The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis
Stevenson
2 out of 5 stars
This was another disappointing read for my classic horror
month. I think I am just too familiar with these stories (Jekyll & Hyde,
Frankenstein, Poe) from pop culture references. They don't surprise and shock
me like they are supposed to. The biggest plus to this read was that it was a
short story, only 92 pages on my Kindle. If you've never read it and don't know
the story at all, then by all means, read it and you will probably enjoy it.
Also, stop reading this review now, because there will be tons of spoilers. :)
The basic story, that man is not truly one, but truly
two, is told thru different narratives and is more of a dry science
report than a story of good and evil. Dr Jekyll is the "mad
scientist" who tries to come up with a solution to his impatient
gaiety of disposition. Basically, he wants to be able to do bad things
and get away with it. He creates a formula that transforms himself into a
hideous, pure evil creature, Mr Hyde. As Hyde, he goes and does as he pleases
and as Jekyll, he is still the good, respectable doctor.
If each...could be housed in separate identities, life would
be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered
from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could
walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in
which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by
the hands of this extraneous evil.
Jekyll's friends, Utterson and Lanyon, have a few
confrontations with the abominable Hyde and begin to question his relationship
with Jekyll. They fear that their friend is being blackmailed for something, as
Jekyll has made over his will to leave everything to Hyde. (In case he
disappears.) Utterson, being Jekyll's lawyer, obviously seriously questions
this but gets no answers from the doctor.
Time goes on and Hyde kills a man and goes into hiding.
Jekyll strives to keep the evil under check and go about his normal life, but
he soon begins to slip. "I was slowly losing hold of my original and
better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse." After Lanyon dies and leaves Utterson a strange account of
his last visit with Jekyll and an even stranger account of meeting Hyde,
Utterson determines to go to Jekyll's home and figure things out once and for
all.
Utterson arrives at Jekyll's laboratory and only finds the
twisted body of Mr Hyde and a thick letter addressed to him in Jekyll's
handwriting. Jekyll gives the full account of all that has transpired and how
he finally succumbed to Hyde. "My devil had been long caged, he came out
roaring." Jekyll refuses to let Hyde carry on living though and kills himself/themselves.
(Would that be a murder/suicide?)
(This is the best thing ever and
you will have it in your head for days!)
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