Evil Side Of Dr Jeykll example essay topic

'The Strange Case of Dr Jeykll and Mr Hyde' by is a novel, written in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson in a Victorian society that has very strict views about, and about the separation of good and evil. In this era, the Victorian ideal was to have a marriage, to be religious, for everyone to live in happiness and to have a family. However, sex outside marriage was very wrong. This idea about sex outside marriage was very hypocritical due to the raising levels of prostitution and in true reality, many were poor and no one who came from a poor background had a chance to get very far in life as the Victorian world was very much dominated by class. Because of this era dominated by class, many people were condemned to live in poor accommodation with overcrowding due to more and more people becoming poorer and poor people couldn't afford good health services so therefore, many of the population died from disease. The idea of this novel is to show people the relationship between good and evil in a realistic society against the Victorian ideal.

In this novel, Mr Hyde is the evil side of Dr Jeykll. No one knows that they are together but in the novel, Mr Utterson is obsessed by this 'Hyde' and is desperate to know about him and know what he looks like. This is because in an ideal Victorian society, the poor and evil are set aside from the rich and good and Utterson seems desperate to define evil so that everyone can know what evil looks like because it seems that he is an obvious representative of evil. At the beginning of the novel he tramples on a little girl and later on murders an old man and draws huge attention to himself because Victorians expect people to be perfect and when a person did something wrong or strange then the were instantly suspected to be evil. Mr Utterson is astounded by Mr Hyde's behaviour when they first talk he says something to himself about Dr Jeykll's 'new friend'. When Mr Utterson says 'Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend' he is implying that Mr Hyde is evil just by speaking to him which shows how naive the Victorians were about the good and evil issue.

Even the high people in society like Mr Utterson who seem to be important and intelligent see Mr Hyde as possessed, evil and troglodytic. Mr Hyde is seen as an animal by the way that Robert Louis Stevenson described him by using words like 'snarled' and 'savage' When Mr Utterson meets with Mr Hyde, Stevenson shows that Utterson is a very curious character because he is so desperate to pinpoint evil and know what evil looks like. When Mr Hyde shouts at Mr Utterson about Utterson hearing about Hyde from Jeykll by saying 'He never told you' this is a critical turn in the story as we get the hint that they are both connected in someway. Good and evil in this novel are two very separate things as well as in Victorian society.

They like the two ideologies to very far apart to stop any disruption between the two. In the 1st two paragraphs we are given the idea that Jeykll and Hyde are separated. The evidence for this is their houses, they both have different houses however they are both connected by a lab which defies that ideology of good and evil completely separate which underlines that it is impossible to disconnect good and evil. Although these two houses are completely different so there is no hint to the neutral characters in the story that these two houses are connected.

Dr Jeykll's house is in a 'square of ancient handsome houses' this quote denoted that Dr Jeykll is from a high position of society. 'and at the door of which wore a great air of wealth and comfort' this shows that Stevenson is trying to maintain our belief that Jeykll and Hyde are separated as wealth and comfort are both connected to goodness, wealth is especially considered to be good as in Victorian times, wealth mean that you very high in society and instantly made you good. Jeykll's home is a very pleasant, warm house. We can tell that there seems to be no evil within this house. The furniture inside the house can also describe Dr Jeykll too which his 'polished cabinets' and open fire and that his house is very clean.

Mr Hyde's house is completely different, all the houses are packed together and are extremely cramped which, in the real Victorian era, denoted lack of wealth, dirty and evil. There are tramps living outside, the door is 'blistered and distained' the wall was discoloured and the door had no bell or knocker which could suggest Hyde's desire to be independent and alone which also shows his unfriendliness. All of these features show that Hyde, in Victorian society, would be suspected to be evil. Even although we know, Stevenson does very well the make us believe that Jeykll and Hyde are two separate people and that they are no way connected. In this paragraph I will explain the truth compared to the ideals of Victorian society. In the novel, people like Utterson and Lanyon are completely obsessed with the tradition of good and evil being separated.

They could never bear to see them both together. When Mr Utterson goes in search of Hyde to try and define evil, he has no idea that Mr Hyde could ever be connected to Dr Jeykll and thinks that Dr Jeykll is the perfect role model because he projects his evil side onto Hyde so when he feels like doing something bad, he can use the 'Hyde' identity to do as he pleases. The problem with how Jeykll does this is his problem, the drag that turns him back soon begins to loose effect and Jeykll has to lock himself up because he no longer has the choice to choose to be good or evil. This shows that attempting to be perfect in society is hopeless in reality and that the Victorian ideal is impossible to live by. However Lanyon thought that living by the ideal would be an easy task and that everyone should be able to live by it and has done his best to live by it all him life. But when he sees Jeykll turn into Hyde he is shocked and gives up the will to live because everything that he had followed and believed in disappeared in front of his eyes and to see an upstanding member of society turn into a murdering fiend turned his world upside down.

This novel basically says that the Victorian society was impossible to live by because in reality, life is a mix of good and evil and that there is no way you can separate it because there is no one perfectly good, or perfectly evil and that life is balanced and tat Victorian society was extremely hypocritical due to them saying that they were perfect and that deny their evilness..