Novel III. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

  • From the Novel:

“My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and sharede in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde…To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper”(Stevenson 86).

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Edited by Martin A. Danahay, Broadview Editions, 2015.
  • Critical Commentary:

“These characters fear being exposed both for the secret vices they indulge and for their decision to avoid any public scandal by conducting a double life hidden from the inquisitioners of the contemporary public and condemnation of the laws”.

Sanna, Antonio. “Silent homosexuality in oscar wilde’s “telemy” & “The picture of dorian gray” and robert louis stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. hyde”. Law and literature, 24. 21-29. 2013
  • Historical Context:

“This web of habits and appetites, of lusts and feats, is not, perhaps, the ultimate manifestation of what in truth we are. It is the cloak which our rude forefathers have worn themselves against the cosmic storm; but we are already learning to shift and refashion it as our gentler weather needs, and if perchance it slip from us in the sunshine then something more ancient and more glorious is for a moment guessed within”(203).

Meyers, F.H. “Multiplex personality, “The Nineteenth century, november 1886.
  • Visual:

“The Transformation: Great God! Can it be!” https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.04518/

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Digital File from Original – Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/resource/ds.04518/. Accessed 6 Dec. 2023.