In Chapter 8, Henry Jekyll referred to his document which constitutes the entirety of Chapter 10 as "the confession of your unworthy and unhappy friend — Henry Jekyll," yet this final Chapter refers to the
document as a "full statement." This statement, then, gives us an account of Dr. Jekyll's experiments and along with the preceding Chapter, it constitutes what the average person considers as the entire Jekyll/Hyde story.
In giving us his background, Jekyll constantly emphasizes the excellence of his background which commands the respect of all; his honorable conduct is exemplary to the world, when contrasted with the "blazon irregularities" which he hid with a morbid sense of shame. Thus, early in Jekyll's life, he recognized a "profound duplicity of life so profound a double dealer." He also recognized early "that man is not truly one, but truly two," and then he acknowledged "the thorough and primitive duality of man." Also, very early, he saw the need to hide the shameful part of himself from the world, and the necessity to try and separate the two selves.
Note here that many critics are not content to interpret the novel as a conflict between good (Jekyll) and evil (Hyde), but, instead, the novel points out, according to them, that evil (represented by Hyde) is only a small portion of man, a portion represented by Hyde's diminutive and dwarfish size. Certainly, Dr. Jekyll implies this when he theorizes that "man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens" — that is, evil and good and many other qualities will ultimately be found to make up the entire man. However, Jekyll and his experiments can only prove at the present moment that man's existence has two parts — one good and one evil. Jekyll's experiment, which Lanyon found so horrifying, was an attempt to separate the two components, and when he discovered the correct formula and drank it, Jekyll was approaching a robust fifty years of age; yet after his transformation into Edward Hyde, he felt younger, lighter, and more sensual. He knew from the beginning that he was "tenfold more wicked [and] evil."
