Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or simply Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.[1]
It is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who
investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry
Jekyll,[2] and the misanthropic Edward Hyde.
The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often spuriously called "split personality",
wherein within the same person there are two distinct personalities. In
this case, the two personalities in Dr Jekyll are apparently good and
evil, with completely opposite levels of morality. The novella's impact
is such that it has become a part of the language, with the phrase
"Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in
moral character from one situation to the next.[3]
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was an immediate success and is one of Stevenson's best-selling works. Stage adaptations began in Boston and London within a year of its publication and it has gone on to inspire scores of major film and stage performances.
Stevenson had long been intrigued in the idea of how to incorporate the interplay of good and evil into a story. While still a teenager, he developed a script for a play on Deacon Brodie, which he later reworked with the help of W. E. Henley and saw produced for the first time in 1882.[4] In early 1884 he wrote the short story "Markheim", which he revised in 1884 for publication in a Christmas annual.
One night in late September or early October 1885, possibly while he
was still revising "Markheim," Stevenson had a dream, and on wakening
had the intuition
for two or three scenes that would appear in the story. "In the small
hours of one afternoon," says Mrs Stevenson, "I was awakened by cries
of horror from Louis. Thinking he had a nightmare, I woke him. He said angrily, 'Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.' I had awakened him at the first transformation scene ..."[cite this quote]
Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson, remembers "I don't believe that there was ever such a literary feat before as the writing of Dr Jekyll.
I remember the first reading as if it were yesterday. Louis came
downstairs in a fever; read nearly half the book aloud; and then, while
we were still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. I doubt if
the first draft took so long as three days".[cite this quote]
As was customary, Mrs Stevenson would read the draft and offer her
criticisms in the margins. Louis was confined to bed at the time from a
haemorrhage. Therefore, she left her comments with the manuscript and Louis in the toilet. She said that in effect the story was really an allegory,
but Louis was writing it as a story. After a while Louis called her
back into the bedroom and pointed to a pile of ashes: he had burnt the
manuscript in fear that he would try to salvage it, and in the process
forcing himself to start over from nothing, writing an allegorical
story as she had suggested. Scholars debate whether he really burnt his
manuscript. There is no direct factual evidence for the burning, but it
remains an integral part of the history of the novella.[citation needed]
Stevenson re-wrote the story in three to six days, allegedly with the assistance of cocaine.[5]
According to Osbourne, "The mere physical feat was tremendous; and
instead of harming him, it roused and cheered him inexpressibly". He
refined and continued to work on it for four to six weeks afterward.[citation needed]
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was initially sold as a
paperback for one shilling in the UK and one dollar in the U.S. Charles
Scribner's Sons, the American publisher, issued the book on 5 January
1886, four days before the first appearance of the UK edition issued by
Longmans; Scribner's published 3000 copies, only 1250 of them bound in
cloth. Initially stores would not stock it until a review appeared in The Times,
on 25 January 1886, giving it a favourable reception. Within the next
six months close to forty thousand copies were sold. The book's success
was probably due more to the "moral instincts of the public" than any
perception of its artistic merits; it was widely read by those who
never otherwise read fiction, quoted in pulpitsermons and in religious papers.[citation needed] By 1901 it was estimated to have sold over 250,000 copies.[citation needed]
Gabriel John Utterson, a lawyer, is on his weekly walk with his
relative Richard Enfield, who proceeds to tell him of an encounter he
had some months ago while coming home late at night from Carvendish
Place. The tale describes a sinister figure named Mr Hyde who tramples
a young girl, disappears into a door on the street, and re-emerges to
pay off her relatives with a cheque signed by a respectable gentleman
for 100 pounds. Because both Utterson and Enfield disapprove of gossip,
they agree to speak no further of the matter. It happens, however, that
one of Utterson's clients and close friends, Dr Henry Jekyll, has
written a will transferring all of his property to this same Mr Hyde.
Soon, Utterson begins having dreams in which a faceless figure stalks
him through a nightmarish version of London. Puzzled, the lawyer visits
Jekyll and their mutual friend Dr Hastie Lanyon to try to learn more.
Lanyon reports that he no longer sees much of Jekyll, since they had a
dispute over the course of Jekyll's research, which Lanyon calls
“unscientific balderdash”. Curious, Utterson stakes out a building that
Hyde visits, which, it turns out, is a filthy shack attached to the
back of Jekyll's home.
Encountering Hyde, Utterson is amazed by how ugly the man seems, as
if deformed, though Utterson cannot say exactly how this is so. Much to
Utterson's surprise, Hyde willingly offers Utterson his address. Jekyll
tells Utterson not to concern himself with the matter of Hyde. A year
passes uneventfully. One night, a servant girl witnesses Hyde beat a
man to death with a heavy cane - MP
Sir Danvers Carew, also a client of Utterson. The police contact
Utterson, who suspects Hyde of the murder. He leads the officers to
Hyde's apartment, feeling a sense of foreboding amid the eerie weather
(the morning is dark and wreathed in fog). When they arrive at the
apartment, the murderer has vanished, but they find half of the cane
(described as being made of a strong wood but broken due to the
beating) left behind a door. It is revealed to have been given to
Jekyll by Utterson. Shortly thereafter, Utterson again visits Jekyll,
who now claims to have ended all relations with Hyde. Jekyll shows
Utterson a note, allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for
the trouble he has caused him and saying goodbye. That night, however,
Utterson's clerk points out that Hyde's handwriting bears a remarkable
similarity to Jekyll's own.
For a few months, Jekyll reverts to his former friendly and sociable
manner, as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Later,
Jekyll suddenly begins to refuse visitors, and Lanyon dies of shock
after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death,
Lanyon gives Utterson a letter, with instructions that he not open it
until after Jekyll's death or disappearance. Utterson goes out walking
with Enfield, and they see Jekyll at a window of his laboratory; the
three men begin to converse, but a look of horror comes over Jekyll's
face, and he slams the window and disappears. Soon afterward, Jekyll's
butler, Mr Poole, visits Utterson in a state of desperation and
explains that Jekyll has secluded himself in his laboratory for several
weeks, and that now the voice that comes from the room sounds nothing
like the doctor's. Utterson and Poole travel to Jekyll's house through
empty, windswept, sinister streets; once there, they find the servants
huddled together in fear. After arguing for a time, the two of them
resolve to break into Jekyll's laboratory.
Inside, they find the body of Hyde, wearing Jekyll's clothes and
apparently dead from suicide. They find also a letter from Jekyll to
Utterson promising to explain the entire mystery. Utterson takes the
document home, where first he reads Lanyon's letter and then Jekyll's.
The first reveals that Lanyon's deterioration and eventual death were
caused by the shock of seeing Mr Hyde drink a potion and, as a result
of doing so, metamorphose
into Dr Jekyll. The second letter explains that Jekyll, seeking to
separate his good side from his darker impulses, discovered a way to
transform himself periodically into a creature free of conscience, this
being Mr Hyde. The transformation was incomplete, however, in that it
created a second, evil identity, but did not make the first identity
purely good. At first, Jekyll reports, he delighted in becoming Hyde
and rejoiced in the moral freedom that the creature possessed.
Eventually, however, he found that he was turning into Hyde
involuntarily in his sleep, even without taking the potion.
At this point, Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. One night,
however, the urge gripped him too strongly, and after the
transformation he immediately rushed out and violently killed Sir
Danvers Carew. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the
transformations, and for a time he proved successful by engaging in philanthropic
work. At a park, he considers how good a person he has become as a
result of his deeds (in comparison to others), believing himself
redeemed. However, before he completes his line of thought, he looks
down at his hands and realizes that he has suddenly once again become
Mr Hyde. This was the first time that an involuntary metamorphosis had
happened in waking hours. Far from his laboratory and hunted by the
police as a murderer, Hyde needed Lanyon's help to get his potions and
become Jekyll again; when he undertook the transformation in Lanyon's
presence, the shock of the sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and
death. Meanwhile, Jekyll returned to his home, only to find himself
ever more helpless and trapped as the transformations increased in
frequency and necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to
reverse themselves. It was the onset of one of these spontaneous
metamorphoses that caused Jekyll to slam his laboratory window shut in
the middle of his conversation with Enfield and Utterson.
Eventually, the potion began to run out, and Jekyll was unable to
find a necessary ingredient to make more. Ironically, Jekyll learns
that this most necessary ingredient was in the first instance of his
experiments, sullied. Subsequent supplies are pure and thus lacking the
quality that makes the potion successful for his experiments. His
ability to change back from Hyde into Jekyll slowly vanished. Jekyll
writes that even as he composes his letter he knows that he will soon
become Hyde permanently, and he wonders if Hyde will face execution for
his crimes or choose to kill himself. Jekyll notes that, in either
case, the end of his letter marks the end of the life of Dr Jekyll. He
ends the letter saying "I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll
to an end." With these words, both the document and the novel come to a
close.
Richard Mansfield was mostly known for his dual role depicted in this double exposure. The stage adaptation opened in London in 1887, a year after the publication of the novella. Picture 1895.
This story represents a concept in Western culture, that of the inner conflict of humanity's sense of good and evil.[6]
In particular the novella has been interpreted as an examination of the
duality of human nature (that good and evil exists in all), and that
the failure to accept this tension (to accept the evil or shadow side)
results in the evil being projected onto others.[7]
Paradoxically in this argument, evil is actually committed in an effort
to extinguish the perceived evil that has been projected onto the
innocent victims. In Freudian Theory the thoughts and desires banished to the unconscious mind motivate the behavior of the conscious mind. If someone banishes all evil to the unconscious mind in an attempt to be wholly and completely good, it can result in the development of a Mr Hyde-type aspect to that person's character.[7]
This failure to accept the tension of duality is related to Christian
theology, where Satan's fall from Heaven is due to his refusal to
accept that he is a created being (that he has a dual nature) and is
not God.[7]
This is why in Christianity, pride (to consider oneself as without sin
or without evil) is the greatest sin, as it is the precursor to evil
itself; it also explains the Christian concept of evil hiding in the
light.[7] The novella has also been noted as "one of the best guidebooks of the Victorian era"
because of its piercing description of the fundamental dichotomy of the
19th century "outward respectability and inward lust," as this period
had a tendency for social hypocrisy.[6]
Various direct influences have been suggested for Stevenson's
interest in the mental condition that separates the sinful from moral
self. Among them are the Biblical text of Romans
(7:20 "Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do
it, but it is sin living in me that does it."); the split life in the
1780s of Edinburgh city councillor Deacon William Brodie, master craftsman by day, burglar by night; and James Hogg's novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), in which a young man falls under the spell of the devil.
The duality in the novella has led to a variety of different
interpretations. These include readings which see the work as being a
Victorian morality tale of unleashed sexual depravity or an allegory
for the necessarily double life of the Victorian homosexual.[8]
A common interpretation sees the novella's duality as representative of
Scotland and the Scottish character. On this reading the duality
represents the national and linguistic dualities inherent in Scotland's
relationship with the wider Britain and the English language
respectively, and also the repressive effects of the Calvinistic church
on the Scottish character.[8]
A further parallel is also drawn with the city of Edinburgh itself,
Stevenson's birthplace, which consists of two distinct parts: the old
medieval section historically inhabited by the city's poor, where the
dark crowded slums were rife with all types of crime, and the modern
Georgian area of wide spacious streets representing respectability.[8][9][10]
The dual title character is a doctor who has covered up a secret
life full of cruel deeds. He feels as if he is constantly battling
within himself between what is good and what is evil, and is pushing
away people dear to him. After drinking a potion of his own creation,
Jekyll is transformed into the smaller, younger, cruel, remorseless,
evil Edward Hyde, representing the hidden side of Dr Jekyll's nature
brought to the fore. Dr Jekyll has many friends and has a friendly
personality, but as Mr Hyde, he becomes mysterious, violent, and
secretive. As time goes by, Mr Hyde grows in power. After taking the
potion repetitively, he no longer relies upon it to unleash his inner
demon i.e. his alter ego. Eventually, Mr Hyde grows so strong that Dr
Jekyll becomes reliant on the potion to remain himself.
Stevenson never says exactly what Hyde takes pleasure in on his
nightly forays, generally saying that it is something of an evil and
lustful nature; thus it is in the context of the times, abhorrent to
Victorian religious morality. Hyde may have been reveling in activities
that were not appropriate to a man of Jekyll's stature, such as
engaging with prostitutes or burglary. However, it is Hyde's violent
activities that seem to give him the most thrill, driving him to attack
and murder Sir Danvers Carew without reason, making him a hunted outlaw
throughout England.
Realizing he will soon be Hyde forever, Jekyll leaves behind a
testament; pointing out that while Jekyll often felt like a charlatan,
Hyde felt like a "genuine man" years younger and far more energetic
than his more "sociable" self. He also states in his final confession
that although Hyde knew people recoiled from him, he did not care.
A former friend of Jekyll's, Hastie Lanyon disagrees with his
"scientific" concepts, which Lanyon describes as "...too fanciful". He
is the first person to whom Hyde's identity is revealed (Hyde
transforms himself back into Jekyll in Lanyon's presence). Dr Lanyon
helps Utterson solve the case, when he describes the letter given to
him by Jekyll. When Lanyon witnesses the transformation process, (and
subsequently hears Jekyll's private confession, made to him alone),
Lanyon becomes critically ill and later dies of shock. As an embodiment
of Victorian rationalism, materialism, and skepticism, Lanyon serves as
a foil to Jekyll.
Gabriel John Utterson, a lawyer and loyal friend of Jekyll's (and
Lanyon's), is the character the narrator focuses on, and follows in his
quest to discover the identity of Hyde. Utterson is described as a
measured, and at all times emotionless, bachelor—who nonetheless seems
believable, trustworthy, tolerant of the faults of others, and indeed
genuinely likeable. However, Utterson is not immune to guilt, as while
he is quick to investigate and judge the faults of others even for the
benefit of his friends, Stevenson hints he has old secrets. "he was
humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done". Whatever these
secrets may be, he does not partake in gossip or other views of the
upper class out of respect for his fellow man.
Poole is Dr Jekyll's butler who, upon noticing the reclusiveness and
changes of his master, goes to Mr Utterson with the fear that his
master has been murdered and his murderer, Mr Hyde, is residing in the
chambers. Poole serves Jekyll faithfully, and attempts to do a good job
and be loyal to his master. Yet events finally drive him into joining
forces with Utterson to discover the truth.
Richard Enfield is Mr Utterson's friend and ally to his
investigation. He is the person who mentions to the lawyer the actual
personality of Jekyll's heir, Mr Hyde. Enfield witnessed Hyde running
over a little girl in the street recklessly, and he, with the girl's
parents and other residents, force Hyde into writing a cheque for the
girl's family. Enfield discovers that the cheque was signed by Dr
Jekyll. The cheque is found to be genuine. He said Hyde was disgusting
looking, but finds himself stumped when asked to describe the man.
Perhaps it is Hyde's personality and mannerisms that distinguish him
from his fellow human beings, making it impossible for them to identify
with such a character.
This Scotland Yard inspector is joined by Mr Utterson, after the
murder of Sir Danvers Carew. They explore Hyde's loft in Soho and
discover evidence of his depraved life.
A kind old man and important Member of Parliament. He was killed in the streets of London, on a spring evening, by Mr Hyde in a murderous rage. He was 70 years old.
The Maid
After the death of Sir Danvers Carew, the maid is the only body to
have witnessed the murder by Mr Hyde. She promptly faints after the
murder showing that women should not involved in these kind of things.
There are dozens of stage and film adaptations of the novella; over
123 film versions alone, not including stage and radio versions.[11]
However, there have been no major adaptations to date that remain
faithful to Stevenson's original. Most omit the figure of Utterson,
telling the story from Jekyll's and Hyde's viewpoint (as well as using
the same actor for both roles)—thus eliminating entirely the mystery
aspect of the true identity of Hyde, which was the story's twist ending
and not the basic premise that it is today. In addition, almost all
adaptations introduce a romantic element which does not exist in the
original story.[8]
^ Stevenson published the book as Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
(without "The"), for reasons unknown, but it has been supposed to
increase the "strangeness" of the case (Richard Dury (2005)). Later
publishers added "The" to make it grammatically correct, but it was not
the author's original intent. The story is often known today simply as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or even Jekyll and Hyde.
^ English pronunciation: /ˈdʒiːkəl/ is the Scots pronunciation of the name, but /ˈdʒɛkəl/ is the accepted general pronunciation.
^ Swearingen, Roger G. The Prose Writings of Robert Louis Stevenson. London: Macmillan, 1980. (ISBN) p. 37.
^ Possibly with the help of cocaine, according to William Gray's revisionist history Robert Louis Stevenson: A Literary Life (2004). ISBN 978-0-333-98400-0
^ ab Nightmare: Birth of Victorian Horror (TV series) Jekyll and Hyde (1996)
^ abcd Sanford, John A. Evil The Shadow Side of Reality. Crossroad (1981)
Borinskikh L.I. (1990c). 'The method to reveal a character in the
works of R.L.Stevenson [The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]'/.
In *** (ed.) The Problem of character in literature. Tchelyabinsk:
Tchelyabinsk State University. Pp. 31–32. [in Russian, German and
Hindi].
Richard Dury, ed. (2005). The Annotated Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. ISBN 88-7544-030-1, over 80 pages of introduction material, extensive annotation notes, 40 pages of derivative works and extensive bibliography.
Paul M. Gahlinger,
M.D., Ph.D. (2001). Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History,
Chemistry, Use, and Abuse. Sagebrush Medical Guide. Pg 41. ISBN 0-9703130-1-2.
