual sides. Jekyll wants to have the freedom of his
counterpart but he is too disgusted by the things Hyde has done to only live in that side of
his soul. His duplicity was torture: “… his love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who
sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him… find it in my heart to pity him” (96-97).
Jekyll enjoys the freedom and liberty of Hyde but he is repulsed by the murder and other
crimes Hyde has committed, which show Jekyll was tormented by his different sides. By
using conflict in the form of Jekyll’s hate for Hyde’s crimes but his love of Hyde’s
liberty, Stevenson demonstrates that the entire human race has dual personalities.
Through the conflict of how Jekyll wants to be free of Hyde but he can’t rid
himself of his dual side, Stevenson demonstrates how people have two different sides to
themselves. Jekyll has become scared of Hyde and he fears that Hyde is taking over his
mind, body, and soul, which makes Jekyll want to rid himself of Hyde completely but he
can’t because people don’t just have one side, they all have two opposite sides of good
and evil. Jekyll can’t just get rid of his worse side because it would be a conflict of nature
to have only half a soul that is all good with no mar of an evil side. As much as Jekyll
tries to be free of his dual side it is impossible: “… for two months I led a life of such
severity as I had never before attained to… But time began at last to obliterate the
freshness of my alarm… and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again
compounded and swallowed the transforming draught” (88). Jekyll can feel himself lose
control over his evil side and counterpart and the impossibility of ridding Hyde from
himself. Like all men, Jekyll’s yin and yang of his personality could not be completely
separated because the two components of his soul cannot survive without the other, he
could feel his struggle in this conflict of trying unsuccessfully to rid himself of Hyde that
Hyde was starting to take control of Jekyll. Hyde starts to change unwillingly into
Hyde: “… I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly
incorporated with my second and worse” (87). The conflict of how Jekyll wants but can’t
rid himself of Hyde shows how Jekyll’s opposing sides of his soul cannot exist without
each other. Stevenson illustrates the conflict of how Jekyll tries unsuccessfully to free his
soul of Hyde to demonstrate how people have counterparts to their soul.
Through motivation and conflict, Stevenson proves that there are two sides to all
of us. When Jekyll decides to make a potion to explore his dual sides he is motivated by
his hypothesis that people have two sides to their souls. During the struggle to rid
himself of Hyde, Jekyll realizes how much he enjoyed the freedom of his counterpart.
Jekyll is torn between his love for Hyde’s liberty and his disgust with Hyde’s actions in
the yin and yang of his soul. Dr. Jekyll has always known that man has two sides to his
soul as he states, “… the moral and intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth,
by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is
not truly one, but two” (77).