Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
“He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.” (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Chapter I)
The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde is a famous novella by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) that was published in 1886. The work is probably the best known piece of literature about the doppelgänger motif.
Plot
The laywer John Utterson goes on his weekly walk with his cousin Richard Enfield who tells him the story of a brutal man trampling down a little girl. Enfield had forced this man called Hyde to write a cheque for 100 pounds. Utterson is very unhappy because he knows who has signed the cheque: his good friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll. Utterson begins to invevstigate this curious case, eventually meeting Hyde who looks dark and scary. Jekyll then asks Utterson as his laywer, to make sure that in case of his sudden death, Hyde will be heir of everything he owns. One year later, a client of Utterson, Sir Danvers Carew, is brutally murdered; Utterson suspects Hyde to be the killer but Hyde has disappeared. After these events, Jekyll appears in publicity more often, and seeming much happier than before. He has told Utterson that Hyde has written a letetr in which he apologized for the agony he had caused, and that Jekyll has no more contact with him. But then, the mishap comes to a dramatci climax: Poole, Jekyll's servant, urges Utterson to come with him to Jekyll's house; Jekyll has locked himself into his laboratory and gives very disturbing, angry noises. They break into the laboratory, only to find the dead Hyde who has obviously committed suicide. Utterson finds a letter wriiten by Jekyll, adressed to himself and reads the letter at home which explains everything: In one of his experiments, Jekyll had found a formula which enables a person to seperate his body into two parts: the good and the bad. Hyde is Jekyll's bad counterpart. At the beginning all went well but after a while the experiment got out of hand. Without drinking the potion, Jekyll began to transform into Hyde, soon he had lost control over the transformations and in one angry rage, Jekyll, as Hyde, killed Carew. Jekyll began to change into Hyde in the midst of the day and changing back into Jekyll became even more difficult. So to put an end to this dreadful experiment, Jekyll locked himself into his laboratory and killed himself, leaving Utterson with his letter.
Reception
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde without question is a classic and one of the most important representatives of the doppelgänger literature. It is also a very capturing, dark plot, hence, the story has been used for many movies, such as the following:
Movies (examples)
- 1920: Der Januskopf (nach Jekyll und Hyde), Director: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, with Conrad Veidt - 1925: Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pride, Director: Scott Pembroke, with Stan Laurel - 1959: Das Testament des Dr. Cordelier (Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier), Director: Jean Renoir, with Jean-Louis Barrault - 1973: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Director: David Winters, with Kirk Douglas - 1989: Split (Edge of Sanity), Director: Gérard Kikoïne, with Anthony Perkins - 1996: Mary Reilly, Director: Stephen Frears, with Julia Roberts and John Malkovich - 2001: Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical, Director: Don Roy King, with David Hasselhoff - 2007: Jekyll (Fernsehserie) (BBC), Director: Douglas Mackinnon, Matt Lipse with James Nesbitt - 2008: Dr.Jekyll und Mr.Hyde. Director: Paolo Barzman, with Dougray Scott
Bibliography
- http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org/novels/12-strange-case-dr-jekyll-mr-hide
- Stevenson,Robert L.: The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. London: Penguin Popular Classics, 1994.