Tuesday, October 6, 2015

How does The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde show implications of exploring one’s curiosity?

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is about a scientist, Dr. Jekyll, who is curious to find out if he can separate his evil side from his good side. The consequence of this curiosity is a potion which does just that, and the consequences of the potion are violence, misery and death. The bad side of Dr. Jekyll manifests as Mr. Hyde, and Mr. Hyde has an insatiable appetite for evil. Eventually, Mr. Hyde becomes so strong that he destroys Dr. Jekyll. The moral of this story is a familiar one. It is the same moral that can be inferred from the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, from the Greek myth of Icarus, or from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The moral shared by all of these stories is that too much knowledge or curiosity, specifically knowledge or curiosity which transgresses moral boundaries, ultimately leads to misery.
In chapter 9 of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, entitled "Dr. Lanyon's Narrative," Mr. Hyde asks Dr. Lanyon if he wants to see what happens when he drinks the potion. He says:

Will you be wise? Will you be guided? Will you suffer me to take this [potion] in my hand and to go forth from your house without further parley? Or has the greed of curiosity too much command of you?

Mr. Hyde warns Dr. Lanyon that if he chooses to see what happens when he drinks the potion, he, Dr. Lanyon, will be "blasted by a prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan." Dr. Lanyon's curiosity is too much for him, however, and he insists that he will not "pause before [he] see[s] the end."
The result is catastrophic: Dr. Lanyon witnesses Mr. Hyde, the murderer, transform into Dr. Jekyll, his colleague of old. He suffers such a shock that his hair turns white, and he dies just a few months later. The moral here is much the same as the moral of the whole story: Dr. Lanyon's curiosity leads to his death. As humans, it seems, there is only so much we are supposed to know. Beyond that point lies misery, anguish, and even death.

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