Chad Price

Professor McDonough
English 102 Section 6
6 March 2105
Mr. Hyde Committed Suicide
Stevenson created Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to demonstrate the
inconsistency of a persons subconscious. This interesting story tells the tail of one mans
desire to be both good and evil. In order to do so, Dr. Jekyll created a way to transform
himself into an entirely different person, his alternative evil side per say, and exemplify
all that a man is capable of achieving if it were not for his better, moral, other half. Mr.
Hyde was this alternative side to Dr. Jekyll, which eventually took over his entire self. No
longer was Dr. Jekyll going to return to his usual, moral self, but was permanently turning
into the deviant Mr. Hyde. Not only was the mind of Mr. Hyde unbearable, but his
presence irked everyone he passed due to his unpleasant stature and unfriendly vibe that
circulated around him. Gabriel John Utterson and Dr. Jekylls butler, Poole, found the
dead body of Mr. Hyde (Stevenson 40) in Dr. Jekylls home. Little did they know that Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are not two separate individuals but one person. Stevensons
fascination on the unconscious mind and its role in any persons everyday life, allowed
him to create a scenario of Dr. Jekylls duel side, Mr. Hyde, to drink a poison and commit
suicide.
This novella was created during the Victorian Era that lasted from 1837-1901.
This was the time period in which Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire. Throughout
this era, many new advances came into play including those of technology, education,
science, and medicine. Stevenson used these moments of history throughout the novel by
creating Jekyll as an intelligent doctor capable of creating a medicine that allows him to

leave his own body and form a new person strictly out of his subconscious. Stevenson
focused primarily on the use of ones mind to demonstrate how inconsistent one is.
Stevenson suggests that every mind has dual sides to it, one good and one evil and that it
is a matter of those two parts of the mind working together that permits people from
committing devious acts such as suicide, or not. Group four during their presentation
touched on the subject of what Judith Halberstam in her writing An introduction to
Gothic Monstrosity the concept of a live burial. Halberstam suggests that Hyde [is]
hidden within the very flesh of Jekyll. Live burial Is the entanglement of self and other
within monstrosity and the parasitical relationship between the two. The one is always
buried in the other. (130) This concept of live burials is possibly present in all beings,
that everyone has a dual side living inside them, which resides in the unconscious mind.
Stevenson was interested in the role of the unconscious mind. He found that the
mind continues to work even while one is asleep. For example, he referred to his
subconscious as his Brownies this aid that constantly played a role in his life whether
he permitted them to be there or not. Stevenson claimed that the whole of my published
fiction should be the single-handed product of some Brownie, some familiar, some
unseen collaborator, whom I keep locked in a back garret, while I get all of the praise and
he but share. (90) This concept of a force within ones mind that does all of the thinking
and processing for a person but is never seen is similar to the force that took over Dr.
Jekylls mind as he portrayed the character Mr. Hyde. By killing himself purposely, Mr.
Hyde terminated his life due to the unconscious state he was always in. Mr. Hyde was not
a real person, but rather an array of thoughts that provoked Dr. Jekyll.

Dr. Jekyll was a well-known and respected person amongst all who knew him. It
is uncanny to think that such an ugly creature such as Mr. Hyde could come from such a
person who is greatly admired. But similar to the life of Stevenson, he was from a child
an ardent uncomfortable dreamer. (87) Stevenson and Dr. Jekyll are not very different.
Stevensons entire career was based off of the use of his unconscious mind and ability to
represent the positive and negative affects of letting ones unconscious shine. Stevenson
portrayed these selections touch on what Stevenson relates in the essay of ungovernable
nightmares of his youth as well as the development of the facility for artistically
productive unconscious creation that [he used to help] create Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde. (87) Stevenson relied on his unconscious mind to do the creative thinking
that enabled this novella to be created. The battles that occurred in his head were then
transferred onto the page and into the lives of his characters. If it were not for the
unconscious mind of Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde would have never been created.
It is interesting, however, to think of Dr. Jekylls role throughout the novella. Dr.
Jekyll was the upper class doctor whom during this time period would receive a lot of
praise for his efforts and high status. Granted that this was a period of new discoveries,
Dr. Jekyll accomplished nearly the impossible. Until one has knowledge that Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde are in fact one person, no one would guess that Dr. Jekyll had this negative,
demeaning side to his personality. Jekylls dark side however took over, even in dying,
declares the conclusion of the matter; that the load of mans moral struggle is bound upon
him and cannot be thus escaped. (Chesterton 184) Because of this unnatural instinct of
his, his evil side took over. By the end of the novella, he showed that the subconscious

part of Jekyll eventually took over his life (as Hyde), and did what he really wanted to
do. (Avanesian 2) The idea of the unconscious mind brings up the topic of free will.
Stevensons ability to use his free will allowed him to use an unrecognized part of
his brain to create something unique and different. Free will, however, comes with issues
because if everyone were to have complete free will people would run around as mass
murderers, or to the other end of the spectrum, the most close to perfect human being.
Free will allows one to get away with the most unimaginable of tasks. Due to the fact that
Dr. Jekyll created this unknown character, Mr. Hyde, a portion of his free will was no
longer in his hands. No longer did Dr. Jekyll have complete control over all of his
thoughts and actions, because gradually Mr. Hyde took over a portion of Jekylls
freedom. Little by little, Dr. Jekyll was becoming less of himself and more of the demon
that lived inside of him. Therefore, it is evident that the real stab of the story is not in the
discovery that the one man is two men; but in the discovery that the two men are one
man. (Chesterton 183) Granted that this is the case, Mr. Hyde committed suicide in
order to not let Dr. Jekyll have any more control over their body. The evil in Mr. Hyde
took the last chance to ever display the good that lived inside of Jekyll and destroyed it
by killing himself, which indeed removed the free will that Dr. Jekyll possessed.
The unconscious mind is difficult to grasp. It is not uncommon, especially in
present day, to hear more and more about the unconscious mind. As discoveries kept
approaching the surface, more people question things such as mental illness and a variety
of diseases to the brain. Due to the fact that these issues were rarely acknowledged during
this time period, it is questionable if anyone ever blamed Stevensons desire to
understand the mind because he suffered from many of these problems on his own.

Especially now, with the new influence of the discovery of anesthetics on research
work, (Anderson) it is possible that Stevenson suffered from different medical
instabilities, which enabled him to use his Brownies to create such a story such as
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Mental illness has always been a topic of discussion, but never truly
acknowledged until later years. Initially, the increase in new cases of insanity caused
little notice. A few observers in the seventeenth century expressed concern, but the
prevalence of insanity remained low compared with what was to come. By the eighteenth
century, the stream of insanity had begun. (Fuller) Mental illness was something that
not many people could wrap their minds around. The Victorian Era, however, was a time
period of many advances in medicine and research that allowed people to get a greater
look into a persons mind. Stevenson explained later, he wanted to give voice in the tale
to the strong sense of mans double being. [] Certainly, the words Stevenson gives to
Jekyll at the outset of his confession suggest that the author was aware of developments
in the emergent psychology of multiple selves. (Matus) This is the type of free will
Stevenson had, he was able to write a story about the unconscious mind that no one else
was able to achieve. This is possibly because he suffered from an illness himself but one
that rather allowed him to explore all possibilities of his own mind and subconscious, that
then further allowed others to get a view of that as well.

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