Dr Jekyll - The Conflicted Gentleman
Jekyll represents the paradoxical nature of Victorian gentlemen - respectable on the surface but deeply conflicted underneath. Stevenson uses him to critique how society's rigid expectations created artificial, "manufactured" people who suppressed their natural desires.
When Utterson describes Jekyll as "a large, well-made, smooth faced man of fifty... every mark of capacity and kindness," there's something unsettling about this description. A fifty-year-old with a "smooth face" seems unnatural - almost artificially perfect.
This polished facade masks Jekyll's internal struggle with his darker impulses. His apparent kindness and respectability are really just social performance, highlighting the dangerous consequences of Victorian repression. The more society demanded perfection, the more Jekyll had to hide his true self.
Key Point: Jekyll's smooth, unblemished appearance symbolises how Victorian gentlemen were forced to become artificial versions of themselves to meet society's impossible standards.
