A Study of ‘Double Consciousness’ in Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Abstract

Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a nineteenth century text, deals with the moral and social issues which preoccupied the Victorian people. ‘Victorian ideas of respectability, gentlemanliness, criminality and other related social conditions are clearly manifested in this text. The novella commonly regarded as a metaphor of good-evil antithesis and duality of human personality is extremely concerned with the physical transformation of human body and its subsequent effects on the protagonist and the society. The emergence of Mr. Hyde from Jekyll’s personality brings in the concept of duality in human nature that both good and evil resides in a single person. “It (the text) plunges immediately into the centre of Victorian society to dredge up a character ever present but submerged.” [Saposnik 1971: 717] While the two characters have become a source of literary study in the split personality disorder, they also question the very notion of ‘human consciousness.’ And this paper is intended to examine the question of ‘double consciousnesses in the two-characters, namely Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.