Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Throughout his life he suffered from lung problems and spent a lot of time travelling. Stevenson came from a long line of engineers, but after recieving a medal for an essay he had written, Stevenson pursued writing. In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Within this novella Dr. Jekyll struggles between the dual personalities and problems when making choices between good and evil. Dr. Jekyll's fascination with this leads him to create a potion which brings out his evil: Mr. Hyde; which eventually leads to his death.
It is Dr. Jekyll's fascination with the dualism of human nature which brings him to separate his evil from his food with the use of a potion. WIthin Jekyll's statement he mention his realization of the dual parts of man. Jekyll sees "that man is not truly one, but truly two." (Stevenson - 61). This shows how Jekyll realised his duality which made him strive to separate it. During this effort Dr. Jekyll discovered a potion which he consumed in order to transform. This transformation results in Dr. Jekyll being "sold a slave to [his] original evil." (Stevenson - 63). In other words, his pure evil Mr. Hyde.
It can be seen that Mr. Hyde is the epitomy of pure evil. Throughout the novella Mr. Hyde becomes strongly disliked by all who looked at him without a reason why. However, Dr. Jekyll describes in his statement that evil is masked in evil countenance. In other words, Hyde's extreme ugliness. This defies the saying "You can't judge a book by it's cover." Dr. Jekyll also explains that upon consuming the potion his transformation made him metamorphose "to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked.[than his] original evil. This shows the pure evil extracted from Dr. Jekyll which formed Mr. Hyde. As Jekyll soon realised in the end that Hyde was more evil than all man-kind. This is shown as Jekyll describes "Edward Hyde, in the ranks of man-kind, was pure evil.
