How Stevenson Explores the Nature of Good and Evil in the Strange Case

How Stevenson Explores the Nature of Good and Evil in the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeThe story is about a convolute called Jekyll who has an alternateidentity called Hyde. Until the last two chapters it is told from theview point of Mr Utterson a friend of Jekylls who is trying to piecetogether the story. It uses features of gothic novels such asdoppelganger which is an alternate identity. It also uses multiplenarratives to make the reader think, it also helps the reader solvethe case themselves, and piece the story together, from the evidencegiven. To a certain result Stevenson also uses the monster feature inthe form of Edward Hyde. In this novel, Stevenson was trying to showthat good and evil are not separate within us but are a combined partof us so instead of trying to split them we should except the unityand scarcely then go out we be able to make our good boldness prevail in thestruggle of good and evil.One of the features of a gothic novel used is the obsesse d house.Authors of gothic novels use a characters house to reflect thecharacters psychological firearmner.In this story Jekylls house is described as organism grand and havingan air of wealth and comfort. This mimics Jekylls personality as heis portrayed for the reader, a large, well-made, smooth-faced man.The description smooth-faced man gives the impression that he is notonly hiding his age but also the secrets that come with age. We getthe impression that he has something to hide right at the beginning ofthe story I believe that through this Stevenson gives us a hint thatJekyll has some thing that he wants to keep hidden. His house howeverhas a backdoor which is described as blistered and distained. This,... ...mic society by using thesplit personality of Jekyll and Hyde, which is emphasized by the twoentrances to his house, to show the mixed views of people from thattime period. He also voiced the fear of most of the society throughhis monster Hyde, who is created through scie nce but cannot becontrolled. I believe not only does he express the fear of sciencegoing wrong, he also expresses the view of not playing God, by showingthat man might not be able to permanently control what he creates,which is shown by Jekyll loosing control of the transformation toHyde. He also tries to explain that the good and evil parts of us arewhat make us who we are and instead of trying to separate them andrisk losing control we should embrace them and try through ouractions, to let the good side prevail instead of using science todestroy us while trying to do well.