Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

[poliphilo]

Is Dr Jekyll a universal fable- or a fable about what Christianity- more especially Puritan Christianity- does to people? The introduction to the Oxford World Classics edition (by Emma Letley) goes on about how very very Scottish it is. Presbyterianism- with its fetish for public rectitude- makes it inevitable that people will lead double lives. Last night I read the book at a sitting. For all its familiarity It still packs quite a punch. 

Two things i had forgotten: 

1. that Jekyll was never a "good" man but had always lived a divided life. What the potion does is to isolate- and intensify- the part of him that is enslaved by his "undignified" vices.

2. That Hyde- far from being the the hulking apeman of the movies, is a creepy, white-faced dwarf. There is certain pathos about him. Jekyll's clothes are far too big for him and he has to roll up the trouser legs and sleeves- for all the world like a child playing dress up. 

Comments

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I relate the Hyde/Jeckyll story to that of an active alcoholic. He drinks something and his whole personality changes for the worse. At first he can control it a bit, but later on, with or without the "elixer", Hyde takes over. For those who have had an alcohol problem and later recovered this story is very personal.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Calvinism is essentially a disease, like syphilis only more wasting and degenerative.

[bigherman.livejournal.com]

In my Masterworks of Brit Lit class I took last quarter, we talked about the nature of good and evil in people, mostly. I think the bottom line we came to was that no one is perfect, and trying to be is great folly, as Dr. Jekyll proves. You can't just pop some medicine and excise the parts of your personality or desires you don't like.