Analysis of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis

Analysis of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson In an attempt to consider the duality tale, one narrative inevitably finds its way to the top of the heap as the supreme archetype: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Immense disagreement permeates the pages of literary criticism relevant to the meaning of the story. Yet, for all of the wrangling focused on the psychology, morality, spirituality, and sociality of the story, it has remained, since 1886, a novella that according to the Reverend W. J. Dawson, gives Stevenson â€Å"a place apart, and high above all contemporaries, as an interpreter of the deepest things of the soul† (qtd. in Abbey 318). Not content to merely comment on the age of Victoria—i.e., the world about him—Stevenson has used the vehicle of Jekyll and Hyde to comment on the world within him, and within each of us, depicting the efforts of a scientist who separates the natures of good and evil, seen as â€Å"polar twins †¦ continuously struggling† (Jekyll and Hyde 78) within the psyche of each of us for supremacy. The author did so, perhaps, as a response to the physical conditions that had plagued him for the majority of his life, and with the concept of the world’s view of his state in mind. Stevenson lived his life contending with the limitations of his physical frame, living his adolescent days as a â€Å"rather sickly child† (Edens121) and in his adult years persistently confronted by the symptoms of tuberculosis, including â€Å"hemorrhages from the lungs† (Nabakov 179). Stevenson’s birthplace is Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the child of Margaret Balfour and Thomas Stevenson. Born on November 13, 1850, this product of a minister’s daughter and a c... ...r this submission to the Times of London to actually be the work of Robert Louis Stevenson. This would be along the lines of the intellectual dishonesty perpetrated by the senator from Delaware, Joseph Biden, who, about a decade ago, was found out to be a plagiarist. Evidence pointing to a deception on the part of Stevenson is not known, but the thought of such a thing occurring is intriguing, because, were this to be the case, the author would be shown to have behaved in a Hydian manner, disguising his identity for the sake of profit. [3] The popular notion of linking schizophrenia and a split personality is in error. The schizophrenic is an agoraphobic who takes his/her neurosis to an extreme and develops modes of behavior that serve as coping mechanisms. These behaviors are often erroneously grouped, by those observing them, to form separate personalities.