Duality In Macbeth

Shakespeare’s play, ‘Macbeth’ (written in 1606) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ (written in 1886) both revolve around the theme, ‘Duality’. This is the quality or state of having two parts, a dichotomy and in this case two personalities. This is shown throughout Macbeth but is uncovered in the final chapter of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Many factors contribute to why both Shakespeare and R. L. Stevenson had their play and novella based on duality and the period of time it was set in, contributes most to this. ‘Macbeth’ was set in the Jacobean era (1567 – 1625) whereas ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ was set in the Victorian era (1837 – 1901). Coincidently, Macbeth was written in England but based in Scotland, whereas, …show more content…
Hyde through Stevenson’s use of animalistic words to portray Hyde’s appearance. This is shown throughout the novella with these words that Stevenson uses, ‘ape-like’, ’hissing’ and ’grunted’. These 3 words apply to 3 different animals: an ape, a snake and a pig. This then differentiates into the animal kingdom. This tells us that Stevenson has not stuck to describing Hyde as one animal but instead has described him as several animals, this implying that he is more animal-like than human and is very much like a, hybrid. This emits the idea of duality as Hyde is animal-like and has not yet evolved which greatly associates with Charles Darwin’s theory. Some Victorians despised this as it went against the bibles genesis creation story and undermined the value of morality, traditional religion. The Victorian society interpreted Darwin’s theory as: ‘man was no more than a talking monkey’, which links to ‘ape-like’. Physiognomy strongly ties in with this. Mr.Utterson; who is a close friend to Dr.Jekyll; describes hide as ‘pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation’. Stevenson again uses adjectives to describe Hyde. ‘Deformity’ tells us that Hyde is physically malformed and doesn’t look like a human should do. Victorians believed that is a person was deformed or ugly in appearance; this was a physical reflection of their moral self. Additionally, in chapter 8, Hyde’s …show more content…
It starts from the very first scene, act 1 scene 1, when the witches chant, ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’. ‘Fair’ could mean beautiful and ‘foul’ could mean ugly, this relates to the witches and Lady Macbeth. This exemplifies the witches as they are very ugly in appearance but their superstitious predictions are very beautiful to Macbeth, tricking him that what he is planning to do is great. Witchcraft was very strong during the Jacobean era as it was a topic that was close to King James I, therefore society would’ve followed his beliefs. Alternatively, this also exemplifies Lady Macbeth as she is very beautiful but has a very ugly personality and is power hungry. Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy is very potent as she is communicating with the supernatural and the spirits to purge her feminine façade, demanding to ‘unsex me here’ in act 1 scene 5. ‘Unsex’ tells us that she wants all her feminine characteristics to be stripped away from her and is craving to be masculine. This could be for the reason that males were seen to be more powerful and dominating during the Victorian era. Later on in the scene, she tells Macbeth to ‘look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under ‘t’. Shakespeare implicitly weaves in the biblical teaching of the ‘Story of Adam and Eve’ as he uses the word ‘flower’ and ‘serpent’. The Jacobean era was a period of time where religion