Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Ending - Midterm

This week's reading of Jekyll and Hide ended up as I predicted in the previous post. The elements of the enlightenment are prevalent in this novel on multiple levels. When Jekyll claims that every person really has two sides to their being, and that this person develops out of a centered desire to go back to his simple nature. The enlightenment era was an age of science and development and often leading away from the Church. The desire to go back to a primitive nature is meant to support the ideals set fourth by Darwin, that we have a common ancestor with our animal neighbors that share this world. If Hyde were the embodiment of scientific nature, then Jekyll would have to be the representation of the antique view of the world as viewed from the commoner. You see the original obsession of Jekyll to become Hyde, and later when Hyde becomes more prevalent the desire to return to Jekyll. This is parallel to the commoner at this time to represent the Church and Science. People would love to dabble in the sciences but then run back to the church when things could not be immediately explained. When the sciences start to take over, the public as a negative opinion of it until they are given the full account of issues on the subject. When the full truth is given, people come to terms with what they have seen, whether of not they agree with the outcome or actions taken to get to the outcome.

   We know that Stevenson is a agnostic in belief. With this knowledge, it is far more apparent the intentions of these actions taken throughout the novel. Darwinism is highly misunderstood by out common society today. This book actually does a good job of showing what evolution actually shows. Evolution in today's society has the common theory that people are the highest point of evolution and that we came from lesser beings. This is far from the truth. In all reality, Evolution is a highly justifiable theory that as defined as "a change of allele frequencies over time". This just means that as a species reproduces, certain traits are selected for under certain conditions. This relates to Jekyll and Hyde. Hyde is the divergent being being of Jekyll and the relationships with the public are in accordance.