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"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde"
by
Robert Louis Stevenson |
The story
by Lucrezia, Elisabetta,
and Federica (Italy)
 Mr. Utterson is a London lawyer who is a friend of
Dr. Jekyll. Jekyll gave up his regular practice to
experiment with non-traditional medicine. Utterson
is concerned because Jekyll has written a will that
leaves all his money to his new partner Mr. Hyde.
Utterson has heard bad things of Hyde and disliked
him at first sight. The lawyer thinks his friend is
being blackmailed. One day, the lawyer is asked to
identify the body of a murdered man, Sir Danvers
Carew, one of Utterson's clients. Hyde is suspected
of the murder, but he has disappeared. Jekyll swears
that he has not seen Hyde and has broken with him
forever. The case remains unsolved and Jekyll
becomes more sociable than he had been. Suddenly,
though, he locks himself into his laboratory,
yelling to the servants through the door, directing
them to take chemicals for him. The servants
recognizes a change in his voice and think that
their master has been murdered; another man has
taken his place in the lab. They call Utterson who
breaks down the door. On the floor lies Hyde, who
has killed himself with poison. Utterson assumes
Hyde returned and killed Jekyll, but the doctor's
body is nowhere.He does find,a letter in which
Jekyll explains his relationship to Hyde. Pondering
this split in his personality, he decides to find a
way to separate his two beings. Jekyll creates a
potion that releases his evil side, Mr. Hyde. Hyde
is shorter and smaller than Jekyll, having not had
as much exercise. For a while Jekyll enjoys his two
bodies; he can do whatever he likes without being
discover. His pleasure is braked when Hyde kills
Carew ,and he resolves never to take the potion
again. Hyde is now strong, however, and emerges
whether Jekyll will have him or not. Indeed, Jekyll
must use the potion to be rid of him if only for a
moment. Jekyll knows that it is only by killing his
body that Hyde's body, too, will die.
The summary of
Dr.Jekyl and Mr.Hyde
by
Büsra (Turkey)
Living in an elite community Dr Henry aim was to
gain respect of the high society.He was regarded as
benevolent by everyone, but there was an evil inside
him, being on the lookout for an opportunity. In
this condition, he believed that two different
personalities could be able to liive in the same
body. And he tried to bring out the other
personality. In the end, he succeeded in inventing a
chemical liquid . When he drank the person appearing
was a different person looking more different than
Doctor. And this was Hyde. Hyde was the person who
Henry hid in him for so long and who could do the
things that Henry wanted to. In the first days, he
was pleased with this situation. But this didn’t
last long. Now,when he transformed into Henry he
suffered from the things that he did as Hyde and
regretted. As time passed, the medicine that Doctor
drank had less influence on him and it needed to be
increased. Now Henry hated Hyde. He was afraid of
his hurting him and wanted to get rid of him, but he
couldn’t hinder Hyde. Now the medicine was used not
to be Hyde, but to be Henry. Meanwhile the medicine
was decreasing and he was trying to find the new
one. He wasn’t able to find the same, because the
powder he used was not pure. As he didn’t want Hyde
to hurt him he chose to commit sucide. And he wrote
this explanation as Henry and before being Hyde he
hid it and vanished
What Inspired the Author (1)
by Aanchal Marwaha and Anuja Gopal
(India)
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was an
immediate success and one of Stevenson's best
selling works. Stage adaptations began in Boston and
London within a year of its publication and it has
gone on to inspire scores of major film and stage
performances.
In early Autumn of 1885 Stevenson's thoughts turned
to the idea of the duality of man's nature, and how
to incorporate the interplay of good and evil into a
story. One night he had a dream, and on wakening had
the idea for two or three scenes that would appear
in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. "In the
small hours of one morning," says Mrs. Stevenson, "I
was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. Thinking
he had a nightmare, I awakened him. He said angrily
'Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey
tale.' I had awakened him at the first
transformation scene."
Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's step-son, remembers "I
don't believe that there was ever such a literary
feat before as the writing of Dr. Jekyll. I remember
the first reading as if it was yesterday. Louis came
downstairs in a fever; read nearly half the book
aloud; and then, while we were still gasping, he was
away again, and busy writing. I doubt if the first
draft took so long as three days."
As was the custom, Mrs. Stevenson would read the
draft and offer her criticisms in the margins. Louis
was confined to bed at the time from a haemorrhage,
and she left her comments with the manuscript and
Louis in the bedroom. She said in effect the story
was really an allegory, but Louis was writing it
just as a story. After a while Louis called her back
into the bedroom and pointed to a pile of ashes: he
had burnt the manuscript in fear that he would try
to salvage it, and in the process forcing himself to
start over from scratch writing an allegorical story
as she had suggested. Scholars debate if he really
burnt his manuscript or not. Other scholars suggest
her criticism was not about allegory, but about
inappropriate sexual content. Whatever the case,
there is no direct factual evidence for the burning
of the manuscript, but it remains an integral part
of the history of the novel.
Stevenson re-wrote the story again in three days.
According to Osbourne "The mere physical feat was
tremendous; and instead of harming him, it roused
and cheered him inexpressibly." He refined and
continued to work on it for 4 to 6 weeks afterward.
The manuscript was initially sold as a paperback for
one shilling in the UK and one dollar in the USA.
Initially stores would not stock it until a review
appeared in The Times (Jan.25 1886), giving it a
favourable reception. Within the next six months
close to forty-thousand copies were sold. By 1901 it
was estimated have sold over 250,000 copies. Its
success was probably due more to the "moral
instincts of the public" than perception of its
artistic merits, being widely read by those who
never otherwise read fiction, quoted in pulpit
sermons and in religious papers.
What inspired
the Author (2)
by
Sergio and Alessandro (Italy)
The unusually clear dream vision of Jekyll and Hyde
and the terror it inspired in the
thirty-six-year-old Stevenson suggest that the idea
had a strong root in Stevenson's personality. From
biographical data and the comments of Stevenson's
contemporaries, we are able to determine that this
was indeed the case and that the concept of an
outwardly respectable man leading a double life
whose dark side included immorality or even crime
preoccupied Stevenson from his early childhood.
The image of Jekyll and Hyde appears to have had its
origin in a real personage of Stevenson's native
city of Edinburgh -- Deacon Brodie (1741-1788).
William Brodie was a successful carpenter and
cabinet-maker and so highly regarded in his craft
that he became "deacon" or president of the
Edinburgh carpenters' trade. Far from having the
solid churchgoing habits that his title might
suggest to those unacquainted with its professional
significance, Deacon Brodie spent many happy hours
on Sunday mornings making wax impressions of the
door locks of friends and neighbours who were at
services. For Brodie led a double life -- by day he
pursued his carpentry, and at night he was a daring
housebreaker. The houses and offices he raided (at
first alone and later as leader of a gang of three
other men) included many he had previously visited
to make repairs or perform other work of his trade.
Between blows of hammer and strokes of saw he had
taken the opportunity to make copies of keys and
locks and to observe room arrangements and the
arrival and departure schedules of inhabitants and
workers.
Some victims who witnessed his night time incursions
thought they recognized him under his black gauze
mask, but kept their own counsel, out of either
friendship or disbelief. The next morning Brodie
would condole with them on their losses or would be
in attendance at the town council, of which he was
an ex officio member, helping formulate plans to
catch the audacious criminal. Brodie's career ended
when a member of his gang gave him away to the
authorities after a disappointing raid on the
Scottish Excise Office. Brodie fled and was caught
in Holland, where he was making profitable use of
his fugitive hours learning the art of forgery from
an itinerant expert.
The Deacon was hanged in 1788 at the Edinburgh
Tolbooth Prison. Legend has it that he was hanged on
a gallows that he had built in the course of his
carpentry for the city, but unfortunately this
supreme irony is not borne out by chronology.
Deacon Brodie seized on the imagination of his
townspeople and they have never forgotten him. In
addition to the fascination of his double life, it
was obvious to the people of Edinburgh that he was
not attracted to crime primarily by love of gain,
although it cannot have.
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