“With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.”
- Robert Louis Stevenson
Themes we are going to explore: Duality of human nature, Good vs evil, the limitations and consequences of science.
Can I come without reading the book?
No.
Some questions to kickstart the discussion:
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- The narrative approach of the novel is quite dry and factual—even, some might say, scientific. What does this style contribute to the story?
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- Thinking about narrative perspective as well, why would Stevenson choose to tell the story from Utterson’s perspective, rather than Jekyll’s? What does Utterson’s perspective bring to the story?
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- After his first transformation, Jekyll initially describes his actions while “in the semblance of Edward Hyde” with “I” as his subject of choice, but later in the novel eventually shifts to using “he” and “Hyde” after the first time he transforms into Hyde unwillingly, stating, “He, I say—I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human, nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.” Do you think Jekyll is accurate in doing so? Or is he simply too horrified at what he has become to accept it?
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- Stevenson relies heavily on cityscapes to inform the mood of his story. Did you think these descriptions were effective? Why or why not?
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- The detective in both reality and fiction was emerging during the Victorian era around the same time that Stevenson wrote this novella. As a result, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is sometimes described as a forerunner to the detective novel. Do you agree with this description? Disagree?
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- With the emergence of real life detectives also seemed to come the emergence of the first real life serial killer with Jack the Ripper in 1888, only two years after the publication of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Serial killers and what prompts them to do what they do has long interested the public. True crime is a media fascination that has truly never gone out of fashion, although we can always take care in where we put our focus, who we blame, and which narratives we question.
- How could you see Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde being used as a metaphor for a modern day serial killer? How might you also challenge or critique that metaphor?
- Interesting Fact: The actor Richard Mansfield, who portrayed Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in a play adaptation, became one of the prominent members of society accused by the public of being Jack the Ripper when theatre-goers had difficulty discerning fact from fiction, claiming that no one could so convincingly portray a homicidal fiend without being one themselves.
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- The Gothic literary triptych consists of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—three monsters who have become basic parts of our cultural vocabulary. What about these three monsters is so important to us? How are these monsters different? How are they similar?
