Reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I couldn't
help but recall the classic justification of druggie burnout behavior. Usually, it came
from the mouths of parents. Their children weren't really stoners, you see, but just
“experimenting with drugs.”
I always wondered about these folks experimenting with drugs. Did they put a white
lab coat on? Was a Bunsen burner and microscope nearby? Could I take a peek at
their lab notes?
Well, Dr. Jekyll, in Robert Louis
Stevenson’s famous book, did just
that. He had the Bunsen burner and
microscope. The lab notes even
show up in the novel.
So I’m hardly surprised that some
have compared Dr. Jekyll to Albert
Hoffmann, the Swiss scientist who
made the first batch of LSD, and
sampled it himself. Now there was
a bloke who really did experiment
with drugs. Or perhaps the real-life
Dr. Jekyll was Timothy Leary, the
acid-inspired former Harvard prof
who advised people: "Turn on, tune
in, drop out."
Dr. Jekyll followed that injunction….though with some unfortunate consequences. If
the good doctor had been around during the Summer of Love, his mates would have
called it a bad trip. At least that would be the 1960s interpretation of Robert Louis
Stevenson’s book.
But there’s also a 1950s version. This view of the novel would draw on the fashionable
Freudian terminology and obsession with psychiatry of that era. Dr Jekyll, from this
perspective, is simply tapping into his subconscious. Those aligned with this
interpretation will point out that Robert Louis Stevenson first got the idea for this book
from a dream—the time-honored source of messages from our repressed mind, at least
according to eminent Viennese doctors with couches in their examination rooms.
But in the 1970s, this same story could serve as the perfect
platform for a structuralist reading, with Jekyll and Hyde
standing in for signifier and signified (remember that
Saussurean admonition about the “arbitrary nature of the
sign!”). In the 1980s, as Nietzschean readings got fashionable
again, under the impetus of Foucault and Deleuze, Hyde now
strutted the stage as a kind of unfettered Übermensch, but
in the 1990s he was ready to emerge as a gender studies topic,
the outed male whose closet life is suddenly exposed to public
view.
And what about an interpretation of this novel for our times?
What would a professor say about the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde in the current day? Well, I could tell you, but I
would first need to issue a trigger warning.
I’d prefer to ask a different question. How did the Robert Louis
Stevenson, the author of this classic work, view his protagonist’s
double character? The answer can be clearly read in his novel, for Stevenson leaves
no room for doubt that he saw Jekyll undermined by moral weakness. Our good doctor
has invented a potent concoction that, when swallowed, removes all ethical and
religious constraints. Instead of a typical human nature, in which good and evil are
balanced against each other, the latter now predominates, the former dispatched from
the scene. "I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold
more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil," Jekyll explains. "All human beings, as we
meet them, are commingled out of good and evil," he adds. "Edward Hyde, alone in the
ranks of mankind, was pure evil."
The physical, in this charged space, becomes the visible exponent of the metaphysical.
When Dr. Jekyll drinks his potion, his body also changes, to mirror the viciousness
now unleashed in his soul. Jekyll shrinks into the figure of Hyde, who appears
"small, slighter, and younger" than Jekyll. "Evil was written broadly and plainly" on
Hyde’s face. His body wears “an imprint of deformity and decay.” People who encounter
Hyde, even in situations where they can’t get a good look at his features, feel instinctively
a repulsion, a fear of his moral contagion.
When John Barrymore played Jekyll in the 1920 film version, he managed the change
to Hyde on-screen without any make-up, relying simply on his facial contortions and
acting bravado to effect the transformation. I suspect Stevenson would have been very
pleased with this approach. The reader is expected to see Hyde as latent in Jekyll, not
his opposite but one of his constituent parts.
At times this book almost reads like a parable, a lesson from a sacred text. Now that isn’t
a trendy interpretation of the book. When is the last time you’ve even encountered the
word ‘wicked’ in a work of literary criticism? (I note that, according to Google, the
frequency of use of that word peaked around 1810.) Who even dares talk about literature
as a moral phenomenon? Freud would not approve. Nietzsche would throw a fit. Yet
such is how Robert Louis Stevenson presented his most famous character. And the
author’s own attitude will appeal to those who subscribe to the view, as expressed in
the words of novelist John Gardner (in his book On Moral Fiction), that "art is
essentially and primarily moral—that is, live-giving—moral in its process of creation
and moral in what it says."
Frequency of use of the word 'wicked' in publications since the year 1800
I don’t go quite so far as Gardner, but I do believe that storytelling originated as a
Darwinian mechanism for passing collective wisdom from generation to generation.
The audience who heard the Iliad, when it was first recited, was filled with future
soldiers who prepared themselves for military endeavors by learning about the exploits
of Homer’s heroes. The Odyssey, in contrast, featured a different hero, who preferred
to apply intelligence rather than brute force to situations, but those imaginary incidents
also provided what we would today call “teachable moments.” If you look at the full
range of ancient literary works, from The Egyptian Book of the Dead to Sappho’s poetry,
you encounter the same thing, again and again—these were admonitory works that
aimed to instruct. Stories delighted, but also taught. They prepared the young for adult
life, preserved community values, and served as a storehouse of knowledge.
We are familiar with other purposes of storytelling
nowadays. We even have ‘learned’ (if that is, in fact,
the right word) to embrace novels that deliberately
undermine moral precepts—celebrating authors
who offer piquancy by envisioning a brutal fight
club or the sadistic impulses of a serial killer. Yet
such books would not have the power to shock if
not for thousands of years of a pre-existing
paradigm, in which protagonists were heroes
and both those who told these tales and those
who listened believed that the behaviors described
could serve, in some degree, as guideposts to the
good life.
This previous paradigm has never been refuted, even if it is no longer fashionable. Yet it
still haunts our psyches….and even our popular culture. That’s why audiences still crave
the happy ending, that’s why those blockbuster superhero movies might make a villain
—the Joker, say—look cool for most of the movie, but still allow good to triumph over
evil in the end. This desire for moral outcomes is probably hardwired into our systems.
So I am hardly surprised that Jekyll and Hyde often show up in the writings of people
who care not a whit for literary criticism, but have embarked upon a personal voyage
of dramatic proportions. Every day a marriage counselor somewhere hears complaints
about the spouse with a "Jekyll and Hyde" personality. You will find references to
Stevenson’s story in accounts of recovered alcoholics, former drug addicts and a host
of other individuals who have triumphed over their own weaknesses and failings.
They understand that this story is their story, and not a platform for fashionable lit
crit.
Such successes provide much more powerful testimony to Stevenson’s importance
than anything someone might say at the MLA. I don’t doubt that academic
interpretations of this book will continue to morph in response to the latest trends
in the ivory tower. Digital humanities are hot nowadays, so in the next phase of their
post-history Jekyll and Hyde will no doubt get turned into bits and bytes, translated
into an algorithm or an app, and reveal their secrets through regression analysis. But
will these new tools bring us any closer to the heart of this old novel?
Stevenson was interested in the soul. And that’s still something that doesn’t get
easily reduced to a digital medium. Yeah, that might change—who knows what
digital storage devices will actually store a century from now? We all might end up
as digital downloads. In the meantime, read the book. And perhaps even mull over
Jekyll’s tragedy in the very terms that Stevenson laid out for us. You might find a
lesson in it.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and popular culture. His latest book is How to Listen to Jazz
from Basic Books.
Publication Date: June 20, 2016

This is my year of horrible reading.
I am reading the classics of horror fiction
during the course of 2016, and each week will
write about a significant work in the genre.
You are invited to join me in my annus
horribilis. During the course of the year—if
we survive—we will have tackled zombies,
serial killers, ghosts, demons, vampires, and
monsters of all denominations. Check back
each week for a new title...but remember to
bring along garlic, silver bullets and a
protective amulet. Ted Gioia















The Strange Interpretations of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
|
I am hardly surprised that
Jekyll and Hyde often show
up in the writings of people
who care not a whit for
literary criticism, but have
embarked upon a personal
voyage of dramatic
proportions.
To purchase, click on image
Essay by Ted Gioia

Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Blind Assassin
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barker, Clive
Books of Blood, Vols. 1-3
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chambers, Robert W.
The King in Yellow
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fowles, John
A Maggot
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hill, Susan
The Woman in Black
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Houellebecq, Michel
Submission
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Jackson, Shirley
The Haunting of Hill House
James, Henry
The Turn of the Screw
James, M.R.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Ketchum, Jack
Off Season
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
King, Stephen
Carrie
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Levin, Ira
Rosemary's Baby
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Lovecraft, H.P.
Tales
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mandel, Emily St. John
Station Eleven
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
I Am Legend
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Poe, Edgar Allan
Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Rice, Anne
Interview with the Vampire
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Clark Ashton
The Dark Eidolon
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stoker, Bram
Dracula
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
The Dragon Masters
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Vance, Jack
The Languages of Pao
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vollmann, William T
Last Stories and Other Stories
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
My Year of Horrible Reading
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
The Most Secretive Sci-Fi Author
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
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When John Barrynore played Jekyll in the 1920 film, he
managed the change to Hyde without the use of makeup
Hyde is the Freudian Id, or maybe a stoner on
a bad trip, or perhaps Nietzsche's Superman.....