Character Analysis On Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde.Jean Paul

Character Analysis on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Jean Paul Richter defines doppelgà ¤ngers as â€Å"people who see themselves.† One would think that such would be the case for the two main characters in the book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, but it is quite the opposite (until the end of the novel when the reader finds out that the two main characters are in fact one). Dr. Jekyll creates Mr. Hyde in the hopes of expelling evilness and temptation from himself, but is blind to the fact that he cannot truly separate himself from his original sin. Throughout the novel, Stevenson uses Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to embody the archetypes of good and evil. It is not until the end of the story that Dr. Jekyll â€Å"sees†¦show more content†¦Through Dr. Jekyll’s temptation of not only freeing the evil part of himself but also of discovering something scientifically groundbreaking, is how Edward Hyde comes to fruition. Although Dr. Jekyll can be seen as a composite character still struggling with the good and evil inside him, Mr. Hyde is pure evil. Time and time again, characters in the book are disgusted by even the mere sight or presence of Mr. Hyde. According to Calder, this is because â€Å"it is when [evil] takes on human aspect that it becomes terrifying† (10). Dr. Jekyll is described as being about middle-aged, large and handsome. Mr. Hyde, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. He is a much younger man, shorter in stature and with a deformity about him that no one could quite place. Dr. Jekyll himself credits this to the fact that the evil side of him was much less developed and thus Mr. Hyde is also less developed than his normal self (Dr. Jekyll). As the story continues and Mr. Hyde begins to exercise his evilness more and more, his body also gets bigger and stronger. According to Judith Halberstam, â€Å"the monster functions as [a] monster†¦ when it is able to conde nse as many fear-producing traits as possible into one body† (131), which is precisely what Stevenson did here with Mr. Hyde. Many of the descriptors of him and his actions even make comparisons to him as an animal, such as when he shrinks back â€Å"with a hissing intake of breath† (Stevenson 9) or when he hits Danvers Carew â€Å"with ape-like