Duality Of Human Nature In The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

American novelist Patricia Highsmith once wrote in her novel Strangers on a Train, “People, feelings, everything! Double! Two people in each person. There 's also a person exactly the opposite of you, like the unseen part of you, somewhere in the world, and he waits in ambush” (Highsmith.) Duality is simply defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary, as the quality or state of having two parts. The duality of human nature deeply explores how a person cannot be be good without having the ability to be evil.This idea of duality in human nature is a theme repeated in many classic pieces of literature. For example this concept is clearly portrays in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stevenson not only …show more content…
The fact this was in the era of that time, and how alcohol became a big thing for those people. The fact that alcohol can easily change the mood, state, well being of a man. Which can cause to have humans to have health problems along the way into their life. In Reed’s article, Temperance, what he says about duality is “... Stevenson would have found in the rhetoric and imagery of the temperance debate among the most consistent and compelling articulations of social and personal duality going at the time” ( Reed 302). Findings have shown that duality was causing many other things in a bigger platform.
The Victorian age was right around the time when Jekyll and Hyde were introduced. Victorian meaning, long period of peace, prosperity, and refined sensibilities and national self confidence. Jekyll found more with peace in evil than with Hyde, which was being good. The “Victorian period was known for a rather stern morality (Gale). It can relate because then, Jekyll was apart of a society that was more for peace, and Jekyll took advantage of that to bring his evil side. The morality can be set that the victorian age was a major deal and how it sets up the story behind Jekyll and …show more content…
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” that it not only discusses the duality of human nature on an individual level but also includes on a bigger societal platform. Hyde represented the evil side of him as Jekyll was the good side. What can be concluded is that one good, can’t be without the evil. That every one person that is good, has an evil side, either shows directly, or in secret. Everyone has this type of nature, just goes to show when it may show up one day. As Jekyll will permanently be Hyde. He will be facing all the criminal charges or will kill himself, the end of his letter marks ends his life. Jekyll could not contain the evil that was within him, therefore to go completely insane, which makes him realize what he had done, was too