Multiple Personality Disorder and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Multiple personality disorder is the central theme behind Robert Louis Stevenson’s mystery, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, however much of his interpretation of multiple personality disorder (MPD) or disassociative identity disorder (DID) does not reflect the actual disease. While Stevenson’s interpretations of multiple personality disorder were fairly congruent to the actual symptoms and indicators of this ailment, one is able to find sizeable differences between his analysis of multiple personality disorder and the actual problems associated with the disease. Dr. Jekyll conducted his experiments himself in order to achieve a dual personality rather than having experienced a painful or disturbing situation. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are conscious of one another; with multiple personality disorder, either personality may be unaware of what the other is doing. The dominant figure changes from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde as Hyde gains more power. One suffering from multiple personality disorder has a single dominant personality which stays constant throughout the disorder. Dr. Jekyll has a disorder which causes his need for an evil half, but not necessarily MPD. Dr. Jekyll persuades himself into thinking there is a need for a second personality in order to indulge both his mischievous side and his public side. ... Clearly, Jekyll’s reasoning behind creating, rather than falling victim to a second personality, is his need to release his second, evil side. Jekyll describes his want and desire for a second identity: “If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil” (Stevenson 76).