Every person has a good and evil side to their lives. Although people have a two sided personality, they must choose when to show which side. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a novel about this topic. In it, Dr. Henry Jekyll is a physician in London, who is very well respected, and is currently experimenting with the dual nature of man kind. Edward Hyde is a manifestation of Dr. Jekyll's personality and is accused of committing evil acts throughout the novel. Robert Louis Stevenson reinforces the theme of good and evil in his novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with his unique writing structure. "Stevenson's main theme here and elsewhere may be the interrelationship of good and evil - they cannot be easily identified and separated from one another" (Bleiler 311). Stevenson uses narrative voices, Mr. Hyde, and symbols to fortify his theme of good and evil.
The first scene consists of Mr. Richard Enfield and his distant cousin Mr. Utterson walking along a street in London. They are life-long friends and take a walk together every Sunday. Like Utterson, Enfield is reserved and formal; the two men often walk for long stretches without even saying a word to one another. Mr. Enfield has a recollection of a previous incident in which he witnessed an extremely unpleasant man trample upon a small screaming girl and then walks swiftly away. .
"All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut" (Stevenson 40). .
A large crowd had gathered around and they saw the man, Edward Hyde.
We as human beings struggle constantly to find meaning in our existence. ... The core of human nature, the duality of good and evil, has no doubt raised questions. Day to day duality is what drives us to debate. ... The duality of human nature is what makes some people "evil" and others "good". ... At the moment the evil aspect of the duality of human nature is being assisted along by technology. ...
Hyde- is a classic mystery story that centers upon a conception of humanity as dual in nature. ... He imagines the human soul as the battleground for an "angel- and a "fiend,"" each struggling for mastery. ... Edward Hyde is a strange, repugnant man who looks faintly pre-human. ... He stated that, "It seemed natural and human. ... This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil."" ...
Descartes: The Nature of Reality Rene Descartes (1596- 1650) is one of the most important philosophers of the past few centuries. ... Descartes mind-body theory combines substance dualism with attribute or property dualism. ... The nature of the body, or material substance, Descartes claimed to be spatial extendedness. ... (Honderich, 1995) Descartes argued that humans are spirits in a mechanical body, made of extended substance, and that the essential attributes of humans are solely attributes of the spirit which do not involve the body at all, such as thinking, willing and conceiving. ...
The duality of Human Nature - Dr. ... Hyde centers upon a conception of humanity as dual in nature; the text not only posits the duality of human nature as its central theme but also forces us to ponder the properties of this duality. ... The names of the characters give away their dual nature and their ways of life. ... Hyde depicts the clear paradoxes of duality and the unity of good and evil in a single human nature. ... Stevenson summarizes his theory of humanity's dual nature, which states that human beings are half virtuous and half criminal, half moral and half amoral. ...
As such, philosophy provides one with no definite answer on any one aspect of human knowledge 1. ... Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, ethic is the science of human conduct, logic is the science of reasoning and metaphysics is the study of ultimate reality. ... In philosophy of mind, dualism is the position that mind and body are in some categorical way separate from each other, and that metal phenomena are in some respects, non-physical in nature 3. ... Almost 2000 years after Plato and Pythagoras reasoned that the human mind or soul could not be identified with the physic...
Stevenson, by integrating the theme of duality deep within his novel's plot, implies that all human beings have numerous and conflicting sides to their character. ... Since the beginning of the novel, Dr Jekyll is aware of his dual nature, so he takes experiments to create a potion that will separate his good and evil side one from another. ... The theme of duality is also marked by the symbolic nature of the name Hyde. ... As Hyde and Jekyll are dual natures of the same entity, we can conclude that so are the London's East and West sides. ... Although he admits that he enjoys his w...
This was another example of dualism as Edinburgh was a city with two very different parts. ... In Victorian times Darwins theory of the origin of the species (the theory that humans are descended from apes) wasn't accepted as many people believed it went against God. So therefore Stevenson making a reference to this when describing Mr Hyde connotes that his behaviour embodies this theory and he is behaving in a very animalistic nature. ... And the idea of dualism is introduced as the two are linked very closely. ... His faade is beginning to fail him and his flawed nature is beginning to...
Hyde centers upon a conception of humanity as dual in nature, although the theme does not emerge fully until the last chapter, when the complete story of the JekyllHyde relationship is revealed. Therefore, we confront the theory of a dual human nature explicitly only after having witnessed all of the events of the novel, including Hyde's crimes and his ultimate eclipsing of Jekyll. The text not only posits the duality of human nature as its central theme but also forces us to ponder the properties of this duality. ... The symbolic nature of the mysterious cellar door that Hyde disappears ...
Human Monster Stevenson Robert Louis. ... Stern acknowledges the battle when he states "Jekyll and Hyde was his first huge selling success in England and America; he wrote it as a shilling shocker, and it became popular at once and ever after as a symbolic portrayal of the dual nature of man, with the moral invested: not to impress us by the victory of good over evil, but he warn us of the strength and ultimate triumph of evil over good once sin is suffered to enter human habitation" (Stern 388). ... Stevenson uses the dual nature of Dr. ... The duality of human nature is ...
