Summary: Evil Prevails Over Good
Alissa Moore
(H) Multigenre 3B
Mrs. Couchman
25 September 2014
Evil Prevails Over Good Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde expresses evil triumphing over good through setting, characterization, and conflict.
In the novel, setting portrays the theme of evil triumphing over good. The setting of the city covered in fog conveys this triumph. After positively identifying the victim’s body as Sir Danvers Carew, Utterson immediately suspects the name of Hyde as the murderer, and he leads a police officer to Hyde’s house. Stevenson presents the fog surrounding them during the car ride as “A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven […] The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses […] seemed, …show more content…
Evil impulses most often prevail over choices that humans know are the correct, moral, or good choice. For instance, Dr. Lanyon has to make the decision whether or not he wants to experience Hyde drink the potion and witness its outcome. While telling Hyde his decision, Lanyon tells him, “‘Sir,’ said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from truly processing, ‘you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not wonder that I hear you with no very strong impression of belief. But I have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end” (54). Lanyon’s evil impulse overcomes the good, conservative side of him, which convinces him to experience a most sickening episode. The deterioration of his health after this incident also represents evil nature dooming the good within him. Next, the most obvious conflict that portrays evil defeating good is the battle of choosing between Jekyll and Hyde. In Jekyll’s letter to Utterson, he goes back and forth between the advantages and disadvantages of being Jekyll and those of being Hyde. In his letter, Jekyll writes, “I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence. Not that I dream of resuscitating Hyde; […] no, it was in my own person that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience” (65). The strength of the evil half of his personality grows so immensely that it begins to involuntarily overcome his inherently good half. The uncontrollable transformation from Jekyll to Hyde expresses evil triumphing over good. Internal conflicts within the novel demonstrate evil’s superiority over
(H) Multigenre 3B
Mrs. Couchman
25 September 2014
Evil Prevails Over Good Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde expresses evil triumphing over good through setting, characterization, and conflict.
In the novel, setting portrays the theme of evil triumphing over good. The setting of the city covered in fog conveys this triumph. After positively identifying the victim’s body as Sir Danvers Carew, Utterson immediately suspects the name of Hyde as the murderer, and he leads a police officer to Hyde’s house. Stevenson presents the fog surrounding them during the car ride as “A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven […] The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses […] seemed, …show more content…
Evil impulses most often prevail over choices that humans know are the correct, moral, or good choice. For instance, Dr. Lanyon has to make the decision whether or not he wants to experience Hyde drink the potion and witness its outcome. While telling Hyde his decision, Lanyon tells him, “‘Sir,’ said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from truly processing, ‘you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not wonder that I hear you with no very strong impression of belief. But I have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end” (54). Lanyon’s evil impulse overcomes the good, conservative side of him, which convinces him to experience a most sickening episode. The deterioration of his health after this incident also represents evil nature dooming the good within him. Next, the most obvious conflict that portrays evil defeating good is the battle of choosing between Jekyll and Hyde. In Jekyll’s letter to Utterson, he goes back and forth between the advantages and disadvantages of being Jekyll and those of being Hyde. In his letter, Jekyll writes, “I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence. Not that I dream of resuscitating Hyde; […] no, it was in my own person that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience” (65). The strength of the evil half of his personality grows so immensely that it begins to involuntarily overcome his inherently good half. The uncontrollable transformation from Jekyll to Hyde expresses evil triumphing over good. Internal conflicts within the novel demonstrate evil’s superiority over