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Dr Henry Jekyll is a pillar of society
. Jekyll appears to be a good and respectable man - He's known for his charity work and reads religious texts
. He socialises in upper-class circles and holds dinner parties - He's sociable and friends with "every mark of capacity and kindness"
. Jekyll behaves in a socially acceptable way - he's very aware of how people see him - He carries his "head high" in public and is "fond of the respect" people give him
Jekyll puts on a false face to appear respectable
. Jekyll has always put on an excessively respectable front - he shows " a more than commonly grave countenance before the public"
. His hidden desires make him feel very guilty, so he creates a "deeper trench" than most people between his good side and his bad side - He hides his desires with an "almost morbid sense of shame"
. As a result, Jekyll finds himself committed to a "profound duplicity of life" (the act of being deceitful), which is why making a potion to split his two sides appeals to him
Criticism on reputation
Jekyll's excessive sense of guilt for what he sees as his "faults" may be a criticism of the pressures Victorian society placed on people to appear respectable
Jekyll is an ambitious man of science
. Jekyll's experiments in "transcendental medicine" show that he's a brilliant scientist - His research is controversial, he lost the respect of Lanyon because of his "unscientific balderdash"
. Jekyll's "fanciful" work is not seen as respectable because it crosses the boundary from the science of the material world that Lanyon deals with, into supernatural and mystical
. By splitting his two sides, Jekyll wants to rid himself of "the curse of mankind" - The curse that man's good and bad sides are bound together
. He's motivated by ambition and a selfish desire to be "relieved of all that was unbearable" - a guilty conscience
. Through desperation to separate his two sides, he willingly "risked death" by drinking the potion
. Jekyll uses science to challenge the religious beliefs that people should try to lead a life free from sin
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