I first must mention that the virgin whore dichotomy does not make an appearance in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Whilst sitting here, staring at this screen, thinking back to ancient history, a time long passed- that time being last month- I realized that the last time we were in class, physically, that is, we had discussed the virgin/whore dichotomy using texts such as Jenny or The Lady of Shalott. I pondered briefly the progression in focus from those writings to Jekyll and Hyde, coming to the realization that the titular “Strange Case” is dealing with the duality of man, the dichotomy of Jekyll and Hyde.
While fundamentally different, there is a resemblance between the two cases. The virgin/whore dichotomy maintains the idea that there is nothing between a pure, innocent woman, and a degenerate nymphomaniac; few to no positive traits are associated with the ‘whores’, while only positive traits are associated with the ‘virgins’. In much the same way, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde display significant difference- Jekyll is large, old, wealthy, and in nearly all ways, well-off, Hyde, on the other hand, is small, ugly, gaunt, and lacks even the establishment of citizenship, seeing as how he came to be by way of potion. The duality of man entertains the idea that humans all have good and evil capacity within them, thus, in being pure evil, Hyde is not human, separating him further from Jekyll, making him even farther from Jekyll than if Jekyll himself was purely good. There is nothing between Jekyll and Hyde, there is no middle ground, because if you were to add any ‘good’ to Hyde, he would exhibit none of the traits that he does, ceasing to be Hyde, and rather becoming Jekyll in much the same way that women are viewed as whores as soon as they are no longer virgins.
I feel as though this is getting lengthy and I’ve stopped adding substance, so I’ll briefly mention a parallel to our own current situation- for different, but vaguely similar reasons to our own, Jekyll/Hyde confines himself to his room, communicating only through written language for an extended period of time.