Dr.
Jekyll's conflict is that he wants to be both wholly good and wholly bad at the same time. He
realizes that these two sides of his nature can't be reconciled.
He fully
wants to be the morally upright, dedicated, virtuous, exemplary man that most of his friends
believe him to be. However, he also dislikes having to control his darker, more aggressive, and
more atavistic (primal) instincts. He wants this more dangerous part of himself to have freedom,
too.
Therefore, he does experiments that allow him to separate his good and
bad sideshis superego and his id, in Freudian terms (though Freud was not yet on the scene)into
two separate people. Dr. Jekyll represents his good, socially acceptable side, while Mr. Hyde
embodies his selfish, evil, and murderous side.
Unfortunately, being more
primitive and ruthless, Mr. Hyde gains the upper hand. This leads Dr. Jekyll to a second
conflict: what can he do to stop Mr. Hyde and his anti-social behavior? Dr. Jekyll is caught
between the need...
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