Dual Nature of Man The most important theme in the novel – just saying…

Jekyll believes there are two sides to every individual 1. Before he creates Hyde, Jekyll feels like he is leading a double life: * Jekyll is an established gentleman, with ‘the respect of the wise and good’ in society. * He is also guilty of ‘irregularities’ – sins and desires which he keeps hidden . 2. Jekyll decides this duality applies to all of humanity: ‘man is not truly one, but truly two’. He states this as a fact, because he’s so convinced he’s right. This leads him to risk everything. 3. Jekyll underestimates how closely the good and bad sides of his personality are bound together. He also underestimates the power and attraction of his pure evil side – in the end, Hyde and the bad part of Jekyll outweigh the good part. Writer’s Language – Stevenson uses the language of battle to describe the struggle. There’s a ‘war’ within Jekyll, and the ‘two natures that contended in the field’ of his mind sound like two sides meeting on the battlefield.

The two sides can be seen as sinful and virtuous Hyde is created because of Jekyll’s desire to ride himself of sin, rather than deal with it. Jekyll says that Hyde could have been created as ‘an angel instead of a fiend’, if only the experiment had been done for more ‘pious’ intentions (i.e. for God’s glory, not his own). 1. Without Hyde, Jekyll lives a virtuous life and is ‘distinguished for religion’ and charity. But he is also an ‘ordinary secret sinner’. All people, including Jekyll are a mixture of sin and virtue. 2. In contrast, Hyde is the purely satanic side of Jekyll. He writes all over Jekyll’s religious text with ‘startling blasphemies’. Jekyll call Hyde ‘My devil’, and Utterson thinks that ‘Satan’s signature’ is written on Hyde’s face. 3. Although Stevenson shows the dangers of letting this sinful side take over, the novel also shows complex attitudes to sin: it’s tempting – Jekyll feels ‘younger, lighter, happier’ as Hyde. It’s powerful – Hyde takes over in the end. It’s unavoidable – as Hyde, Jekyll gives in to ‘original evil’. In this period, a branch of Christianity called Evangelicalism taught that all mankind are inevitably evil, because Adam and Eve sinned. Stevenson frightens his readers by taking this further – this sinful side isn’t only inevitable, it can also be stronger.

The two sides can be seen as civilised and uncivilised 1. Hyde isn’t just the sinful side of Jekyll – he’s also the uncivilised side. He disrupts the ordered, civilised world that Jekyll and his friends live in. 2. Some upper-class Victorians thought that people who committed crimes, or disrupted the social order, were less evolved. They tried to use Darwin’s theory of evolution to back this up. 3. Stevenson forces his readers to consider the possibility that there’s a savage within all people, even if they seem civilised. Hyde behaves ‘like a madman’ and is ‘ape-like’, but he’s a part of Jekyll. This suggests that it is the civilised side of Jekyll’s personality that exercises restraint – without it, all that is left is the pure evil of Hyde. Poole – is a loyal, ‘well-dressed’ servant, but he shouts at another servant with ‘ferocity’.

Stevenson uses man’s dual nature to comment on society 1. Stevenson uses the idea of duality to criticise respectable society. He suggests that the gap between appearance and reality in the people and places of Victorian London is hypocritical. 2. Jekyll appears respectable, until he puts on the ‘thick cloak’ of Hyde. This is mirrored in Jekyll’s house – it ‘wore a great air of wealth and comfort’ from the front, but it is secretly connected to the shabby door to the laboratory. Stevenson uses imagery of clothing to show how people and places can put forward a misleading appearance to the world. 3. Characters are proud of their reputations, so they prioritise the appearance of respectability over honesty. The gentlemanly characters look down on immoral activities in public, and then do them anyway (most obviously in Jekyll’s case). Stevenson shows that this behaviour can have terrible consequences – Jekyll’s fate is a warning about trying to hide who you are. 4. In contrast, Hyde’s evil nature is shown clearly in his ‘displeasing smile’ and ‘extraordinary appearance’. He is the only one who doesn’t hide behind appearances - Stevenson may be suggesting that appearances can only conceal so much. Victorian Gentleman??

‘I learned… the thorough and primitive duality of man’ Key Quote ‘I learned… the thorough and primitive duality of man’ Jekyll struggles to reconcile the good and evil sides of himself, so he creates Hyde to get rid of the evil bit. Hyde’s kind of like that little voice in you head that says ‘ Eat those chicken nuggets. Eat them! Eat them all!!!’