Dual Personality: Consequence of Drug Addiction in R.L. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Abstract

The present study deals with dual or a split personality of the protagonist as a consequence of drug addiction in RL Stevenson's gothic novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A dual or split personality means that within the same person there are both good as well as evil qualities which are exposed in different conditions. When people are in a normal condition they seem good and gentle, and when they are intoxicated they show their true identity i.e. full of cruelty and irrationality. The major character of the novella, Dr. Jekyll, has two personalities: Dr. Jekyll (a good and professional physician) and Mr. Hyde (an evil and murderous character). His two personalities are exposed to the society when he desires to live a life of duplicity and invents drug for it. Drug plays a major role to separate him from good to evil and vice-versa. In the initial position, Dr. Jekyll needs drug to be Mr. Hyde but later when he is fully addicted, he no longer needs it to transform himself into Mr. Hyde. In Freudian viewpoint these two distinct personalities of the same person represent two different aspects of human psyche i.e. conscious and unconscious. Hence, the cause of the protagonist's dual personalities is nothing other than drug addiction and its abuse.