Robert Louis Stevenson's famous, dark, haunting and terrific short novel, "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" was first published in 1886 and is still absorbing, relevant and deeply disturbing in this twenty- first century. Stevenson explores not only the theme of duality, "Man is not truly one, but truly two" and the deep and black desires within the human heart but also how a story can be told, in different forms and in different points of view because in real life it is almost impossible for one person to define the absolute truth in another.
             At first Dr. Jekyll enjoys the satanic ways of Mr. Hyde. He admits this to Utterson in his letter, saying, "It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine." Stevenson, using the dialogue of Jekyll, goes on to say that all people are a composite of both good and evil. He asserts, "...all human beings...are commingled out of good and evil." Here, Stevenson is leaving the narrow scope of his fictional tale, and indeed indicting all of society.
             One branch of philosophy insists that human beings are 'dual creatures'. By this they mean the animalistic side of a human being is separate from man's unique ability of rational thinking. The story subconsciously portrays every human to be hiding behind a facade therefore I don't think that it is a coincidence that Stevenson has named Jekyll's inner beast Mr. Hyde. Certainly, the novel goes out of its way to paint Hyde as animalistic-he is hairy and ugly; he conducts himself according to instinct rather than reason. Utterson describes him as a "troglodyte," or primitive creature. Yet if Hyde were just an animal, we would not expect him to take such delight in crime. Indeed, he seems to commit violent acts against innocents for
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