Sooooo...

I'm not exactly sure why they do this to me, but my school wants me to write three separate essays for the book analysis. Its mean, I tell ya, but luckily I worked on destressing this quarter. So, I wrote this last essay real quick last night because I could not handle doing it today and doing an assignment redo at the same time. Kudos to my mom and brother for really helping me pull that thesis statement out of my thick skull. Oh, and because I can't remember if I already said this, the randomn numbers in parenthesis are page numbers for the quotes. I have a nifty footnote for these on the actual document but it doesn't seem to have made it into the posts.

Essay III (Morality Essay)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is the story of the upstanding scientist, Dr. Henry Jekyll. Jekyll, however respectable he might seem on the outside, is greatly enticed by immoral pleasures. With a view of enjoying these off-limits adventures, he creates a potion that turns him into his alter-ego, a truly evil creature known as Mr. Edward Hyde. After awhile he realizes that Hyde is growing stronger and that he might not be strong enough to control him for long. Jekyll’s immoral tendencies manifest themselves in his desire to use Mr. Hyde as a cover to indulge in sinful pleasures, but the realization that he is losing control leads him to seek the moral life once more.
Jekyll creates Hyde in order to indulge in sinful pleasures that a respectable gentleman is not allowed. For the majority of his life, he has been resigned to “a profound duplicity of life” (61). He has had to “conceal [his] pleasures” (61). When he finally turns into Hyde, he enjoys it, finding the experience to be freeing and delightful. It “delighted [him] like wine” (64). With this perfect disguise, he can do all those things he cannot do as the straight-laced doctor. While other men hire men to commit crimes for them while they retain their stature in society, “ [he] was the first that ever did so for his pleasures” (66). Such a disguise is only necessary because “the pleasures which [he] made haste to seek in [his] disguise were undignified“ (67). Thus equipped with the vesture of Hyde, Jekyll begins to enjoy himself with impunity.
Jekyll, however, soon finds that he is losing control over his impulses. This is made especially evident to him in the brutal murder of Sir Danvers Carew. As Hyde, he beats to death simply because he was bored by the “civilities of [his] unhappy victim“ (71). “I declare,” he says, “at last, before God, no man morally san could have been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation” (71). What is all the more shocking to Jekyll is how utterly Hyde enjoys the experience. As Jekyll drinks the potion, Hyde “had a song upon his lips” and gleefully “pledged the dead man” (72). Jekyll, realizing that he is “slowly losing hold of [his] original and better self“ (70), sees that this has to end. He can no longer allow Hyde to walk the streets.
So Jekyll resolves to become and remain a good man again. This means “Hyde was thenceforth impossible“ (72). On top of this, he resolves “in [his] future conduct to redeem [his] past“ (73). In order to accomplish this, he becomes the charitable doctor to an even greater extent. “Whilst he had always been known for charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion” (34). With this resolve and life change, Jekyll looks forward to enjoying “the better part of [his] existence” (72) again.
Dr. Jekyll is an upright man who creates a potion that turns him into his evil alter-ego, Mr. Hyde. As Hyde, he has an untraceable disguise with which to enjoy the pleasures of sin. Once he realizes that he is losing control over the evil impulses served by Hyde, he resolves never again to indulge himself in such a way. He also sets out to do a penance for his sins in the form of charity and religiosity. Jekyll uses the manifestation of his evil tendencies as a cover for his indulgences in sin, but the realization that he is losing control over his life makes him turn away from sin to the respectable life he had once enjoyed.