Henry Jekyll Character Analysis in The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Essay Example

The novel The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, By Robert Louis Stevenson, follows a well-respected doctor, Henry Jekyll.  Jekyll tries to find a way to suppress his dark side by creating a serum to do just that.  He does create one but much to his dismay, comes to find out that the serum not only changes his mindset, but his physical appearance as well.  Throughout the novel, Jekyll transforms into his darker half, Mr. Hyde.  Dr Jekyll’s fear of losing his reputation and his shame of Mr. Hyde compels him to keep his double life a secret.  This secret creates the central mystery of the novel and ultimately leads to Jekyll’s downfall.

Doctor Jekyll lives in a very conservative Victorian era where everyone is expected to be up to society’s standards at all times and these societal pressures force Jekyll to keep Mr. Hyde a secret.  Due to societal pressures, Jekyll is forced to keep all his true feelings to himself and uses Mr. Hyde as an escape to release those feelings.  Hyde is the worst version of Doctor Jekyll, leaving him to keep Hyde’s identity to himself.  Jekyll struggles everyday; “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.” (Page 49) He recognizes that everyone, including him, have two sides to themselves: good and evil.  This struggle is what forces Jekyll to keep Hyde hidden from the world.

Dr. Jekyll keeps Mr. Hyde a secret because of his shame of how society will react which eventually leads him to his downfall.  The mystery of who Mr. Hyde is continuously allows Jekyll to find ways to fix what he started as well as use Hyde as an outlet to release the anger that society forced him to repress.  Since Mr. Hyde does some many horrible things, it leaves Jekyll with the guilt of what Hyde does.  Mr. Utterson goes to see Jekyll after the murder only to see Jekyll not well; “there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr. Jekyll, looking deathly sick. He did not rise to meet his visitor, but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome in a changed voice.” (Page 21) Jekyll is completely horrified by what Hyde did that it not only affects him mentally but starts to affect him physically.  By not telling anyone what he has done, Jekyll continues to become more and more helpless as well as dragging out all his suffering.  Jekyll unknowingly brings himself to his own downfall since he lets the situation get to the point where he can no longer bear everything he has started that he decides to end it all.