di Nilla Cassano - Istituto Orazio Flacco di Castellaneta

2. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a short story written
by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886.
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in
Edinburgh on 13 November 1850
by Thomas, civil engineer, and
Margaret Isabel Balfour, son of a
Presbyterian minister.
Unfortunately, Robert inherits a
tuberculosis from her mother , so
he spends his childhood without
any contact with the outside world
and with a lot of treatments, often
oppressive. Thanks to Alison
Cunningham, her housekeeper
“Cummy”, he learns some ancient
Scottish ballads and biblical
histories, really important for the
composition of his “fantasy world”.

3. In 1857, Robert decides to
attend the public school for a
short-term, but traumatized
by the contact with the
outside world, he continues
his studies under the guidance
of a mentor. Finished the
studies, his father Thomas
decides that his son will be a
design lighthouse engineer, as
he is.
But Robert loves the
daydreams and he has the
inclination to tell stories. But,
he had a poor health, in fact
during these years he was
affected by a severe form of
phthisis.

4. In the 1871 finally he
understands to break the strong
link with his parents: he had a
relationship with Kate
Drammond, a Scottish
prostitute, and he decides to
interrupt his studies for
becoming an engineer, and
spending his time exclusively on
literature. But, in the end, he
decides to make happy his
father, graduating in law in
1875. In 1876 he meets a
Barbizon, in France, Fanny
Osbourne: she’s 36 years old,
American, married and mother
of 2 child; she’ll become her
wife from there to four years.
Maybe, thanks to the closeness
of her wife and his stepson
Lloyd, that Robert writes in this
period his masterpieces
“Treasure Island” and “The
strange case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde”

5. In the 1888, Thomas Stevenson
die. So, Robert decides to treat
his tuberculosis with a different
climate: in fact he and his family
have a long cruise in South Pacific
(Marquesas Islands, Tahiti,
Honolulu and Gilbert Islands). So,
in 1890, Robert and his family
decide to settle in Samoa, in
French Polynesia, in an
indigenous village called
“Vailima”, where he defends
indigenous people from the
avidity of American and German
merchants of alcohol. Honoured
like a tribal chief of the island,
Robert Louis Stevenson dies on
3rd December 1894 in Vailima,
because of a sudden cerebral
hemorrhage. He’s buried on
Mount Vaea, overlooking the
Pacific Ocean.

6. THE PLOT

7. The plot begins talking about the
lawyer Utterson:
‘’ 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 .,,

8. Also, Mr. Utterson, the real
main character, was a
generous man, especially in
helping friends and severe
with himself. Mr. Utterson,
one evening, goes out with
his cousin, Mr. Enfield, who
says to Utterson something
bad affairs about a man,
called Mr. Hyde. After, Mr.
Enfield shows Utterson a
battered house, where it is
thought Hyde resides. Also,
in the same district, it is
thought that Mr. Hyde has
massacred an innocent
baby-girl, leaving her in the
street with all broken
bones.

9. However, for the lawyer Utterson, the surname Hyde is familiar: in fact
his name is cited in the testament of Utterson’s old friend and customer,
Dottor Jekyll:
‘’The will was holograph, for Mr. Utterson, though he took
charge of it now that it was made, had refused to lend the
least assistance in the making of it; it provided not only
that, in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L.,
LL.D., F.R.S., etc., all his possessions were to pass into
the hands of his ‘friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,’ but
that in case of Dr. Jekyll’s ‘disappearance or unexplained
absence for any period exceeding three calendar months,’
the said Edward Hyde should step into the said Henry
Jekyll’s shoes without further delay and free from any
burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small
sums to the members of the doctor’s household.,,

10. • For this, Utterson wants to help his
friend Jekyll, believing him in trouble.
Mr. Utterson succeeds after fifteen days
to meet Jekyll, and succeeds also to
discuss on the affair Hyde, but without
getting nothing. It’s still a mystery. After
a year, Hyde kills Sir. Danvers Carew, an
illustrious man, Utterson’s customer
and member of the Parliament, who
had a letter for Utterson. For that,
Utterson, really impressed, goes to the
police station where, recognized the
corpse, understands immediately that
the assassin was Hyde. For this,
Utterson, with Newcomen, the
Scotland Yard inspector, goes in the
putrid house of Hyde, where they found
a piece of stick, the crime weapon and
also an old gift byUtterson to Jekyll, and
a checkbook with thousand pounds.
After that, Utterson goes to Jekyll, who
admits not to have any contacts with
Hyde.

11. In fact, Jekyll will shows Utterson a strange letter without any
postmark, signed Edward Hyde:

13. With Hyde’s disappearance,
Jekyll returns to his old life,
but for a few days. In fact,
after this short period of
happiness, Jekyll decides to
remain lonely at home,
without seeing Utterson and
anyone else of his other
friends. For that, Utterson
goes to Dr. Lanyon, Utterson
and Jekyll’s old friend, who
seems very strange. In fact,
Lanyon knew and affirmed
that his death was near. A
few days later, Lanyon dies.
The night after the funeral,
Mr. Utterson receives a letter
by the deceased Lanyon, a
letter that he should have
read only after Jekyll’s death.
‘’ TIME ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in
reward, for the death of Sir Danvers was resented as a
public injury; but Mr. Hyde had disappeared out of the
ken of the police as though he had never existed. ,,

14. SO, AT HOME, UTTERSON DECIDES TO READ THE
LANYON’S LETTER AND THE JEKYLL’S PAPERS. IN THE
LANYON’S LETTER, UTTERSON FINDS THAT HIS
FRIEND DIES FOR THE ENORMOUS WONDER CAUSED
BY THE DISCOVERY THAT JEKYLL WAS,
TRANSFORMING HIM, HYDE. IN THE JEKYLL’S PAPERS,
UTTERSON COULD READ THAT ALL JEKYLL’S MONEY
WENT NOW ALL TO HIM, AND THE ENTIRE STRANGE
STORY OF JEKYLL, A MAN WHO WANTED TO BE
DIFFERENT, WHO DESIRED TO HAVE A DOUBLE LIFE, A
GOOD AND AN EVIL ONE, WHO DIED AFTER HAD
FULFILLED HIS ENORMOUS MISTAKE….
An evening, Poole, Jekyll’s old butler, very
worried, asks Utterson for helping him. In fact,
arrived at Jekyll’s house, Poole points out to
Utterson the strange voice of his owner, who
was closed in his office for a lot of days, wore a
strange mask, required strange drugs and was
lower than usual. So, Poole and Utterson decide
to break down the door of the studio: here, in
the center of the room, there was Hyde dead,
just poisoned. In the studio, there were some
papers addressed to Utterson, that the lawyer
decides to read at home. And no trace of Mr.
Jeckyll.

17. • In 1891 Wilde added to the double nature
of man the Victorian attempt to hid the
corrupted side of one's personality under
the mask of respectability and beauty.
"The picture of Dorian Gray" is profoundly
allegorical and it is a 19th century version
of the myth of the Faust, the story of a
man who sells his soul to the devil so that
all his desires might be satisfied. In this
novel the soul becomes the picture, which
records the signs of experience,
corruption, horror, concealed under the
mask of Dorian timeless beauty. The
picture stands for the dark side of Dorian's
personality, which he tries to forget by
locking the picture in a room. The
horrible, corrupting picture could be seen
as a symbol of the immorality and bad
conscience of the Victorian middle classes,
while Dorian's purity and innocence are
symbols of the bourgeois hypocrisy.

18. • In the novel written by Stevenson, "The
strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
the duplicity of the human nature
becomes more explicit, in fact the same
man, drinking a potion, can make
dominant the one or the other disposition
of his soul. The theme of the ambivalence
is reinforced by the symbolism of Jekyll
and Hyde’s house, whose two façades are
symbolically the two opposite sides of the
same man: the front of this house, used by
the doctor, is fair; while the rear side, used
by Hyde, is "part of a sinister block of
buildings, which showed no windows". Mr
Hyde is deformed and smaller than Dr.
Jekyll and we can interpret it as the evil
part is a small part of the human feelings.
When Dr Jekyll becomes Mr Hyde, he
becomes able to satisfy all his hidden
wishes. Originally Dr Jekyll is a good man
and he has faith in progress, but he dares
too much. Mr Utterson is the typical mid
Victorian man and the difference between
him and Dr Jekyll is that the first accepts
the compromise, while the second doesn't
accept the role imposed by society.

19. As we know, the Victorian Age
is not only a great age of great
virtues, but also of murders,
atrocious rituals, blasphemous
rites and sexual violences. The
Victorian Age is all a show of
respectability, serenity and
virtues, trying to imitate the
queen Victoria. But, behind
these virtues, this
respectability, there is the “dark
side of the human world”.
Perhaps this is the real theme
of this beautiful novel, where
Jekyll is the incarnation of the
virtues, and Hyde the evil part
in the Victorian society and the
human world.

20. The language is simple and clear. There are some important
features:
• Use of asterisks, like in Foscolo and Manzoni, for a greater reluctance
and credibility
‘’ NEARLY a year later, in the month of October, 18** , London was startled by
a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more notable by the high
position of the victim. ,,
• The use of some puns and learned allusions
‘’ ‘If he be Mr. Hyde,’ he had thought, ‘I shall be Mr.Seek.’ ,,
‘’ Such unscientific balderdash,’ added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple,
‘would have estranged Damon and Pythias.,,

21. • There isn’t any female character: the story reflects the male
patriarchal world of Victorianism
• Utterson has the role of a detective, like Arthur Conan
Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes
• For the description of Hyde, Stevenson drew inspiration
from Darwin’s studies: in fact, Hyde s similar to an
“homo neanderthalensis”

22. An important feature is the landscape: London.
In fact there is a beautiful detailed description
of London, that reflects the double nature of
the capital, the hypocrisy of Victorian society ,
and the situation and the mood of the main
character, Mr. Utterson.

23. “The strange case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde”
had immediately an enormous success. But it
increased the numbers of murders did by
doctors, lawyers, etc. Like, for example, the
most known assassin “Jake the Slayer”

24. Any questions ??