The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

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The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeTemplate:Fn is a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson first published in 1886. It is about a London lawyer who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry JekyllTemplate:Fn, and the misanthropic man Edward Hyde. The work is known for its vivid portrayal of the psychopathology of a split personality, in mainstream culture the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has come to signify wild or polar behaviour.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was an immediate success and 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.

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Background

In early Autumn of 1885 Stevenson's thoughts turned to the idea of the duality of man's nature, and how to incorporate the interplay of good and evil into a story. One night he had a dream, and on wakening had the idea for two or three scenes that would appear in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. "In the small hours of one morning," says Mrs. Stevenson, "I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. Thinking he had a nightmare, I awakened 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."

Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's step-son, 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 was yesterday. Louis came downstairs in a fever; read nearly half the book aloud; and then, while we where still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. I doubt if the first draft took so long as three days."

As was the custom, Mrs. Stevenson would read the draft and offer her criticisms in the margins. Louis was confined to bed at the time from a haemorrhage, and she left her comments with the manuscript and Louis in the bedroom. She said in effect the story was really an allegory, but Louis was writing it just 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 scratch writing an allegorical story as she had suggested. Scholars debate if he really burnt his manuscript or not. Other scholars suggest her criticism was not about allegory, but about inappropriate sexual content. Whatever the case, there is no direct factual evidence for the burning of the manuscript, but it remains an integral part of the history of the novel.

Stevenson re-wrote the story again in three days. 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 4 to 6 weeks afterward.

The manuscript was initially sold as a paperback for one shilling in the UK and one dollar in the USA. Initially stores would not stock it until a review appeared in The Times (Jan.25 1886), giving it a favourable reception. Within the next six months close to forty-thousand copies were sold. By 1901 it was estimated have sold over 250,000 copies. Its success was probably due more to the "moral instincts of the public" than perception of its artistic merits, being widely read by those who never otherwise read fiction, quoted in pulpit sermons and in religious papers.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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Plot

Image:Jekyll and hyde book.jpg This investigation begins as a matter of curiosity and concern despite Jekyll's assurances that Hyde is nothing to worry about. That changes when Hyde is seen committing a savage murder of a respected Member of Parliament. As Utterson assists in the investigation of the crime, Jekyll becomes more and more reclusive and sombre. Utterson comes to believe that the doctor is abetting Mr Hyde.

Eventually, Jekyll isolates himself in his laboratory gripped with an emotional burden that no one can comprehend. Another friend of Utterson's, Lanyon, suddenly dies of a horrific emotional shock of which Jekyll seems to be connected. Eventually, Jekyll's butler comes to Utterson to ask for his help to deal with a stranger who has somehow entered the locked lab and killed Jekyll. Together they discover that the stranger in the lab is Hyde, and they break in only to find Hyde dead by his own hand and Jekyll nowhere to be found.

Eventually, Utterson reads two letters left for him from his deceased friends. The first one is from Lanyon and reveals that he witnessed first hand that Hyde is none other than Jekyll physically transformed into the other identity by means of a potion of Jekyll's design.

The other letter is a confession from Jekyll which reveals what occurred when he realised that every man has two aspects within him – good and evil – which constantly wage war upon him. Acting on the theory that it was possible to polarise and separate these two aspects, he created a potion that could change a man into an embodiment of his evil side, thereby also making pure his good side. After using the potion on himself, Jekyll became physically smaller as his evil nature became predominant; this persona was called Edward Hyde. After a few trial runs as Hyde, Jekyll soon began to undergo this change regularly in order to indulge in all the forbidden antisocial pleasures that he would never commit as Jekyll. However, the Hyde aspect himself began to grow stronger and beyond Jekyll's ability to control it with a counter-agent. Eventually, Jekyll wakes up in bed one day to discover that he has turned into Hyde overnight. He resolves to give up Hyde for good, but the allure proves too strong to resist, and after two months he takes the potion once more.

This time, Hyde does not just indulge himself; he commits murder, and can no longer be seen in public for fear of being recognised and sent to the gallows. This reassures Jekyll, and he attempts to redeem himself for the actions of Hyde. However, once more he undergoes the transformation, without the aid of potion, in a park in broad daylight. He manages to avoid capture by finding a hotel room. He writes to Lanyon, asking him to fetch from his study the drawer in which the counter-agent is found.

Lanyon complies, and Hyde shows up at his house unrecognised. He takes the potion, as although he has begun to despise Jekyll, he fears recognition and the resulting death even more; and the doctor explains everything to Lanyon. It is this knowledge that eventually kills him.

Jekyll finds that he can now only remain in his original form with the potion in his system. Eventually Jekyll ran out of the unique components to the potion, and in particular a "salt" of which he had initially acquired quite a large quantity. New supplies of this salt did not produce an effective potion, which he initially attributed to an impurity in the new supplies, but finally concluded that it was the initial order that was impure, and that an "unknown impurity" in it was vital to its effectiveness. As he had no way of acquiring any more of this impure salt, he was doomed to remain as Hyde permanently.

In the end, Jekyll decided to write the confession letter, and killed himself before transforming into Hyde again.

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Analysis

This novel has become a central concept in Western culture of the inner conflict of humanity's sense of good and evil. It has also been noted as "one of the best guidebooks of the Victorian times because of its piercing description of the fundamental dichotomy of the 19th century outward respectability and inward lust" as it had a tendency for social hypocrisy.

Various 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 that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."); 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 novel is seen by many as a classic expression of the dualist tendency in Scottish culture, a forerunner to what C. Gregory Smith termed as the 'Caledonian Antisyzygy' (the combination of opposites) which influenced the 20th Scottish cultural renaissance led by Hugh MacDiarmid. The London depicted in the novel resembles more closely the Old Town of Edinburgh which Stevenson frequented in his youth, itself a doppelganger to the city's respectable, classically ordered New Town. Scottish critics have also read it as a metaphor of the opposing forces of Scottish Presbyterianism and Scotlands aetheistic Enlightenment.

Literary genres which critics have applied as a framework for interpreting the novel include religious allegory, fable, detective story, sensation fiction, science fiction, doppelganger literature, Scottish devil tales, Gothic novel.

Stevenson never says exactly what Hyde takes pleasure in on his nightly forays, saying generally that it is something of an evil and lustful nature, and thus in the context of the times, abhorrent to Victorian religious morality. However scientists in the closing decades of the 19th century, within a post-Darwinian perspective, were also beginning to examine various biological influences on human morality, including drug and alcohol addiction, homosexuality, multiple personality disorder, and regressive animality.

Jekyll's inner division has been viewed by some critics as analogous to schisms existing in British society. Divisions include the social divisions of class, the internal divisions within the Scottish identity, the political divisions between Ireland and England, and the divisions between religious and secular forces.

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In the arts

There have been dozens of major stage and film adaptations, and countless references in popular culture. The very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has become shorthand to mean wild controversial and polar behaviour. Most adaptations of the work omit the reader-identification figure of Utterson, instead telling the story from Jekyll and Hyde's viewpoint, thus eliminating the mystery aspect of the tale about who Hyde is; indeed there have been no major adaptations to date that stay close to Stevenson's original work, almost all introducing some form of romantic element.

For a complete list of derivative works see "Derivative works of Robert Louis Stevenson, compiled by Richard Dury.

Major and notable adaptations listed in chronological order:

  • 1931, movie USA, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931 film). Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Widely viewed as the classic film version, known for its skilled acting, powerful visual symbolism, and innovative special effects. Follows the Sullivan plot. Fredric March won the Academy Award for his deft portrayal and the technical secret of the amazing transformation scenes wasn't revealed until after the director's death decades later.
  • 1963, movie USA, The Nutty Professor. Directed by Jerry Lewis. This screwball comedy retains a thin plot connection to the original work. Its enduring popularity has given it a significant role in the cultural visibility of the Jekyll and Hyde motif. Lewis re-works the Victorian polarised identity theme to the mid-20th century American dilemma of masculinity.
  • 1968, TV USA/Canada, "Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Directed by Charles Jarrott. A two-part TV series shown on CBC in Canada and ABC in the USA. Nominated for several Emmy awards, it follows Hyde on a series of sexual conquests and hack and slash murders, finally shot by "Devlin" (as Utterson is renamed).
  • 1990, TV UK, "Jekyll and Hyde". Directed by David Wickes. Jekyll is a widower in love with a married woman.
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In popular culture

  • Motif examples
    • This is a motif which is often applied, for example in the following BBC news report Shadowing the Conservative leader in which the analogy with Jekyll and Hyde is clearly meant "Over the course of our filming we sometimes felt that Michael Howard seemed unsure of the image he wants to project of himself and his party. At times it was the new, touchy-feely Tories, at others – as with immigration and asylum – it was hard-line stuff. A kind of Dr Jekyll and Mr Howard."
    • The Hulk, the powerful and brutishly emotional alter ego of an emotionally repressed scientist who comes forth whenever he experiences extreme emotional stress like anger or terror, is an example of the Jekyll and Hyde motif.
    • The book was the inspiration behind Two-Face, a supervillain Bob Kane created in 1941 to battle Batman.
    • In the Disney cartoon short, Motor Mania, Goofy takes on a Jekyll and Hyde-type split personality when he gets behind the wheel and becomes a demon driver; a menace at the wheel.
    • The Crash Bandicoot character Dr N Brio, the scientist who drinks his potion to become a giant green and powerful monster.
    • The novel and subsequent film of American Psycho by Brett Eastern Ellis shares many thematic qualities to Stevenson's work. The protagonist Patrick Bateman, while on an outward and social level is a respectable, charming and all-together normal twenty-something, is at night, unknown to those who believe they know him, a psychopathic, amoral serial murderer-rapist. The juxtaposition between the two seeming opposites echoes that of Jekyl and Hyde.Template:Fact
    • Fight Club, the novel and movie, share, not thematic, but stylistic elements, with the protagonist and antagonist being revealed to the same person. Thematically though, this differs from Stevenson's novella, as in the normal-blue collar character is shown to be the depressed, emotionally dead one, whereas the amoral Tyler Durden is the fun, charming and more interesting character, not the abominal evil alter-ego of Hyde.Template:Fact
    • Darth Vader / Anakin Skywalker. In his lust for power, the good Anakin is overcome by evil becoming Darth Vadar. The inner conflict between good and evil is explored here in greater detail.Template:Fact
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Trivia

  • At the time of writing the book, Stevenson was possibly being treated with the fungus ergot at a local hospital. While ergot has been known to induce psychoactive experiences, there is no factual basis that ergot was an influence on Stevenson or the book. Stevenson was a broadly gifted artist, almost every one of his literary works broke ground in a new genre, including the psychological thriller.
  • Stevenson's death in 1894, eight years after finishing the story, happened while he was straining to open a bottle of wine in his kitchen. He suddenly exclaimed that his face had changed appearance. Collapsing on the ground, he was dead within six hours of a burst blood vessel in the brain. It remains a curious thematical link between the last episode in Stevenson's life and the transformations he wrote about in his book.
  • According to Paul M. Gahlinger, M.D., Ph.D., "Robert Louis Stevenson used cocaine for inspiration, and is said to have written The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a single six-day and night binge" (Gahlinger, 2001). If this is based on factual evidence, or is merely speculation, is unclear.
  • At Makar's Court in Edinburgh there is a museum dedicated to Stevenson, Robert Burns, and Walter Scott. Among the exhibits is a large chest of drawers, one of the few surviving pieces known to have been made by the notorious Deacon Brodie, a famous citizen of Edinburgh who led a double life as a cabinetmaker by day and a house-breaker by night. This chest was in Stevenson's room when he was young, and bears a strong resemblance to the press in Doctor Jekyll's cabinet.
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Notes

  • Template:FnbStevenson 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. 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.
  • Template:FnbStevenson insisted that Jekyll be pronounced JEEK-ull (JĒ-kəl), as this is the correct Scots pronunciation of the name, but JEK-ull (JE-kəl) remains an accepted and common pronunciation.
  • Template:FnbStevenson, quoted in Cherie D. Abbey (ed.). Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism: Excerpts From Criticism of the Works of Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Short Story Writers, and Other Creative Writers Who Lived Between 1800 And 1900, From the First Published Critical Appraisals to Current Evaluations, Volume 14. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1984.
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References

  • Richard Dury. The Robert Louis Stevenson website.
  • Richard Dury, ed. (2005). The Annotated Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. ISBN 8875440301 - 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 0970313012.
  • Kathrine Linehan, ed. (2003). Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Norton Critical Edition, contains extensive annotations, contextual essays and criticisms. ISBN 0393974650
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External links

es:El extraño caso del doctor Jekyll y mister Hyde fr:L'Étrange Cas du Dr Jekyll et de Mr Hyde he:ד"ר ג'קיל ומר הייד ja:ジキル博士とハイド氏 ko:지킬 박사와 하이드 씨 no:Dr. Jekyll og Mr. Hyde pt:O Médico e o Monstro sv:Dr. Jekyll och Mr. Hyde

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