Here we could say that he becomes an ‘unhappy victim’ of his own crime, as he is heading toward his ultimate downfall. ‘ One of the key themes of this story, good versus evil, is represented through the existence of Hyde, Jekyll himself, only having transformed his body into something deformed. ‘left an imprint of deformity’ The name ‘Hyde’ itself is a metaphor for this struggle to disguise and remain unseen. However, Hyde is not a monster. He is rather a brutish dwarf, with an inferior social status and younger thank Jekyll – this itself it a great advantage as he can he get away with his actions.
Jekyll implies this when he says that, ‘man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens,’ this is saying that good, bad and many other qualities make up the whole of a man. Also the Victorians had this idea that if you were deformed physically then your deformity represented degradation. The idea was that God had given you this deformity to punish you for something bad you had done. Jekyll’s experiments can only prove that human beings consist of two ingredients, one part good, and one part evil. Jekyll’s experiment was an attempt to separate the two ingredients.
Reasonable Eccentric Behavior of Dorian Gray . In the book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray is a handsome and proper man, but on the inside he is full of madness, guilt and misery. Initially he’s a melodramatic and petulant young man , but after realizing his true morals –his life skews toward the futile side. Instead of fixing his life, he lives for the pursuit of pleasure which makes him indifferent. Although his actions are very insane, they can be seen as rational to reader considering hedonism.
In pursuing his scientific experiments and validating his work, Jekyll claims, "man is not truly one, but truly two." Thus, in Jekyll's view, every soul contains elements of both good and evil, but one is always dominant. In Jekyll's case, his good side is dominant, but he knows there is evil inside of him. However, as a respectable member of society and an honorable Victorian gentleman, Jekyll cannot fulfill his evil desires. Thus, he works to develop a way to separate the two parts of his soul and free his evil characteristics.
It is the darker side that gives gleam to your personality. Robert Louis Stevenson had one major ambition, and that was to split these two characters apart as much as possible. Starting with Dr. Jekyll, who is this well respected, careful, admirable professional from an upper class family to this evil character Edward Hyde who is a deformed cruel, wicked murderer. When it came to comprehending the book I thought to myself that Mr. Hyde is the horrible, disgraceful being but then I realized that Mr. Hyde isn’t at all truly evil. In my opinion I feel that Dr. Jekyll is in fact the real corruption of all this.
He pretends he is a real “gentleman”, so much that he might actually believe that he is. He dresses nice and says the right things in the right environment around the right people. But in actual reality he is inhumane and narcissistic and uses his power to his advantage. “In the Induction, Sly is transformed by the Lord’s orders and for the Lord’s “sport” (7).” The Lord uses his power, dominance, and inhumanity to assure Sly, the beggar, that he is not a poor man, but in fact a Lord with a wife (8). The Lord is inhumane because he is enjoying the pleasure of the beggar forgetting himself and altering his reality.
When he is Jekyll elements of his Hyde personality come out and the same for when he is Hyde. “I will tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde”(Dr. Jekyll 13). The only reason he would be acting like this, even though Jekyll is of a higher class, he wants to be associated with Hyde for a reason he does not want his friends to know. As if Jekyll was not acting odd enough already he defends Hyde no matter he does, Jekyll always attempts to justify Hyde’s actions. Also he has listed everything in his will to Mr. Hyde for unknown reasons at the time only raising more curiosity from the charcters in the book as well as the reader.
The narrator describes Claggart by stating, “his complexion…though it was not exactly displeasing, nevertheless seemed to hint something defective or abnormal in the constitution and blood” (qtd. in Smith). Smith helps explain that it’s not hard to tell that Claggart is evil because his appearance signals the other characters and reader about his evil nature. Typically, people relate outward appearance to inward characteristics, motives, and values, such as in Claggart’s case. Claggart’s evil-minded nature with “something defective or abnormal in the constitution and blood,” has always been present to destroy the plan of
Although Othello is wildly respected because of his hard work to become general, Iago uses Othello’s skin color to try and destroy his reputation. Othello is portrayed as a passionate and noble hero. He is represented as an honest man and holds a high rank as general in the Venician Army. Although Othello is portrayed as a great man, he is also treated as an outsider because he is a Moor. For example Brabantio says to Othello “You’re something to fear, not to love.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, the character of Roger Chillingworth was transformed from a well educated scholar into a fallen, unrighteous man. Roger Chillingworth was once kind, then becomes the symbol of vengeance, and finally becomes the personification of vengeance to the extent of losing his humanity. Roger Chillingworth (Prynne), a “kind, but never warm hearted man,” was not always a vengeful and diabolical creature, but once he lusted after the idea of love and kindness. During “The Interview” with Hester, he admits his fault of trying for love: “It was my folly! I have said it.