Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

itStevenson’s The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde brilliantly captures the duality of human nature, the good and evil that exists in all of us. Short and immersive, this horror novella includes elements of mystery, thriller and moral philosophy.

Just who is the sinister Mr. Hyde who plagues the gentle Henry Jekyll?

Blinded by Science

His friend, Utterson plays detective when the good, upstanding and brilliant doctor disappears. Utterson unravels the mystery of through journals and letters. It’s a pioneering non-linear story that ends with Jekyll’s confession, unmasking the monster within.

Essentially ordinary, rather than ‘good’ Jekyll indulges his weakness and his power fantasies without restraint through Hyde. A literal ego-trip, Jekyll becomes addicted to Hyde’s ‘debaucheries’ more than the drug he creates. Hyde is Jekyll’s own monstrous sub-conscious, seeking escape from the moral constraints of his society.

Addicted and trapped, the dual personalities share memories. Hyde refuses to be caged.

As a self-medicating guinea-pig for his own drug, Jekyll becomes another example of the ‘mad scientist’ without moral restraint. Do Hyde’s excesses overwhelm the mild-mannered Jekyll’s willpower? Or is the Nieztchean ‘superman’ simply too attractive a role to give up?

Man before and after the Fall

Stevenson presents an extreme dual-personality in mind rather than body. Later adaptations concentrate on the physical transformation of Jekyll into Hyde, but the essence of the story is the moral corruption of a man by his vices. All of us are capable of violence and depravity when the shackles of morality fall away. Hyde is not some step backward down the evolutionary ladder, but the product of Jekyll’s hypocrisy and selfishness.

This is the nature of addiction, something Stevenson recognized. The whole idea of the novella came from a nightmare Stevenson suffered, and his nightmare creation Hyde was born. Stevenson wrote the first draft in a frenzy and it so shocked his wife that Stevenson burned it. How much more sensationalist was that draft, a radical departure from his wholesome children’s adventure?

Psychological Study

Released in 1886 to an initial wave of revulsion for the subject matter, the novella became a hit. A dark thriller with Gothic overtones, Victorian society leapt on it with the same fervor as Dorian Gray, Dracula, and others. Jekyll and Hyde predates Freudian psychology yet embodies so many ideas about the ego, id, and subconscious.

Continually revived, re-imagined and adapted, this novella underpins so many crime novels, thrillers, horror stories and superheroes. It delves back into legends of shapeshifters and demons, of demonic possession. Moreover, it  illustrates the tragic fall of an brilliant man. It is the Hulk, Psycho, American Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Fight Club and so many more. Some present it as an allegory for mental illness, others as a portrayal of addiction. Others raise it as a fable of our loss of moral fiber in a society falling to vice. It taps into fears of societal decay.

Whichever version you subscribe to, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde remains a touchstone tale about the divided self.