Robert Louis Stevenson’s mind envisioned the idea of a dual nature in humans, the idea that we all have a good and a bad version, that they both live in us and that the wrong version has been suppressed by society. The result of these reflections was the well-known work “The Doctor and the Monster”.
Is this one of the first works to bring a character with a complex disorder to life?Personality disorder and its worst consequences, in the same way challenges the science of the time and religion itself, putting before our eyes a terrifying and living story. The popularity of this novel has led to many adaptations in theater, film, television, etc.
- The play presents a very intriguing plot.
- Through lawyer Utterson we will live strange events.
- Stevenson leaves clues to readers to ask questions.
- And finally.
- Thanks to a manuscript.
- We’ll know the surprising result.
Have you ever had thoughts considered “bad”? It certainly wasn’t just that, maybe you asked yourself different questions, like: What if I unleashed this evil?, Do we really have a dark side in us?The idea of this duality has been addressed from different points of view, through philosophy, psychology and literature.
Well, what if this duality is what makes us human?There is no perfection, no absolute goodness. Let’s think what’s good for me may not be good for you.
Ethics was responsible for trying to deepen and establish what is supposed to be good and, despite this, differences arose. Throughout our lives, we can all have committed irrational and incoherent acts and acted in a totally unexpected way.
The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explores, in addition to a personality disorder, a series of questions about nature itself. Interestingly, it captivates and fuses psychology with literature and philosophy; it is certainly an essential work in all libraries.
Throughout our history, culture, religion, etc. , we find a multitude of manifestations that try to show what is right and what is wrong: examples that seek to differentiate these two faces?It separates them.
If we think about religion, we will notice that virtually everyone is trying to define and argue good behavior, punishing misconduct and explaining the consequences of acting one way or another.
How do you define the good? The question can be simple, however, this idea of “good” can be a little subjective and can be summed up as follows: “it is the opposite of evil”.
Ethics is the part of philosophy that has tried to answer these questions throughout history, so there are several philosophers who have tried to respond by turning the same idea around: good is the opposite of evil.
For Aristotle, for example, the main objective is happiness, the common good of all, something that is achieved through virtue and where politics would play an important role; the road becomes especially important, it is not an immediate thing.
Hedonistic ethics, on the other hand, focus good on sensory and immediate pleasure. The Christian religion goes further and identifies good as the figure of God and evil as the devil. The church gives them a name and a face.
Thus, with an infinity of examples throughout our history, we always return to the idea of the opposition, but what if good and evil were two sides of the same coin? That is, indissoluble, inseparable, intimately united and at the same time. separate, which could not exist without the other.
This idea of the coexistence of the two within the human being is explored by Stevenson in his novel, but going further, trying to separate them and finally bring them closer.
Each individual grows in loneliness and learns the most accepted and appropriate behaviors, however, there seems to be a nature in us that sometimes makes us act or think against these inherited norms.
Dr. Jekyll thought he could separate this duality, which could break this coin in half; what it has achieved is for each party to act with its will.
“It is in the realm of morality and in myself that I have learned to recognize the true and primitive duality of man. I saw that the two natures contained in my consciousness could say that they were both mine, because I was radically both. “Jekyll and Hyde-
Literature has explored the idea of duality on many occasions and with very different perspectives.
Dostoyevsky, on the other hand, opened the way to a literature that explores human psychology, the most complex of our minds, in works such as “The Double”, from 1846, in which we witnessed a development in the same person.
Other more recent works, such as “O Lobo da Estepe”, have also tried to demonstrate this complexity, leaving space not only to duality, but to a multiplicity of personalities within the same being.
Jekyll and Hyde’s story explores the consequences of trying to separate these two faces, leading to a display of personality; both are the same person, desires and impulses reside in the same being and, by separating them, the consequences are enormous.
Jekyll was a “good man”, an exemplary man, distinguished and well placed; a man who, like everyone else, suppressed the darkest impulses that resided in him.
His passion for medicine and his obsession with the idea of separating good from evil in us led him to prove a strange part of himself that would bring Mr. Hyde to life; that is, Jekyll’s opposition, the act of letting himself be carried away by impulses and pleasure.
Jekyil and Hyde are the same person. By separating them, the consequences are enormous.
Transformations provoke not only a division, but a search by Jekyll to satisfy these pleasures and desires forbidden by society.
The physical description of the two characters is, in turn, significant; while Jekyll is described with an attractive appearance, Hyde describes he as a “caveman” being, looking wild and unpleasant to society.
The work increases its intrigue and magic, until it gives way to its spectacular outcome, the moment when, through a note from Jekyll, we discover the truth. But not only the truth about positions, the truth of human nature, the acceptance of the impossibility of separating the good and the bad that lives in each of us.
Jekyil and Hyde were true, both of which were the same, but opposite. A journey back, an exploration of human nature to finally say that we should not try to separate good from evil; who are part of us and that both sides make up our reality.
So was the exaggeration of my aspirations, not the magnitude of my failures, what made me as I was and separated in me, more than is common to most, the two sides of good and evil that make up the dual nature of man?However, despite my deep duality, I was by no way a hypocrite, because my two faces were also sincere. Jekyll and Hyde-