Question

Are the subjects in this reading passage being compared or contrasted? This passage is taken from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stephenson. "The death of Sir Danvers was, to his way of thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde. Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for Dr. Jekyll." contrasted compared

Answer 1

On the one hand, Sir Danvers was assassinated by Mr. Hyde and, although he was able to escape from being accused, the police tried to follow his steps by offering a reward unsuccessfully. Thus, his crimes were then known by the people. They learnt that there was an evil man who was insensible and violent. People knew he had questionable friendships. Nonetheless, the police couldn’t find him.  

On the other hand, the exact person who thought that the death of Sir Danvers had been a good incident was Mr. Utterson, a friend of Mr. Hyde, who, in a certain way, was relieved that Mr. Hyde had disappeared because of the death of Sir Danvers since the police started to looking for him. He was sort of happy to know that Mr. Hyde wouldn’t continue committing more crimes. So, for him, Sir Danver’s death was something like a blessing.  

In conclusion, the subjects in this passage are being contrasted since the narrator tells that due to the death of Sir Danvers, Mr. Hyde had disappeared. According to that, both subjects are being contrasted in order to explain that the cause of the disappearing of Mr. Hyde was the fact that the police was looking for him since they wanted to catch the responsible that was causing all the crimes described in the novel. With that said, as long as Mr. Hyde had disappeared, Dr. Jekyll will be able to live a normal life because evil had left his body so he could start to act the way he did before this misfortune happened to him.