Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Good Vs Evil

People living in the Victorian era are often thought of as individuals who lived under the pressure of the period’s values, and this was reflected on the concern of what was ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (or in other words, ‘evil’) that was represented in the literature produced at that time. Good could be defined as ‘having in a large or adequate degree the qualities or properties desirable in something of the specified kind; of high or acceptable quality, standard, or level’, whereas evil would be ‘the antithesis of good in all its principal senses’. As the definitions show, they are opposites but they are closely associated when trying to determine their meanings. By the same token, Jerome S. Bruner illustrates this tight relation that both concepts have when interpreting them from a Freudian perspective and applying them as human qualities, by stating that ‘man at best and man at worst is subject to a common set of explanations: good and evil grow from a common process’. …show more content…
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s character in Stevenson’s novella is a popular and mainstream example of a duality which makes the public question if they are two separate entities, or if they are two personalities but part of the same person. A parallel could be drawn between this dichotomy and the one we find in good and bad, which is called into question. Irvin S. Saposnik states that ‘as colloquial metaphor for the good-evil antithesis that lurks in all men, it has become the victim of its own success, allowing subsequent generations to take the translation for the original, to see Jekyll or Hyde where one should see Jekyll-Hyde’. That is, they are not different people but rather the same person, part of a whole. Henry Jekyll, doctor by day, would represent good, whereas Edward Hyde, the evil by night, would represent just that, evilness. However, it is not one or the other, both complement each other and coexist. This is identical to the good-bad dichotomy, which is challenged through those