In this novel, there are two very different characters in one individual. These characters are Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde. It is very strange that in one individual, there are two different characteristics. Moreover, these two characteristics are contrary to each other. How can they occur in one person? How can they be so different? Is one of the personalities dominating another?
As I have mentioned earlier, the characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are actually in the same person. Dr Jekyll is a large, well-built, smooth-faced man of fifty, sometimes looking a little too clever perhaps but thoroughly kind and able. While Mr. Hyde is a thin and short man, his face is filled with fierce hate, bringing bad experience to everyone who sees him. A person who has a double personality disorder usually has two or more different personalities in his self. He never realizes this condition and lives normally and happily among his friends and family. Rarely happen that a double personality person knows about his other personalities. However, in this novel, Dr. Henry Jekyll knows exactly his another personality. He even gives a name to him, Mr. Edward Hyde.
At the beginning of the story, Dr. Jekyll still has the ability to control Mr. Hyde. Furthermore, he enjoys the existence of Mr. Hyde. He also fells that by having Mr. Hyde in him, he can be more free, and that Mr. Hyde makes him complete as a man. He accepts that condition and regards it as a distinct pleasure and only has a little objection upon it.
Usually, a double personality person cannot control the change from one personality into the others. However, from the story, there is a time when Dr. Jekyll finds certain drugs to change the whole composition of one's body and mind, and to re-create them in a new form. His laboratory is the witness of the changing form of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde, a personality who is very different. Dr. Jekyll finds that Mr. Hyde is a vehicle to make him feels younger, lighter, and happier in body and mind. Thus, by finding a drug to transform himself, he thinks that he can completely control Mr. Hyde and use him as away to get a personal pleasure.
Nevertheless, there is a strange thing about the invention of the drug. From the story we get the impression that R.L Stevenson tries to make this story as a realistic as possible. The fact that double personality disorder really exists in the real world strengthen this theory. However, it is disturbed by the drug invented by Dr. Jekyll. It seems very unnatural that there is a drug which can transform the whole appearance and mental condition of a person. Perhaps the invention of this drug is used to emphasize that Dr. Jekyll is able to control Mr. Hyde at the beginning and to be him anytime he wants.
As the time goes by, the personality of Mr. Hyde is getting stronger and stronger. Dr. Jekyll starts to feel the power of Mr. Hyde inside his body and soul. Without his consciousness, Mr. Hyde often comes out and commits crimes. Dr. Jekyll never wants it to happen, but as Mr. Hyde is getting stronger and dominate him more, Dr. Jekyll then cannot handle him anymore. Even he feels weaker from day to day. By making a will which includes the name of Mr. Hyde as his heir, he knows that finally Mr. Hyde will have enough power to take over him completely.
This is a story which some people might just find it as a fiction but unfortunately it does exist. I perhaps have thought of it as only a story, not only till I realize through experience and deep thought that somewhere, somehow in my life, I have met, known and might have even loved someone to possibly have such a trait. It might not be known to all to some people like me who thought that everybody else possess a heart with empathy, conscience and love but unfortunately reality made it known to me that some people might just have none. It's been proven by science and in Psychiatry they are called as sociopaths, psychopaths or people with antisocial personality disorder.
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