Secular Readings of Good and Evil in R.L.Stevenson's: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Abstract

Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dramatizes philosophical debates over good and evil throwing light into the analysis of these concepts. By depicting opposite personalities in one character who, at times, behaves strictly morally and, at others, utterly amorally the novel raises questions, first, as to how good and evil are represented, especially evil, in the figure of the double and the monster; second, the origins of good and evil actions; and finally, the parameters used to define or categorize such actions. Both personalities mark the conflict of reason and nature in guiding, motivating, and leading men's actions. The juxtaposition of the Katian categorical imperative and the Nietzchean Übermensch to Jekyll and Hyde allows an examination of how good actions are identified with reason, translated by morality; and how evil actions are identified with nature, disclosed in impulses and instinctive drives in the story. The Darwinian notion of natural selection is also used in the analysis, providing an alternative and complementary way to look into good and evil actions. This approach shows not only the way the literary piece discusses the problems of defining actions from purely rational, natural, and circumstantial perspectives, by laying bare criteria used here to define and evil actions, but also how Stevenson's book relates to the historical context of Victorian culture.