Author’s Note: upon finishing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one of my favorite aspects is the aspect that once Jekyll has made his first transfer, he does not hesitate to proceed over and over again due to the thrill of it all. It is very clear that his repetition plays an important role in the question of what as humans do we do when we are faced with a guilty pleasure.
Life is full of temptations, we all have evil in us that at times drives us to grasp such temptations, there is no denying it. And once a temptation is granted, we will do it again and then again and again, and each time it gets easier and easier. I think the best way to sum up our action as humans is with the old standard, if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk. Although in this case we aren't talking about mice, no we are talking about Dr, Jekyll and human action in general and it's not about cookies and milk it's about good and evil. As humans, I believe that we all have evil in us and we are all tempted by this evil within us. It all goes back to when we were children and mom told as we couldn’t eat the cookie dough because it was bad for us, but whenever she said that, it made us want it even more; so what did we do, when she wasn’t looking we took a big spoonful of cookie dough and stuck it in our mouths. However, the real moral is the story is not that the forbidden is most desired, but instead it is that sin becomes easier each time we do it, much like each time we broke mom's rule of not eating cookie dough we thought less about what we were doing and eventually we didn’t care at all that we were breaking a rule. This is the exact case for Dr. Jekyll, the only difference is that we are talking about the continuous committing evil instead of eating cookie dough.
In Dr. Jekyll, we see a man who has been raised in the best of the best standards and has always have been expected to use his brilliance for good, however, as Dr. Jekyll says, "man is not truly one, but two" (104). It is his as well as many others that inside every good human is someone just as evil. He is a man who is bound by science yet he has an incongruous desire to act in evil yet he struggles with this desire for some time. Yet too often, good judgment is clouded by desire and temptation and the will to remain good slowly deteriorates. Dr. Jekyll's goodness does deteriorate and he finally subsides to evil, as "with a strong glow of courage, [he] drank off the potion" (106), that allowed his desire of transformation to another in order to embark in the forbidden journeys of his "evil side" (107). As hard as it may have been and as much courage that he may have need is irrelevant the fact is that he did it. And although it took him a great level of courage to conduct the experiment the first time around, as with everything else in life it became easier and easier yet as he did it over and over again all the while developing an incredulous view towards the evil of it all. Dr. Jekyll became so used to the process that, he "had become hitherto accustomed" (108) to the process and he had enjoyed his time in evil, that he had been "happier" (106). As time progressed he had become accustomed to and enjoyed this vicarious experience. Like some many other humans have done, Dr. Jekyll had thought that he would do something once and get rid of all that temptation yet to no surprise he did it again and then again and every time, the sin became more bearable to him. Dr. Jekyll gave himself a cookie and a glass of milk and look were that landed him…"the life of unhappy Henry Jekyll [brought] to an end" (124).
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