Posts tagged classic

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Halfway through the first chapter of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a character named Richard Enfield says, “I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning and come out with another man’s check for close upon a hundred pounds.” He conveys this to his lawyer cousin, Mr. Gabriel Utterson, as he recounts the odd story he has of the “gentleman,” a certain Mr. Edward Hyde, who one night deliberately trampled a little girl after she accidentally bumped into him. Several bystanders, including Mr. Enfield and the girl’s family, witnessed the incident and were quick to seize the offender. However, Mr. Hyde was just as quick to think up a way to appease them: he entered a nearby door and quickly produced a check for a substantial amount signed by one Dr. Henry Jekyll, a distinguished gentleman who, as it turns out, is one of Mr. Utterson’s clients.  I cite the above line of dialogue as I think that, as innocuous as it sounds, it is a near-perfect prefigurement of the essential characteristics of the excellent short novel where it is from. For one thing, it is spoken by a character in a burst of submission to gossip, thus itself qualifying as something of doubtful veracity, which in turn can also be said of the rest of the book. There’s the mention of a man apparently posing as another, claiming no less than the other’s signature as his own. However, it’s not the book’s subject, a man with a split personality, that lends an air of intriguing dubiousness to the narrative so much as the structure of the narrative itself. Stevenson’s authorial technique is one which allows for a spellbinding sense of mystery to hang relentlessly over his story. For the most part, the story is told by a narrator who only knows as much as the characters about what exactly is going on. But near the end Stevenson abandons the third-person narrative and transforms his novella into an epistolary tale, focusing on two revelatory letters, one written by Dr. Jekyll and the other by a colleague, addressed to Mr. Utterson, who I ought to point out is the real central character of the story, the fulcrum about which the two title characters move. But how much of the revelations contained in these letters, including Dr. Jekyll’s reflection on the duality of man (“Man is not truly one, but truly two.”), are true, when the circumstances under which they were created are already beyond Mr. Utterson’s (or indeed, anyone’s) belief?  What is not open to question, though, is Stevenson’s grace of style, as exemplified by the phrase, cellar door—arguably the most phonetically beautiful word combination in the English language—in Mr. Enfield’s quintessential line. Stevenson’s wife famously said that the story of Jekyll and Hyde came to her husband in a dream. It’s no wonder then that it reads like one, terrifying like a nightmare and at the same time exhilarating like a trance. His talent is particularly evident in his numerous, mostly gothic, dreamlike descriptions of unpleasant meteorological conditions the characters are forced to deal with. Following the murder of an old gentleman in the hands of Mr. Hyde, Stevenson writes: “It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours…” Then, when Mr. Utterson sets out to finally confront his client, the narrator observes: “It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and a flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture. The wind made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face.”  Like Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, and Moby Dick, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of those classic books whose stories most of us already know from somewhere, often from countless adaptations across various media and quick plot summaries stumbled upon while surfing Wikipedia, but haven’t actually read. We know it’s about a man who leads a double life, a man who oscillates between being the two title characters, one of whom is mostly good and the other downright evil, but how many of us, knowing full well that the entire text is available in the public domain, have actually gone out of our ways to experience the real deal?  I for one lament that my introduction to Stevenson’s landmark story was by way of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, a movie I remember watching on VHS with my family when I was in fourth grade. It starred Tim Daly as a descendant of Dr. Jekyll who, in a supposedly clever twist to the original story, transforms into a voluptuous woman played by Sean Young after an experiment gone awry. I was only ten then, naïve and easily pleased, and seeing a man metamorphose into a woman with long hair and ample breasts amused me to no end. It was not until fifteen years later, as I breezed through a Jon Gray-designed Headline Review “The Best Adventure Stories Ever” edition of the book which I found while rummaging through a bargain table in a secondhand book shop, that I realized what a travesty it was, even for a loose comedy film adaptation of this truly amazing short novel.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Halfway through the first chapter of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a character named Richard Enfield says, “I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning and come out with another man’s check for close upon a hundred pounds.” He conveys this to his lawyer cousin, Mr. Gabriel Utterson, as he recounts the odd story he has of the “gentleman,” a certain Mr. Edward Hyde, who one night deliberately trampled a little girl after she accidentally bumped into him. Several bystanders, including Mr. Enfield and the girl’s family, witnessed the incident and were quick to seize the offender. However, Mr. Hyde was just as quick to think up a way to appease them: he entered a nearby door and quickly produced a check for a substantial amount signed by one Dr. Henry Jekyll, a distinguished gentleman who, as it turns out, is one of Mr. Utterson’s clients. 

I cite the above line of dialogue as I think that, as innocuous as it sounds, it is a near-perfect prefigurement of the essential characteristics of the excellent short novel where it is from. For one thing, it is spoken by a character in a burst of submission to gossip, thus itself qualifying as something of doubtful veracity, which in turn can also be said of the rest of the book. There’s the mention of a man apparently posing as another, claiming no less than the other’s signature as his own. However, it’s not the book’s subject, a man with a split personality, that lends an air of intriguing dubiousness to the narrative so much as the structure of the narrative itself. Stevenson’s authorial technique is one which allows for a spellbinding sense of mystery to hang relentlessly over his story. For the most part, the story is told by a narrator who only knows as much as the characters about what exactly is going on. But near the end Stevenson abandons the third-person narrative and transforms his novella into an epistolary tale, focusing on two revelatory letters, one written by Dr. Jekyll and the other by a colleague, addressed to Mr. Utterson, who I ought to point out is the real central character of the story, the fulcrum about which the two title characters move. But how much of the revelations contained in these letters, including Dr. Jekyll’s reflection on the duality of man (“Man is not truly one, but truly two.”), are true, when the circumstances under which they were created are already beyond Mr. Utterson’s (or indeed, anyone’s) belief? 

What is not open to question, though, is Stevenson’s grace of style, as exemplified by the phrase, cellar door—arguably the most phonetically beautiful word combination in the English language—in Mr. Enfield’s quintessential line. Stevenson’s wife famously said that the story of Jekyll and Hyde came to her husband in a dream. It’s no wonder then that it reads like one, terrifying like a nightmare and at the same time exhilarating like a trance. His talent is particularly evident in his numerous, mostly gothic, dreamlike descriptions of unpleasant meteorological conditions the characters are forced to deal with. Following the murder of an old gentleman in the hands of Mr. Hyde, Stevenson writes:

“It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours…”

Then, when Mr. Utterson sets out to finally confront his client, the narrator observes:

“It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and a flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture. The wind made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face.” 

Like Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, and Moby Dick, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of those classic books whose stories most of us already know from somewhere, often from countless adaptations across various media and quick plot summaries stumbled upon while surfing Wikipedia, but haven’t actually read. We know it’s about a man who leads a double life, a man who oscillates between being the two title characters, one of whom is mostly good and the other downright evil, but how many of us, knowing full well that the entire text is available in the public domain, have actually gone out of our ways to experience the real deal? 

I for one lament that my introduction to Stevenson’s landmark story was by way of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, a movie I remember watching on VHS with my family when I was in fourth grade. It starred Tim Daly as a descendant of Dr. Jekyll who, in a supposedly clever twist to the original story, transforms into a voluptuous woman played by Sean Young after an experiment gone awry. I was only ten then, naïve and easily pleased, and seeing a man metamorphose into a woman with long hair and ample breasts amused me to no end. It was not until fifteen years later, as I breezed through a Jon Gray-designed Headline Review “The Best Adventure Stories Ever” edition of the book which I found while rummaging through a bargain table in a secondhand book shop, that I realized what a travesty it was, even for a loose comedy film adaptation of this truly amazing short novel.