Turning into Mr. Hyde allows Dr. Jekyll to escape the stifling restrictions of Victorian society and connect with his innermost impulses and desires. Indeed, it says something about the society in which Jekyll lives that he can only achieve such freedom through performing a deadly experiment on himself. In his ordinary workaday life, Dr. Jekyll is the epitome of a respectable Victorian gent, a man of exceptional self-control who takes his social and professional responsibilities very seriously indeed. But once he guzzles down that potion and turns himself into the wicked Mr. Hyde, all sense of responsibility goes out of the window. Yet far from being repulsed by the "imprint of deformity and decay" he sees in the mirror, he actually welcomes it and the freedom that it brings him.
In writing your essay you might like to explore the theme of whether freedom or responsibility is what ultimately defines Dr. Jekyll's true personality. One could argue that Mr. Hyde is Jekyll's subconscious, rising to the surface to partake of the freedom that he's kept repressed for so long. Or one could argue that Mr. Hyde is a distortion of who and what Dr. Jekyll really is, an aberration in someone who genuinely does have a real sense of responsibility, but whose soul has been corrupted and debased by the results of his foolish experiment. Either way, Jekyll has abused his freedom and behaved irresponsibly. But is Jekyll acting out of character? That's the most important question.
At one point in the story, Jekyll muses about the freedom he has as Hyde.
I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy . . . an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul.
Jekyll is a responsible and respected gentleman of the Victorian era, and Hyde gives him the ability to experience some of his previously suppressed inner desires. There is nothing inherently wrong about the idea, but Hyde takes the freedom too far. He no longer cares about the responsibility that he has toward society and his fellow citizens. I would recommend a thesis statement that focuses on emphasizing that uncontrolled freedom (freedom without responsibility) is ultimately destructive and dangerous. The thesis might go something like the following statement.
"Although Jekyll may feel constrained by his apparent lack of freedom, his experiences as Hyde shows readers that responsibility is always an important part of any amount of freedom."
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