![]() ![]() Robert Louis Stevenson was stymied for a new idea. It could be argued that it is one of the most influential novels on the creative arts. It has inspired numerous movies, mini-series, comic books, and plays. Even those that have never read this book know the plot and certainly know the names of Jekyll and Hyde. New generations of readers are still finding this book essential reading. They made a book that quite possibly could have been thought of as an entertaining gothic novel into an international best seller. I believe they were looking for some insight into their own nature maybe even some sympathy for their own urges. Men who normally did not read novels were buying this book. This foreign substance, unfortunately, is the ingredient that made the emergence and the restraint of Hyde possible. Jekyll contacts every apothecary he knows trying to find more of the solution he needs only to discover that the original batch that he used to make his “grand discovery” with must have been tainted with a foreign substance unknown to any of the suppliers. The tincture that has so far allowed Jekyll to contain Hyde is needing to be doubled and tripled to give Jekyll some modicum of control over his deviant nature. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll had fallen, and he resented the dislike which he was himself regarded.” ”The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. Unfortunately indifference becomes more personal, more brutal in nature, as Hyde becomes more and more a caged animal who does not want to have to embrace the pretenses of Jekyll’s respectable position. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit.” ”My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Edward Hyde.įurthermore, his creation has no loyalty. He relishes the adventures of his other persona even as he feels the mounting horror of losing control of this other self he calls Mr. This walk on the wild side also allowed them the privilege of feeling completely superior to all those beings providing their means of entertainment. The thunder of the church and the faces of their sweet families made them feel guilty for their need to drink gin in decrepit pubs, smoke opiates in dens of inequity, consort with underage whores, and run the very real risk of being robbed by cutthroats. They were struggling with the dual natures of their existences. They could be as naughty as they wanted and safely leave their depravity on that side of town before they return to the respectable bosom of their family and careers. Many men of means living in London now found themselves hearing the siren song of pleasures available on the East End. The Victorian society was struggling with the morality that had been imposed upon them by the previous generation. The timing was perfect for releasing such a tale. The American first edition is the true first edition because it preceded the London edition by three days This book was released in 1886 and at first none of the bookshop wanted to carry the book because of the subject matter, but a positive review had people flocking to the stores to read this sinister tale of hubris overcoming reason. ![]() He has unleashed a power from within that is turning out to be too formidable to be properly contained. Henry Jekyll is a brilliant man who in the course of trying to understand the human psyche has turned himself, with tragic results, into a guinea pig for his experiments. The stage adaptation opened in London in 1887, a year after the publication of the novella. Richard Mansfield was mostly known for his dual role depicted in this double exposure. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance rather of a leap of welcome. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. ”It came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll. ![]()
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