Twentieth-century film representations of Dr. Jekyll have portrayed him most often as lusty and outgoing. In the novella, the character as written is an ascetic loner with a cramped sexuality. His goal, his obsession is the separation of good and evil. He explains this: “If each [of these elements], I told myself, could be but housed in separate entities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable, the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path.” This was the Victorian paradigm and these issues were of vital importance to Stevenson’s audience. If people could rid themselves of the wickedness they currently had to repress, if science (which was advancing in leaps and bounds and causing much dismay) could alleviate the burden created by adhering to the old-maidish Victorian definition of morality, the continued march of civilization might be assured.
The story is constructed in non-linear episodes told by several different characters, the final chapter denouement, recounted by Jekyll himself, is in the form of an explanatory journal, leading up to his only recourse: suicide. Suicide becomes inevitable because Hyde is no longer exclusively brought on by “the salts” but, much like the more dominant personality of a schizophrenic, now manifests himself and controls the high-minded Jekyll most of the time. The episodic narrative was often used in gothic fiction and is fairly typical of Stevenson’s style. H.P. Lovecraft wrote that Stevenson’s writing fit into the familiar form of “horror tales that specialise in events rather than atmospheric details, address the intellect rather than a malign tensity or psychological verisimilitude and take a definite stand in sympathy with mankind and its welfare.”
The only shortcoming of the story may be that, when compared to many other literary works exploring the nature of duality and the “double”—most notably Dostoyevsky’s treatment of the subject—it does not cut to the marrow of human experience. Its tone remains oddly cold, and in spite of its genius, it lacks a measure of nuance and ambiguity. Hyde is pure evil, “satan’s signature,” with no subtlety whatsoever. This categorical view was certainly popular during the Victorian era and Stevenson did not rise above using this extreme polarity. It remains “a good crawler,” as Stevenson referred to the genre, but basically just a horror story, for these reasons.
“Markheim,” a briefer thriller, was actually written before “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Also anthologized many times, it is the story of a man who “in a course of weak compliance with desire” becomes a thief and murderer. After his crimes he encounters his conscience as his own embodied double. Through his words the “visitor,” as he is identified, causes Markheim to repent and confess his crimes.
Do I say that I follow sins? I follow virtues also; they differ not by the thickness of a nail, they are both scythes for the reaping angel of Death. Evil, for which I live, consists not in action but in character. The bad man is dear to me; not the bad act, whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling cataract of the ages might yet be found more blessed than those of the rarest virtues.
All of Stevenson’s juiciest fascinations are found here: low-life, crime, censure, conscience, redemption, moral uplift.
“The Body Snatcher” is a straightforward but meaty horror story, another one peopled with Stevenson’s favorite type of characters, “down-going men.” Upon its publication it was advertised on London streets by men with sandwich boards so horrific that the campaign was removed from public view by the police. This tale of a man who recognizes, after many years, an old comrade from his medical school days, would be suitable for telling on a dark, rainy night. These men knew each other when no method was too unsavory for acquiring corpses for the dissections performed at the school and the results are straight from Stevenson at his most gruesome.
These three count among the handful of Stevenson’s stories which were landlocked—taking place in civilized Europe. One more included here, “The Bottle Imp,” takes place in the South Seas. This and other stories which form the body of Stevenson’s South Seas tales are somewhat less known, and rarely associated with R.L.S. It has been suggested that this may be the result of being upstaged by Conrad, Maugham and others whose more extensive and perhaps more profound explorations of similar exotic territory have become better known. Taken indirectly from German folklore, covering many themes similar to those in the other stories presented here, “The Bottle Imp” is a far less dark and sinister tale. Stevenson himself particularly liked this story of a man who buys a magic bottle which grants its owner’s dearest wish. Unfortunately, the bottle always exacts a terrible price for the fulfillment of one’s dreams. The bottle may be sold each time in turn, on the condition that the selling price is less than what was paid for it. When the price goes down to the equivalent of a penny, the owner and his wife travel to other islands where the smallest currency is lower than that. The story was translated into Samoan during Stevenson’s lifetime and natives often came to look into his safe in the hopes of finding the real bottle there.
Stevenson undoubtedly scorned the realism that was popular in the literature of his day. He believed that fiction should not be a “transcript of life” and he consistently brought a powerful imagination to this philosophy. He followed his own advice when he said that a writer must “half-close his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality.” Stevenson did this and created that rare combination: accessible and popular art.
—Laura Victoria Levin
1995
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories
Story of the Door
Mr. Utterson, the lawyer, was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say, quaintly; “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.” In this character it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of down-going men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanor.
No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendships seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer’s way. His friends were those of his own blood, or those whom he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions, counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.
It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them down a by-street in a busy quarter of London. The street was small and what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on the week day. The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed, and all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the surplus of their gains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of smiling saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighborhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, and general cleanliness and gayety of note, instantly caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.