The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde & Other Stories

This is the beginning of a trend for me: series or an original text then spin-off. What a way to kick that trend off than with a classic.

To explain terribly, Dr. Jekyll is a self-prescribing doctor who shoots up a medication with a result of becoming an entirely different person. Mr. Hyde is that person; when Mr. Hyde is the acting person, he gets into trouble with a few people that ends up building up into criminal behavior. It creates worry for Dr. Jekyll and his legal counsel Gabriel John Utterson, Jekylll’s butler Mr. Poole, and his friend Dr. Hastie Lanyon, to a point where Dr. Jekyll’s inner war for dominant identity becomes too much. In the end, Mr. Hyde wins that dominance.

My critical thinking skills were turned off during a lot of the reading of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I was not able to pick up on all of the themes and details, but was able to pick up on multiple personality disorders, and self-prescribing medication that leads to addictions. This story is a good example of a decline of mental health and how it affects those closest to you.

I don’t know how much of an accurate opinion I can give on multiple personalities given that I have yet to experience first hand someone who goes through this, but as someone who has been diagnosed with mild depression, I totally understand that progression of a being wanting to conquer your thought life if not your entire life. Then when you throw in the context of when this took place and why Dr. Jekyll was even doing this in the first place, I start to get a little lost. I did not pick up on a reason for his why for beginning this progression. This was during a time of medical and psychological development, and for a well-known doctor to experiment on himself sounds pretty logical to me. I also have to give Dr. Jekyll some credit for the fact that he did not shy away from the progression, but continued to the end even though it became for the wrong reasons. He chose his bed to lie in, basically.

There were other short stories in the edition I had. As I read, it just got progressively darker and stranger. “Lodging for the Night” is about a man who stays all night at their victim’s home well after the deed is done, reflecting on what led to it; “The Suicide Club”, “Thrown Janet”, and “The Body Snatchers” are related to one another, beginning with an introduction to The Suicide Club, where two gentlemen are looking for some thrill in their lives and end up getting involved in a very sketchy organization where the end of the night leads to murder. The two gentlemen then spend the other two stories trying to find and bring their own kind of justice to the club and to its victims. “Markeim” is about a man who goes through a lot of self-reflection on his life and the wrongful things he’s done.

If you are looking for an introduction into Victorian gothic, look no further. It was rightfully unnerving and I’m not quite sure if this is the road I want to keep going on. At the end of the day, I tried something new. If you would like to find a copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde & Other Stories, you can find it here.

8/10