R.L. Stevenson – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Summary

At the beginning of the book, two men, Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield, are walking through London. They pass a mysterious cellar door in a narrow street, and Enfield starts to tell about a strange occurrence related to this door. It was late one night and Enfield was walking home. By chance, he came across a short, deformed man who trampled a girl in the street. Enfield and the girl’s family catch the man and they force him to pay the girl’s family money for the damage. The man, Edward Hyde, agrees, he enters the house with the cellar door and returns with a check. The name on the check is not his own name, but that of Dr. Jekyll. Although Enfield assumed the check wouldn’t be legitimate, it is legitimate.

Utterson, Jekyll’s lawyer, returns to his home and he reads Jekyll’s mysterious will which was recently filed by Jekyll. This will declares that in case of Jekyll’s death or disappearance for more than three months, his possessions will pass to Hyde. Utterson has never met Hyde, but he assumes that this is the mysterious man Enfield told about. Utterson realizes that the mysterious cellar door is connected to Jekyll’s home. His conclusion is, that Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll. He visits Hyde and Hyde is initially polite to Utterson, but when Utterson tries to probe into Hyde’s relationship with Jekyll, he gets angry.

One year later, Sir Danvers Carew is murdered by Hyde with a cane. Utterson helps the police to find Hyde’s apartment, it’s plundered and all papers are burned. Utterson goes to Jekyll and he blames him for harboring a murder, but Jekyll says that his relationship with Hyde is over, he has a farewell note from Hyde. Utterson investigates this note and his clerk, Mr. Guest, discovers that the handwriting matches a dinner invitation written by Jekyll. Utterson supposes that Jekyll wrote a forged note for a murderer.

Time passes, Hyde hasn’t been found, but Jekyll had become more and more social, just as he had been before Hyde came into his life. One day, Utterson is at a dinner party at Jekyll’s home and he sees that Dr. Lanyon is also there. A short time after this dinner party, Jekyll isolates himself and Lanyon is taken ill due to ‘shock’ and he dies. He leaves Utterson a letter and Utterson is not allowed to read it before Dr. Jekyll’s death of disappearence. Some time later, Utterson and Enfield pass the myterious cellar door again and they see Jekyll sitting by a window in the apartment. Jekyll suddenly shuts the window as he begins to suffer what appears to be a seizure. Utterson and Enfield are struck by it.

About a week later, Utterson is approached by Jekyll’s butler, Richard Poole. He says that Jekyll has locked himself in the cabinet and that he hears strange sounds emanating from the cabinet. He has communicated with Jekyll only by letters, in which Jekyll desperately asks for a specific type of medicin. They break into Jekyll’s room, where they find Hyde dead. In the laboratory, they find an envelope adressed to Utterson. Jekyll wants Utterson to read the package from Lanyon, and if Utterson wants to know more, he has to read the further description that is in the envelope.

Lanyon’s letter begins with a description of a strange letter Jekyll gave to Lanyon after the dinner party at Jekyll’s home. It urges Lanyon to go to Jekyll’s house and to get specific ingredients from the laboratory. Afterwards, a messenger will come to Lanyon’s house to recover it. Lanyon follows the instructions, Hyde appears and Lanyon gives him the ingredients. Hyde mixes the ingredients into a potion, drinks it and transforms into Jekyll. Lanyon is really shocked by this and Jekyll’s evilness. He dies a short time later.

Utterson also reads Jekyll’s own description of his experiment. Jekyll believed that the soul is made up of two separate distinctions that live in continuous conflict with eachother: good and evil. Jekyll wanted to separate these two aspects. He makes two potions, one transforms him into Hyde and the otherone transforms him back to Jekyll.

This behavior continues for some months. But then, while he was sleeping, Jekyll transformed into Hyde without the assistance of potion. Jekyll was concerned that Hyde might take over, and he decided to maintain the identity of Dr. Jekyll for two months. But Hyde longed for doing evil things, and Jekyll took the potion again. During this transformation, Hyde killed Carew. Jekyll tried to control his evil side, but unfortunately, Hyde was an irrevocable part of Jekyll’s character and he suddenly transformed into Hyde again. His dual identity was a secret to everyone in his house, so he couldn’t walk to the laboratory to get the right ingredients. He sent a letter to Lanyon and he successfully turned back into Jekyll, but every time he fell asleep, he transformed into Hyde again. His potions didn’t work anymore and at last he ran out of the ingredients. He didn’t allow anyone in his room, and Hyde was searching desperately for the ingredients. When Utterson and Poole break into the room, Hyde commits suicide.

Characters

Mr. Utterson: He is a middle-aged lawyer and an old friend of Jekyll. He recognizes the changes of Jekyll and Hyde and investigates the relationship between the two men.

Richard Enfield: He’s Utterson’s cousin. He only appears in two scenes, in both he walks in London past the mysterious cellar door with Utterson.

Dr. Lanyon: He’s a former friend and a colleague of Jekyll. Before the events in the novel, he terminated his friendship with Jekyll because of disagreement about scientific endeavors. He values truth and goodness above all else.

Dr. Henry Jekyll: He is a prominent, middle-aged doctor. He is extremely wealthy, he’s respected and proper. He believes that in each human being two forces exist: good and evil. He tries to separate these two forces.

Edward Hyde: He’s small, deformed man and younger than Jekyll. He’s pure evil. Hyde and Jekyll are in fact the same person.

Sir Danvers Carew: He’s a prominent member of English society who is murdered by Hyde.

Mr. Guest: Mr. Utterson’s law office clerk, he discovers the handwriting similarity between notes from Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll.

Richard Poole: He’s Jekyll’s butler. He asks Utterson for assistance, because he’s fearful for Jekyll’s life. They discover Hyde dead in Jekyll’s cabinet.

Important in that era

In his book, Stevenson shows the hypocrisy of Victorian society by using duality.The book gives a description of the split ‘outward respectability and inward lust’. The work can also be seen as a Victorian morality story of unleashed sexual depravity or as an allegory for the double life of the Victorian homosexual. The duality also represents the poverty and the wealth of the Victorian era: London has the respectable West End and the awful poverty of the East End and Edinburgh has the New Town with its spacious squares and geometrical order and the Old Town with its criminal underworld. The book also represents the importance of a good reputation in the Victorian Age: upright men such as Utterson and Jekyll avoid gossip at all costs, because gossip can destroy your reputation. For example, Utterson doesn’t make his suspicions known when he suspects that Jekyll is sheltering Hyde from the police.