Литература народов стран зарубежья | Филологический аспект №10 (42) Октябрь, 2018

Образ Зла и условности готической литературы в «Странной истории доктора Джекила и мистера Хайда» Р.Л. Стивенсона

Комиссарова Алиса Леонидовна
студентка фак-та Гуманитарных наук Нижегородского кампуса Высшей школы экономики, РФ, г. Нижний Новгород, alisakomiss@narod.ru
Научный руководитель Цветкова Марина Владимировна
доктор филологических наук, профессор департамента литературы и межкультурной коммуникации Нижегородского кампуса Высшей школы Экономики, РФ, г. Нижний Новгород

Аннотация: Данная статья посвящена подробному рассмотрению образа Зла в новелле Стивенсона, который сконцентрирован на двух дихотомических персонажах романа - Докторе Джекиле и мистере Хайде. В рамках данного исследования особое внимание уделено условностям готической литературы, которые являются основой, вырисовывающей образ Зла. Помимо этого, в статье с помощью наглядно иллюстрирующих примеров описаны главные персонажи новеллы с точки зрения рассмотрения их как типов злодеев готической литературы, выявлен метод повествования, выбранный автором, определено взаимодействие Добра и Зла в «Странной истории доктора Джекила и мистера Хайда».
Ключевые слова: Стивенсон, Зло, готическая литература, готические условности

Komissarova Alice Leonidovna
student of the Faculty of Humanities of Nizhny Novgorod’s campus of the Higher School of Economics, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod
Research supervisor Tsvetkova Marina Vladimirovna
doctor of Philology, professor of the Department of Literature and Intercultural Communication of Nizhny Novgorod’s campus of the Higher School of Economics, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod

Abstract: This article is devoted to a detailed examination of the image of Evil in Stevenson's short story, which focuses on two dichotomous characters of the novel - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In this study special attention is paid to the conventions of Gothic literature, which are the basis for drawing the image of Evil. In addition, the article with the help of illustrative examples describes the main characters of the story from the point of view of treating them as types of villains of Gothic literature, reveals the storytelling method chosen by the author, defines the interaction of Good and Evil in “The Strange History of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.
Keywords: Stevenson, Evil, Gothic Story, Gothic conventions

Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published in 1886, at the end of the Victorian era. The Victorian era is a period of great progress and of change in the worldview of society, which is directly related to scientific achievements. The most serious change in people's minds was made by Darwin's evolutionary theory, which shook established convictions about religion, morality and human nature. This internal conflict was reflected in the literature.

This conflict was looking for a suitable form for appearance, it had to penetrate imperceptibly, but at the same time, it had to declare vividly its existence. The Gothic as a literary genre that originated in the middle of the 18th century has already moved to the periphery, but the conflict of the Victorian personality suited the framework of this genre. This is due to the original causes of the appearance of the Gothic in the 18th century. Clive Bloom in Gothic Histories: The Taste for Terror, 1764 to the Present explains how the Gothic originated and why this genre was necessary for society.  In the 16th century, places like Isola des Demonias still existed, they were even put on maps, however ‘two centuries later such fantastic localities had been banished from cartography, but not banished from a certain human need for the mysterious.’ [1, p.1-2] Mankind received more and more information about the world, but people were psychologically incapable of accepting new changes in the world outlook and structure of the universe. The person passed into the realm of the imagination, where the frightening and the mysterious caused admiration, and not fear. On the contrary, real fear caused scientific discoveries, which distorted the usual ideas about the world.

Bloom notes that the Gothic literature reflected a mental alienation, which is associated with Technological changes [1, p.4]. The 19th century gave rise to an even greater crisis of consciousness, because under the microscope of science there was not the surrounding world, but man. Thus, man became the object of scientific research, consequently, society as a whole turned to the question of self-knowledge from the scientific and psychological points of view.

Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a vivid literary example of the perception of the human psyche under the microscope of science and self-knowledge. Dr. Jekyll conducts experiments on himself, trying to understand his own nature and his duality. In the previous Gothic literature, the type of the scientist who conducted experiments on the human body was already presented - it is Viktor Frankenstein. However, in the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, the character seeks to assimilate himself to God, the Creator, he seeks to unravel the cosmic mystery of being. Dr. Jekyll tries to resolve the mystery that is inside him. Thus, Dr. Jekyll dissects himself and separates the sinful side of his nature, which becomes Mr. Hyde.

Based on the above written, it is quite clear why this plot fits into the Gothic, but it is necessary to identify conventions of the Gothic genre in the text of the novella and analyse how these conventions affect the representation of evil.

One convention of the Gothic genre is already set in the title of the novel – Strange Case. The title initially projects a certain perception of the novella by readers - events are perceived as unusual, violating the order, possibly having supernatural causes. Thus, the text reports its essence already at the beginning, setting the reader to a certain mode of working with the novella. Later similar type of titles will be found in the subsequent art, which reworked the ideas of the Gothic for the science fiction, horror fiction and detective fiction (for example, titles of books (Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), of films (The Strange Case of Delphina Potocka or The Mystery of Chopin, The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes & Arthur Conan Doyle, The Strange Case Files of Ryoko Yakushiji), of TV-series (Stranger Things), of literary magazines (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror) and of comics (Marvel’s Doctor Strange)).

Besides, the novel consists of ten parts, each of which has a heading. The headings of these parts also support the Gothic tradition and cause waiting for the disclosure of secrets. For example, the heading of the chapter Story of the Door clearly hints at some mystery, which is hidden behind the door. Thanks to the heading of the next chapter Search for Mr. Hyde, readers hope to find out whom Mr. Hyde is, how he looks, where he is and what he does. In addition, ‘Hyde’ and ‘hide’ sound the same, i.e. are homophones; in this regard, the heading sounds very ironic – Mr. Utterson is looking for the person who deliberately hides from him (“If he be Mr. Hyde,” he had thought, “I shall be Mr. Seek.” [3])  Moreover, each heading opens one of clues of the mystery, so readers can trace the solution of “strange case”. The content of the novel looks like a plan for a detective investigating this mysterious case.

The narrative begins with acquaintance with one of the characters of the novella - Mr. Utterson, which will form the perception of readers. Through the perspective of Mr. Utterson, readers receive information about other characters and about current events. Mr. Utterson is an observer; this type of character is often found in the short stories of Edgar Poe (for example, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the Rue Morgue). This type of characters is necessary for the story to be told from the point of view of a person who does not know the essence of a mystery. The observer due to his analytical makes conclusions that lead to a clue; in point of fact, he is investigating a strange case, watching what is happening and analysing the situation.

Observers are often close to the protagonist of the story (The Fall of the House of Usher), or face him accidentally or in connection with their professional activities (The Murders in the Rue Morgue). In Stevenson's novella, Mr. Utterson is a lawyer and close friend of Dr. Jekyll (“I suppose, Lanyon,” said he, “you and I must be the two oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has?”, “I am an old friend of Dr. Jekyll's — Mr. Utterson of Gaunt Street — you must have heard of my name” [3]). Consequently, he has two points of view: he watches the changes in the behaviour of his friend with care and concern (it contrasts somewhat with Utterson's customary behaviour: “But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I incline to Cain's heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.” [3]), and he as a lawyer and a representative of the law worries about the safety of people (including Dr. Jekyll, as one of possible victims of Mr. Hyde: “That was the funeral oration of one friend and client; and he could not help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal.” [3]). His mentality and profession allow him to be successful and consistent in unravelling the mystery, unlike other characters.

Stevenson uses third person limited point of view because his goal is to create a distance between the all-knowing author and the narrator. The narrator is closer to Utterson than to the writer; this is due to the fact that readers should not guess the essence of the mystery before Mr. Utterson. Thus, readers and Mr. Utterson reveal the mystery of the plot gradually, under the control of the author's pen.

In addition, four other narratives complement Mr. Utterson’s point of view: Mr. Enfield’s story of the door, the maid’s account, Dr. Lanyon’s narrative and Dr. Jekyll’s confession. The transfer of narrative from one character to another, on the one hand, should help to consider the situation from different angles; on the other hand, complicates the perception of the plot, since readers receive information by pieces. Readers do not get the full picture, but they collect individual pieces from different characters and glue them together, forming a personal perception of the storyline. Each character makes his own conclusions and expresses his personal attitude towards Mr. Hyde. It allows Stevenson to present in the novella several possible unreliable narrators, which are also the convention of the Gothic genre. Their unreliability is due to the fact that they do not know about Dr. Jekyll's experiments or do not believe in Dr. Jekyll's theory, such as Dr. Lanyon.

The next convention found in the text of Stevenson's novella is a house. In contrast to the standard image of an old frightening castle or horrible house in the countryside in the Gothic literature, the Stevenson’s novella presented a new type of Gothic buildings - town house, which is directly connected with urbanization and industrialization in 19th century England:

Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east the line was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the street. It was two storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower storey and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on the mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to drive away these random visitors or to repair their ravages. [3]

The house causes unpleasant sensations (“a certain sinister block of building” [3]), and its ominousness is enhanced by personification (“a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the street”, “a blind forehead of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature” [3]). In addition, this house contrasts with other houses on the street, it gets out of the picture (“The street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.” [3]). The house seemed to be torn from the traditional Gothic novel; it was narrowed and reduced in size, and then was squeezed into the usual city street.

In addition, it seems very entertaining that the house has two images: the house of Dr. Jekyll, which is a beautiful, well-kept and rich house, and the unpleasant home of Mr. Hyde. In fact, it is the same building, but it is perceived by people in different ways, as well as Jekyll and Hyde are perceived.

Take a look at examples of the perception of Dr. Jekyll's house: “he would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling at his dreams”, “Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of men… One house, however, second from the corner, was still occupied entire; and at the door of this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort” [3]. The realization that the house of Jekyll and the house of Hyde is one and the same place hardly fits in the thoughts of characters (“And by the way, what an ass you must have thought me, not to know that this was a back way to Dr. Jekyll’s! It was partly your own fault that I found it out, even when I did.” [3]).

The door of the Mr. Hyde’s house reminds Mr. Enfield of an odd story, where the door is the background of one of Mr. Hyde's crimes. Mr. Enfield gives the name to the house - Black Mail House, thereby offering his interpretation of the relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The other convention of the Gothic genre is also found in the first chapter of the novella - the night appearance of a villain:

I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street and all the folks asleep — street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church — till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. [3]

Night meeting creates a more mysterious image of the villain. Night is the boundary between reality and dreaming, between the ordinary and the supernatural. The night villain is at the same time real and fantastic.

Mr. Enfield sets the mystical tone of his story with phrases such as “some place at the end of the world”, “a black winter morning”, “all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church”, “I got into that state of mind” [3]. However, it should be noted that the night landscapes of the novella are quite calm, in contrast to the traditional image of weather and nature in Gothic novels, where the fog covers the whole space, the storm rages, the sky is burst with thunder and lightning. The appearance of Mr. Hyde is always accompanied by silence and emptiness, as if nature wants the character to be clearly seen (even deep nights are illuminated in the novella). Take a look at the following passages:

It was a fine dry night; frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow. By ten o’clock, when the shops were closed the by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of London from all round, very silent. [3]

Nature seems to purposely allow Mr. Utterson to properly study Mr. Hyde's appearance at their first meeting – beautiful evening lighting (“the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow”), emptiness and silence around (“by-street was very solitary and… very silent”), snow can not interfere (“a fine dry night” [3]). The street seems frozen in anticipation of the meeting with Mr. Hyde. Only Mr. Hyde's steps violate the tranquility of the street:

Mr. Utterson had been some minutes at his post, when he was aware of an odd light footstep drawing near. In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. [3]

The episode of the murder of Mr. Carew is described in the same manner:

Although a fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid’s window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. [3]

It is worth noting that the fog, which according to the logic of the Gothic genre, was to accompany the appearance of Mr. Hyde, but in this case, it rolls over only a few hours after the murder. In addition, in the chapter The Carew Murder Case one of the conventions is also played out - the maid falls into a swoon after she saw the brutal murder (“At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted.” [3]). The only character that is described as romantic is obviously ridiculed (“It seems she was romantically given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing.” [3]), but in this case, Stevenson does not ridicule the maid's fainting, since fainting is necessary to prove the horror caused by Mr. Hyde.

The episode before Mr. Hyde's suicide essentially re-enacts the idea of a contrast between the silence and sinister steps of the villain:

The scud had banked over the moon, and it was now quite dark. The wind, which only broke in puffs and draughts into that deep well of building, tossed the light of the candle to and fro about their steps, until they came into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down silently to wait. London hummed solemnly all around; but nearer at hand, the stillness was only broken by the sounds of a footfall moving to and fro along the cabinet floor. [3]

There is much less light than in the previous ones (“The scud had banked over the moon”, “The wind… tossed the light of the candle to and fro” [3]) - draws the reader's attention to this, because light is associated with hope in the minds of readers. Consequently, the less light, the less chance of rescuing Dr. Jekyll. The wind finally begins to rage on the eve of the climax of the novella.

A sound background supports the atmosphere of horror in the Gothic literature. In the Stevenson’s novella there are such sounds as “the heavy creaking tread”, “steps…lightly and oddly, with a certain swing,” (like a ghost), “a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice”, “weeping like a woman or a lost soul”, “the low growl of London”, “an irrepressible sigh”, “a grinding in the bones” [3], a burst, crashing, screaming, crying, etc.

The reaction to the story of the door is also a convention of the Gothic, since the identity of Hyde and the mystery of the relationship between the Dr. Jekyll and the criminal captured Mr. Utterson's thoughts. The lawyer is so immersed in the mystery that he can not sleep properly, he is haunted by horrible pictures with Mr. Hyde:

… but now his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. [3]

Painful and frightening dreams are also associated with the genre of Gothic (for example, the mentioned Shelley’s novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus). Mr. Utterson moves from the real world to the unreal; one part of his dream illustrates a really happened incident, which he learned from Mr. Enfield, the other part of the dream is completely his imagination. The character projects possible events in the future plot; thereby, he again plays the role of an unreliable narrator, as well as he sets a mystical tone and creates a mystification of the image of Hyde.

However, Mr. Utterson's dreams can be read as visions, because when Dr. Jekyll falls asleep he is under the authority of Mr. Hyde and fulfills his whims. For clarity, Mr. Utterson's dream and Dr. Jekyll's story: “He would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled, and lo! there would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding.” — “Above all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened.”, “But when I slept… I would leap almost without transition… into the possession of a fancy brimming with images of terror, a soul boiling with causeless hatreds, and a body that seemed not strong enough to contain the raging energies of life.” [3]

Lack of sleep, nightmares and sleepless nights are the main elements of insanity. If Mr. Utterson is simply obsessed with unraveling the secret of the connection between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll really go crazy, since they know the truth. Lanyon denied Dr. Jekyll's ideas, they seemed to him crazy and wrong (“…But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake’s sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash,” added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, “would have estranged Damon and Pythias.”[3]), and when he encountered the result of experiences of the old friend, he could not accept what was happening. The denial and fear of truth blew his mind. He could no longer sleep, horror followed him, and he felt the approach of death:

What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind to set on paper. I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul sickened at it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and I cannot answer. My life is shaken to its roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror sits by me at all hours of the day and night; and I feel that my days are numbered, and that I must die; and yet I shall die incredulous. As for the moral turpitude that man unveiled to me, even with tears of penitence, I can not, even in memory, dwell on it without a start of horror. [3]

When Utterson meets Lanyon, the lawyer observes the frozen fear on the doctor's face, it is already rooted in his mind; Lanyon dies in front of his eyes:

…but when he came in, he was shocked at the change which had taken place in the doctor’s appearance. He had his death-warrant written legibly upon his face. The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the lawyer’s notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind. [3]

The madness of Lanyon leads to his death. As for Dr. Jekyll's psychological state, it is more confusing and raises doubts at the beginning of the novella. Mr. Utterson has suspicions about the Jekyll’s mental state before meeting with Mr. Hyde (“I thought it was madness” [3]). With the development of the plot, the madness of Dr. Jekyll in the eyes of other characters is amplified (“So great and unprepared a change pointed to madness”, “Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my colleague was insane” [3]). The madness also expresses through the reclusion of Dr. Jekyll, he avoids people because he is afraid that someone will learn about his secret or Hyde will cross the line again; in solitude the doctor plunges into his psychological dissonance, which he felt even before the experience:

Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life…With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two….It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man… [3]

The pressure of Victorian morality forced him to change himself and restrain his nature, but this worsened his psychological state, he struggled daily with himself and eventually he conceived the unthinkable, namely, to divide himself into pieces (Does this idea prove his insanity?).

In fact, the madness of Dr. Jekyll is the starting point of the further mystical story, it has spawned the incarnation of evil, the devil, the night villain, the creator of the madness of other characters, that is, Mr. Hyde. The image of Hyde is the central convention of the novella. Stevenson portrays Mr. Hyde as a typical satanic hero [5]. This type of character originated from ambiguous readings of Milton's Lost Paradise; for example, the creature of Frankenstein is also the satanic hero.

The features possessed by the satanic hero:

• He evokes disgust or hatred (“There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable”, “I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle”, “I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point”, “I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight” [3]);
• He is a semblance of a man, but is far from a prototype (“It wasn't like a man” [3]);
• He is associated with the devil, Satan, or the like (“it was like some damned Juggernaut”, “there leaped up the sudden, definite presentment of a fiend”, “I could see that--but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan” [3]);
• The affinity with animals (“If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat, and run from me?”, “Well, when that masked thing like a monkey jumped from among the chemicals” [3]).

However, it is worth to clarify that the novella has two villains. The second villain is Dr. Jekyll, who created the murderer and conceals his sins (besides, Mr. Hyde is part of Dr. Jekyll). Unlike Hyde, Dr. Jekyll is closer to the image of a Promethean hero [4; 5, p. 195], such as Shelley’s Frankenstein. As a scientist, Dr. Jekyll makes a great discovery, however this discovery ruins him. The reason that pushed him to the experiments on the human body also suits the Promethean hero: he saw the imperfection of society that did not allow expressing individuality. He created evil in the fight against another evil.

The last question which needs to be explored in this article and which has already been touched upon when considering two villains is the representation of evil in Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In point of fact, it is impossible to talk about the opposite of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, since one of them includes the identity of the other, although in the text of the novella the characters are opposed to each other (“For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good.” [3]). Dr. Jekyll also separates himself from Mr. Hyde, but this is due to the fact that Henry Jekyll is afraid of his sinfulness and his terrible secret desires.

In fact, Dr. Jekyll is an ordinary man, embodying good and evil, however a part of him, Mr. Hyde, is one hundred percent evil (“This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.” [3]). As mentioned above, Jekyll spawned a true evil, thereby obtaining a higher rank of evil. Every crime of Hyde doubles evil inside Dr. Jekyll, because he is the creator of the cruel murderer and his conscience torments him. The sin of Dr. Jekyll is growing, consequently, Mr. Hyde as the embodiment of evil inside the doctor is also growing.

Initially Dr. Jekyll did not try to keep in himself the balance of good and evil, but sought simultaneously to the purest virtue and all-consuming sinfulness. Creating Hyde, Henry Jekyll finds an opportunity to get rid of duality (in fact, he does not get it), to enjoy sins and at the same time to be the decent person in society (This issue can be considered from the point of view of the origin of the character's name, which was spoken by Vladimir Nabokov in his lecture (he denied this idea): the “icicle” [2, p.9] Dr. Jekyll frozen by his borders spills into “a haven” [2, p.9], where at least his part, i.e. Hyde, can behave as he pleases).

In Stevenson's novella, evil is separated from the person, such as the nose in a Gogol's short story, but it should be noted “Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll” [3]. Since Jekyll is a mixture of good and evil, it is logical that the evil part is less than the sum of his parts. In this regard, the question arises - what happened to the good part of Dr. Jekyll?

Good originally was in Jekyll, because he was much bigger than Hyde, however, good can not be separated or turned into a some individual, such as Hyde. Pure evil can be formed into the individual person, but one hundred percent good can not. It turns out pure good can not live within the human flesh, the human body is alien to good. If in the novella good does not separate from Jekyll, is there any good in him originally? Or do his cynicism, fear, vanity, originally create a mask of good Dr. Jekyll, which never existed? The essence of evil in this novella leads to such interesting rhetorical questions.

The profound question of the inner struggle between good and evil in man is outwardly hidden behind the Gothic conventions, which somewhat distract from the essence of the events taking place. Stevenson intentionally builds the text in such a way that the main aspect of the Gothic novella, that is, evil, is represented within the framework of the genre and simultaneously needs a separate deep interpretation.

In addition, in the Stevenson's novella evil took such a huge niche in Dr. Jekyll's soul, because he tried to keep himself within the bounds of decency, within the framework of the Victorian morality. He feels disadvantaged, because there are too many prohibitions and they limit his freedom and individuality. The more the person is restrained, the more evil is accumulated in him. As a result, the excessively strict society generates a great sinfulness.

1. Bloom, Clive. “Now Welcome the Night The Origins of Gothic Culture.” Gothic Histories: The Taste for Terror, 1764 to the Present, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2010.
2. Nabokov, Vladimir. “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Signet classic, 2003, pp. 7–34.
3. Stevenson, Robert Louis. THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. ¬¬¬¬Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43/43-h/43-h.htm. Accessed in 9 Dec. 2017.
4. Thomson, Douglass H. “GLOSSARY OF THE GOTHIC: HERO/VILLAIN.” Marquette University, epublications.marquette.edu/gothic_herovillain/. Accessed in 11 Dec. 2017.
5. Thorslev, Peter L. “THE BYRONIC HERO AND HEROIC TRADITION.” The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes, NED - New edition ed., University of Minnesota Press, 1962, pp. 185–200. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttsh8q.15. Accessed in 11 Dec. 2017.