the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde lit2go

In the beginning, Jekyll and the right-brain was the dominant personality but as the story progresses and Jekyll increasingly turns into Hyde, the secondary persona strengthens until eventually Jekyll is no longer in control and Hyde can appear whenever he wants. And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll” (55). Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. “The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed. Stevenson likened this idea of a dual-brain in Jekyll and Hyde:

During the Victorian Era, many scientists proposed the idea of needing to equally exercise both areas of the brain in order to prevent one side of the dual-brain from taking over. Stiles discusses an article “The Brain of a Criminal Lunatic” by the physiologist David Ferrier (1882) where he discovered an over-enlarged right-hemisphere and an abnormally-small left-hemisphere during an autopsy of a woman who was mentally ill and murdered her children. However during this time, Stevenson may also have heard about the dual-brain theory, where the right and left hemispheres could act independently such that an over-active right brain may lead someone to very emotional and irrational acts, such as murder. Stiles explains Stevenson’s interpretation by saying “While Jekyll exhibits left-hemisphere attributes (masculinity, whiteness, logic, intelligence, humanness), Hyde embodies right-hemisphere traits (femininity, racial indeterminacy, madness, emotion, and animality)”. As they saw it, the right-hemisphere and the left-hemisphere were associated with distinct attributes (this still remains true) and that a person may have the opposing sides pulling them towards specific characteristics.

During the Victorian Era, contemporary scientists were discussing the idea of everyone having a double brain. In Anne Stiles’ article “Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde and the Double Brain”, she argues that though Stevenson claimed he had no previous knowledge of the psychological idea of multiple personalities, he may have read several scientific articles published during the 1870’s and 1880’s from French and British popular medical journals about this condition, which inspired him to write several works including Deacon Brodie: A Double Life, The Strange Case of Dr. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Inspiration for The Strange Case of Dr.

The strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde lit2go