"With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two."
If I had to name my favourite book, it would be a hard decision but I would actually put The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson as a top contender. I'm not quite sure what it is about this book that attracts me; it certainly has a horror and mystery element to it that I like, but the mystery wears off after the first time around since you know the big twist. Why I really like it I think is because it tells you a lot about human nature, suggesting that everyone carries a darkness within them (which I certainly think is true) and that the suppression of this side is maybe not always a good thing. But overall, the book is just really well-written. It gets straight to the mystery, builds all the characters and mystery up well, and gets to the point. It's always a lot of fun to read even if you know the twist, and I always found the ending (which is kind of a massive information dump) really interesting to read. So now let's get down to some of the details and interesting points I want to focus on.
Let's talk about what Dr. Henry Jekyll actually did. I'll talk more about what his experiment implies later, but just the facts for now. To be honest, it's not really clear what he actually did. Although pop culture has largely portrayed the whole debacle as a case of split personality, that's not actually the case. People always have this assumption that Jekyll and Hyde are two different personalities living in the same body and the physical switch (which we still never get an explanation for) is just the other personality becoming dominant. But that's not the case at all, because Jekyll and Hyde are the exact same person. Henry Jekyll is an upstanding member of society and a highly respected doctor, while Edward Hyde is actually just a physical manifestation of his darker personality. The reason why Hyde is smaller and younger is because Jekyll had spent so little time as Hyde.
According to Jekyll, even though he tried to suppress them, he had been dealing with unspecified "dark urges" his entire life; these urges could've been anything from doing drugs, wearing drag, or even murder, rape, and cannibalization. Using his darker urges as his main motivation, he designed a serum that would separate one's evil nature from their good nature, something that he believed would overall benefit the world. The book does not go into any detail about exactly how he figured out how to draw out one's dark side using a serum, but all we know is that it was a liquid and used a powder of some sort. But apparently he is very precise about his experiments, writing down the exact measurements and the steps; we just don't get any detail of the process.
Jekyll has a very interesting character arc that's only clear at the end, but on a second read-through you can see parts of it. Jekyll is a very morally-guided man who clearly strives to do the right thing as much as possible, but tends to fall victim to his base urges. However, he is also (to some degree) a fairly responsible man. Although he does murder a man as Hyde, as Jekyll, he is overly charitable, constantly hosting dinner parties for his friends and whatnot; and at the end, when he realizes he is stuck as Hyde forever, instead of running off to enjoy a life of debauchery, he becomes his own judge, jury, and executioner. At the same time, his "mad science" is also well-regulated and his process of discovery is all written out and organized in his notes. Jekyll, as Hyde, does his best to not hurt anyone, and when he does, he is always filled with shame and guilt over his actions. Jekyll is not really the antagonist of the story; Hyde, the seemingly immoral beast-like man, is the closest thing to an antagonist, but since he's also Jekyll, it's hard to classify him as an antagonist (especially since he doesn't really oppose the protagonists like an antagonist should). Jekyll is definitely a very interesting and the most humane character out of all the characters; he has a caged "darker" side and is prone to bouts of anger that he regrets but at the same time operates with some sense of careful control and morality. He's very realistic as a character and also very appealing as a character. And even though Gabriel Utterson is the focal point character of the story, you could easily argue that Jekyll, with his complex motives and an active character arc, is the protagonist of the story.
Dr. Hastie Lanyon I thought was a very interesting character. He's not in the book very much and therefore his personality isn't showcased all that much, but I think that he has a very interesting characterization. Lanyon is very much a foil to Jekyll; they're both scientists, but Lanyon is much more grounded in the physical world while Jekyll delves into something much closer to supernatural magic. It's important to remember that Lanyon didn't denounce Jekyll's experiment because he thought the idea itself was morally wrong, but he denounced it because he thought Jekyll was being unrealistic, and his sickness and death after he learns Jekyll's secret seems to come largely from the shock of seeing something so unnatural rather than learning that his friend was a murderer. This once again plays into the notion that Lanyon is a foil to Jekyll; while Jekyll is creative and emotional, Lanyon is more grounded in reality and plays the "cold, calculating scientist"-type role well. One positive thing I can say about Lanyon though is that he is reasonably kind-hearted; he helped Jekyll despite their falling out and had allowed Hyde into his house no questions asked because Jekyll had asked him to.
Let's close this review up with my little take on what the book was trying to say. I can't say if the book had a special message, but if it did, I think it was something like this: It is never good to over indulge or to over restrain yourself and achieving the perfect balance in life is what you should hope to attain. Yes, Jekyll did horrible things as Hyde because he couldn't keep under control his darker "urges" well. However, it is also important to remember that Hyde is only strong as he is because Jekyll didn't allow that side of himself to be free enough, which leads to an uncontrollable desire to fulfil these urges as Hyde; if he had fulfilled these urges controllably as Jekyll, he would have likely never needed Hyde. So I think that it could be argued that the point if the story is to keep everything in balance and don't let either extreme get too uncontrollable.
Overall, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a great book. It's a mix of science fiction, horror, and mystery all rolled up into one book, and even though it's such a short read, it manages to tell the story thoroughly and well. Dr. Jekyll is a very compelling character to follow, and rereading the story KNOWING the twist is always a lot of fun because you have extra context to what Jekyll does and says. It's a great book and if you haven't read it, I advise you to do so very soon.
For my next post, I'll be reviewing another novel. This one's a mystery written by an author named Agatha Christie and it takes place on an island. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!
