Jekyll and Hyde

Duality

Since the dawn of mankind both good and evil have roamed the earth within “the potential lyncher [found] in almost all of us” (King 785). Some people have been able to contain their duality and others have allowed the evil within to consume them. Still others struggle between their own good and evil ways. This has been both a curse for humanity and a unique quality that has more power than we could possibly imagine. When it comes to good and evil, there is never one without the other and this can lead to the idea that our “sanity becomes a matter of degree” which could change at any time (King 785). Sometimes the longing to provide more horror and insanity in our daily lives can also provide an outlet for our seldom seen and rarely expressed dark side. Both Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Steven Frears’ movie Mary Reilly conclude that the blood lust to unleash one’s dark side can sometimes prove too much for man to handle.

The duality of good and evil can be shown in both the natural and supernatural settings. In the novella, Stevenson portrays the ultimate dark side of man by using serum to transfigure Jekyll into Hyde. However, in some cases the good doctor’s serum is not required to withdraw our better half and unleash the terror buried deep within. In Mary Reilly, Mary’s father was a drunkard. She didn’t hate her father because she knew “it was the drink that turned him into a different man” - like another person lurked deep within him and need only alcohol to push its’ foulness outward, onto the earth (Mary Reilly). In the movie, Mary had just dove even closer to Dr. Jekyll’s secret through her own experience with a horrible duality. Her scars that appeared in her flesh could not compare to the scars dug even deeper into her heart. Stevenson’s novella didn’t address Mary Reilly directly but Dr. Jekyll’s connection with his eventual, permanent transformation into Mr. Hyde does highlight a connection with the late return of Mary’s father after her mother’s funeral. After her father’s intoxicated nature was revealed again at the funeral Mary realizes that she can’t hate her father even if she wants to because “he’s part of [her]”(Reilly). The factuality of family being linked through a duality truly shows how the multiple sides of people can create the separated closeness of family as well as people who interact with each other. The connection with Mary and The duality of Dr. Jekyll really show how interconnected their personalities are. Stevenson is able to experiment with showing not only society’s lower class citizens struggle with the duplicity of self but the longing of the wealthy to obtain pleasure from the dark side buried beneath the shell of flesh.

Even though it may feel good to be bad, the consequences usually prove to be too severe. It may be the “combination of good and evil, control and liberation, and restraint and passion that makes us who we are,” but to allow the latter of those to gain full control will do nothing but fully corrupt and destroy (Berardinelli 1). Does this give way to the conclusion that good is weak and that maybe evil is stronger? It may be more that the stronger force is the force better exercised the freer of the duality. The ultimate consequence was paid by Dr. Jekyll through the poison infused with the cure. His character whose name symbolizes the “terror lurking in the recesses of our nightmare[s]” unknowingly ended his own existence in his operating theatre (Solomon 794). Through Jekyll’s last breath his body returned to the evil, dominant body of Mr. Hyde and that is how the shared corpse stayed. Stevenson’s final account of Dr. Jekyll tells a bit different story but even it death Mr. Hyde has appeared to dominate. After all the time had elapsed- after Dr. Jekyll wanted nothing more than to be himself again, the damage had been done and the original man who had become two had turned solely to the evil one.

The emotion of love seems to become a key force in Mary Reilly. Throughout the movie Mary showed a strongly hidden attraction to the sad doctor Jekyll and his not so better half, which slowly blossomed as the movie progressed. Mary thought that she was able to tame Mr. Hyde, but this was only half true. Her connection with Hyde and Jekyll did begin to be “the cure for Jekyll’s malady” but Hyde’s overwhelming gain in power could not even be matched by her forbidden love for him (Reilly). It seems that the influence of a doomed love not found in the novella did give