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

Superior Essays
April Rivera Marmol
Professor Sipper
ENGL 111
20 March 2016
Duality of Man Every person has two sides to their character: one out in the open for everyone to see and the other masked personality that only a few, if any, are familiar with. Having a public persona to display the finest aspects of one’s character is common. People constantly withhold parts of themselves to mask any characteristics they believe people will think are strange. It may be something simple and embarrassing like a football player liking to watch Gossip Girl after practices or a girl having a secret fan account for One Direction. It may be a little more extreme like in the case of Dr. Jekyll in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that
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He leads a quiet life as a doctor, and a secret scientist, and is well-respected for his manners. The Victorian era held strict values on mannerisms of individuals. Women were viewed as weak and were not allowed to speak a man unless a married woman was present (Hughes). Men, on the other hand, had more flexibility as it is presented as traditional throughout history. Women needed to be chaste until marriage; it was not frowned upon for men were in and out of brothels if they were not …show more content…
Psychology was in its earlier years of research and the mind was a new fascination for many scientists. Another prominent psychologist during the Victorian era was Sigmund Freud, known as one of the founders of modern psychology. Sigmund Freud is famous for his outrageous psychoanalytical theories that leave many puzzled as to why one could have proposed such things. While Freud Theory of Mind was written after Stevenson’s novel, Freud’s theory on the unconscious is definitely reflected in the text through the duality of Jekyll and Hyde. Freud proposed personality structures are composed of three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the primitive, unconscious part of one’s personality. The id houses the most basic drives, instincts, and repressed memories. The main function of the id is to satisfy one’s basic aggressive needs immediately (McWilliams 29). Hyde is without a doubt the id part of the personality as he has no regards for anyone but for his own drive. Hyde acts upon Freud’s pleasure principle which he says is the id demanding for immediate gratification of pleasure. Hyde’s urges are his top priority; he carries them out when he wants to without hesitation. Jekyll reflects the ego part of the personality. The ego is the complete opposite of the id; the ego is the patient and reasonable part of the personality. The ego is responsible for avoiding any collateral

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