Book Report - "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson

After I finished Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” I asked my local library for recommendations. Jess from the Multimedia & Fiction desk suggested either “The Woman in Black” by Susan Hill, “By Gaslight” by Steven Price, or “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson. As the title of this post reveals, I decided to go with Stevenson. “Jekyll & Hyde” references are nearly everywhere, in numerous different platforms for fiction. As with “Dracula,” I figured that it might improve my appreciate of these allusions by reading the original source material. Furthermore, I could get a .txt file of “Jekyll & Hyde” from Project Gutenberg to supplement the audiobook, in much the same way that I did with “Dracula.”

The format of “Jekyll & Hyde” was surprising. From all of the representations I’ve seen in other media, I expected a sort of omniscient narrator that saw both Jekyll and Hyde, as well as the transition between the two. Instead, the story is told from the first person limited view of distinct characters within the tale. Most notably, Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield share letters from their perspective on the events. The dynamic between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and how they are the same person, isn’t revealed until relatively late in the story. Much of the work portrays the mystery of a murder that Hyde commits, and the strange absence of Dr. Jekyll.

Ultimately, I feel like the difference between my expectation and the reality of the story caused me to enjoy it less. Had I gone into the work with a clean slate and no understanding of the story, I probably would have liked it more. The problem is that with all of the media available that alludes to “Jekyll & Hyde,” I don’t think you could find a single person who doesn’t at least have a vague idea of the story. Even cartoons like Bugs Bunny have depicted the titular characters, albeit in a much less gruesome fashion. With that prolific of a distribution, how could someone realistically have never heard the gist of the story?

The other element of the story that I didn’t particularly care for was how letters from different characters described different perspectives of the same event. Much like Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon,” the differences between perspectives are key to the slow reveal for readers. However, also like “Rashomon,” I feel like it got very old very quickly. I understand the value of depicting an event from multiple perspectives, but I also get bored with it. Again, maybe if I didn’t already know the relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the exploration of events from perspectives would have been more entertaining.

The reveal of Mr. Hyde as a sort of alter ego by which Dr. Jekyll can vent his darker inclinations, followed by the gradual decay of the line between the two, is a fantastic criticism of the human experience and the dark thoughts and capabilities that lie within all of us. Where Dr. Jekyll is the facade that we wear to be good citizens and attempt to be altruistic, Mr. Hyde is the embodiment of an internal potential for evil, a sort of l’appel du vide or “call of the void” without consequence. However, as Stevenson eventually reveals, even actions that we might expect to be anonymous do eventually come back to haunt us.

Resources:
“Hyde and Hare.” Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny. Warner Bros. Cartoons. 27 Aug. 1955. Television.
Kelly, M. B. (2018, June 29). The Science Behind The 'Call Of The Void'. Retrieved October 9, 2018, from http://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2018/06/29/the-call-of-the-void
Rashomon. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Perf. Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki. Daiei Film, 1950. DVD.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Narrated by Martin Jarvis, Blackstone Audio, Inc., 2010. Audiobook, 3 compact discs.