The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
“The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, written by Robert Louis Stevenson,
talks about a man called Dr. Henry Jekyll who wants to discover his other
personality. He makes many experiments to achieve his aim. Finally, he
discovers that he has an evil personality, called Mr. Hyde. At the end, Dr.
Jekyll kills himself. This essay contains an analysis on the primary character
Mr. Hyde, his personality, physical appearance and the symbolism related to
him.
In connection
to his physical appearance, Mr. Hyde is presented as “the picture of
disquietude”, that might be because of his physical ugliness, repulsiveness and
the shocking effect he leaves on people: “Then he began slowly to mount the
street, pausing every step or two, and putting his hand to his brow like a man
in mental perplexity”. Likewise, the fact that he is hairy and dwarfish, in
addition to the impression of deformity Hyde gives, makes him look like a
beast, what could express his lack of humanity.
Talking
about his personality, Mr. Hyde is portrayed as an animalistic creature, as he
is uncivilized and immoral. Hyde, in addition, kills for no reason but the joy
of it, what proves he is no entirely an animal, as animals do not do that.
Moreover, Mr. Hyde has a cruel and violent personality: “And next moment, with
ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot, and hailing down a storm
of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jump upon
the roadway”.
In relation
to the symbolism connected to Hyde’s physical appearance, his ugliness and
deformity symbolize his lack of moral and ethics, while his small stature the
fact that he has been repressed for years and his hairiness, that he is Dr.
Jekyll’s animalistic side. As it can been seen in the next quote, Mr. Hyde was
growing: “The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickness of Jekyll”.
In
conclusion, Mr. Hyde is an animalistic creature who is really cruel and
violent, and we can appreciate that throughout the whole novel, in which this
character is developed all along the plot. Personally, I think that Mr. Hyde is
a great, very interesting character and one of the best characters to analyse.
He symbolizes the evil part of the society and humanity, as he is the evil part
of a very well-known man.
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