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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson

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Jun 11, 2018 Travis rated it it was ok

The basic conceit of this story is absurd: Dr. Jekyll believes that we all have two natures warring inside of us, one evil and the other good. He describes these two natures as "polar twins . . . continuously struggling," and he believes that if these twins "could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way . . . and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path . . . "

Now, of course, it's not absurd to believ The basic conceit of this story is absurd: Dr. Jekyll believes that we all have two natures warring inside of us, one evil and the other good. He describes these two natures as "polar twins . . . continuously struggling," and he believes that if these twins "could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way . . . and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path . . . "

Now, of course, it's not absurd to believe that we all do struggle with conflicting desires, but to believe that we have two separate natures completely opposed is not reflective of how I feel nor, I venture to say, how most people feel. But even if we all felt ourselves torn between good and evil natures struggling within us, I don't think any of us find our moral struggles unbearable. For most of us, we are easily able to make the right choices and don't find making and doing the right thing to be remotely unbearable.

Moreover, the idea of splitting ourselves from a complex, morally ambiguous, singular identity into two separate, unambiguous, moral identities does not seem a good solution to the problem of our internal struggles with our conscience: in creating two new identities, we destroy our previous identity. Dr. Jekyll's solution is a form of psychological suicide: the original Dr. Jekyll, with his conflicted conscience, is destroyed in order to produce two new identities: the purified Dr. Jekyll and the evil Mr. Hyde, neither of whom is the same person as the original Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll, rather than solving the problem of his conflicted conscience, simply evades the problem entirely by creating, through his potion-making, two entirely new identities. And since these two new identities still inhabit the same body, there is still the struggle between these two identities as to which will ultimately control the body, so there is still a rather difficult conflict even with the "solution" at which Dr. Jekyll arrives.

Because the psychological conceit of and solution to this story are utterly ridiculous, I found the story itself equally ridiculous. Still, the writing is good, and I was entertained and caught up in the story of the murder of Carew, and I did appreciate the way the story ended with Mr. Hyde committing suicide (which seemed a logical outcome granted the arc of the narrative), thus bringing an end to all three identities (the original Dr. Jekyll, the purified Dr. Jekyll, and Mr. Hyde) for good. As a result, I didn't hate this story, but I didn't really like it either, so I have rated it two stars. ...more

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