Reviews with content warning for Suicide - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

There are spoilers in this review. Proceed with caution. ♥️

I thought that this novel was very enlightening, scary, and related to theology and philosophy (especially morals, human nature, and ethics).

In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1886, something worthy of scientific discussion is the societal response to mental health in Victorian England (which was during the 19th century). Based upon this reading, Dr. Henry Jekyll seems to be an individual who allows his deep desire for his flaws to be covered up to take over his life. He poisons himself which gives him the scary ability to morph into Mr. Edward Hyde. At the outset, this seems like a basic human desire. But Stevenson demonstrates how Dr. Jekyll plays with fire and inadvertently goes too far after he initially sets out to remedy something as innocuous as his hidden insecurity.

Given the mental health context around this time period, it is fascinating that the author, Robert Louis Stevenson himself, seemed to have suffered from a split personality disorder. According to biographer Claire Herman from National Public Radio, “‘Myself and the other fellow’ is a phrase that Stevenson used to describe two states of consciousness that he experienced, in particular, when he was having a fever one time, you know, to do with his lung problems and his illness. And he wrote to a friend that when he was in a high fever, he felt that his mind split off into `myself' and what he called `the other fellow.' `Myself' was the rational side, and `the other fellow' was the sort of dark side, the creative, difficult, seething side of his subconscious. And he loved it. He loved the fact that he had these simultaneous and slightly conflicting states of mind going on. And obviously, he used it very much in his work. And it animated a lot of his ideas. You know, that you could be two people at the same time.” Taking this into account, I am at least very impressed with Stevenson’s ability to put his experiences with a split personality into literature. While this is not nearly the same thing as narcissistic personality disorder, I made that psychological connection anyway as his novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, focused on the dichotomy between good and evil. Having a split personality does not always mean that it is split between those extremes, however, those with narcissistic personality disorder do go about the world with a harrowingly false persona through living in a false reality.

In the Victorian Era, mental health was enormously stigmatized. Some people were confined to asylums for many years if they were deemed “crazy” or “mad” (Briggs). Family or friends would gain financially by treating even just eccentric or truly mentally ill people in this way. The innocent people in the asylums had to fight tirelessly for their liberty after being deemed insane. When I take this stigma into account and correlate it back to Dr. Jekyll, I think he was avoiding the stigma of being portrayed as mentally unwell (since he wanted to commit heinous acts) by splitting his personality into two. According to Helen Briggs once more, “Doctors treating the mentally ill were not called psychiatrists but were known as alienists, based on the belief that the self had become alienated from itself.” I think there is a clear correlation between Robert Louis Stevenson’s personality disorder and the stigma around mental health that his society was facing at this time.

However, from my understanding of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde… one character is not trying to battle two personalities. Rather, Dr. Jekyll still wanted to preserve his impressive societal position as a scientist but still live on the edge through Mr. Hyde. Obviously this is only possible in the realm of fiction, but it is fascinating if one imagines it to be real. This is a transformation Dr. Jekyll did succeed in making, but clearly, it ended in disastrous consequences when his transformations into Mr. Hyde started happening against his volition. Looking at this through a philosophical sense think this is a metaphor for the fact that unbridled evil always has the capacity to overcome true goodness.

Works Cited
Briggs, Helen. “Inconvenient People: A Victorian View of Mental-health Treatment.” BBC News, 29 Apr. 2014, www.bbc.com/news/health-27148737.
Herman, Claire. “Robert Louis Stevenson’s Split Personality.” NPR, 27 Nov. 2005, www.npr.org/2005/11/27/5028500/robert-louis-stevensons-split-personality.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
London: English Library, 1974.

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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