This is the first time I have read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and I have not seen any of the film adaptations either. This is the kind of story that gives you nightmares. The story is beautifully written even though it’s a very strange tale, and I wondered what the deeper meaning was.
In life, no one is all good or all bad, and we have to find a way to allow both aspects of our selves to exist. One of the main characters Henry Jekyll is a man of science who is very unhappy and discontented with life. To change, instead of doing the really hard internal work required, he looks outside himself and mixes up a drug.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1912) Clip
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He didn’t get the results he was seeking. Two very different characters emerged, his old self, and a new self that was evil personified. Their appearances were like night and day – the evil self Mr Hyde oozed evil, was much younger looking and more sprightly. Hyde was like a walking time bomb, was easily provoked and acted violently for the simplest things, things that normal people would ignore.
Jekyll was present in the day and Hyde during the night. At first, Jekyll had control over which self presented itself, but after a while, his dark self Hyde started taking over and he kept on having to take larger and larger doses of the drug to no avail. In the end he killed himself, but in the quest to keep his secret, he endangered his long time friends.
For me the deeper meaning of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde are the dangers of living a lie, and seeking solutions outside of ourselves for quick fixes. Often when we tell a lie, we have to tell more lies to keep others from finding out our secret. We’ve all been there, it’s a very human action, that’s what is so scary. There are seldom quick fixes in life and we have to do the hard work to become better. As I read Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde I was thinking of the old adage, show me your company and I will tell you who you are. His closest friends were very decent people, so what went wrong, was it his ego?
The sad thing is that when he was Hyde he enjoyed all the bad deeds he did, and when he was Jekyll he tried to make restitution and thought that was okay. In the end his conscience started to bother him. Jekyll tried to change and do the right thing but he was too far gone down the evil route.
I recommend Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson because it is a perfect example of the struggle people go through daily. Life is never easy, and I think for us to succeed and not succumb to what Jekyll went through is to have a support network of people who we trust and respect, and we should take it one step further, we have share our feelings. No one ever succeeds alone in work or life.
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Further Reading
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Analysis and Themes Summary of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Video Credit: Uploaded by kriblett on Jan 7, 2007
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