Response to R.L Stevenson's "Jekyll and Hyde"

I thought R.L. Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would unquestionably be my favorite book in the Victorian novel class I’m taking. I mean, it’s a monster story set in Victorian London; it should have adventure, intrigue, murder, a race against time and maybe a love interest. It should be great, but it isn’t, really. After having read three out of the five novels assigned for the class, I would so far call it my least favorite. Despite the fact that it’s short and has to do with strange and supernatural events, there is just no suspense to the story because anyone reading it in this era is all-too familiar with what’s going on. So there’s no tension as we get to the big reveal, and it seems anticlimactic. Jekyll and Hyde are the same person, in case you were wondering. That being said, I could probably enjoy the story more if it weren’t written in that flowery, overly complicated style that I despise so much. Here’s an example: “And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public.” Yawn. I used to think all Victorians wrote like this, but it turns out that plenty of them understood that plain speech does a lot more to engage your audience (see the Dickens quotation in my last post on Great Expectations). This kind of language seems to be designed to impress people with powdered faces and bouffant wigs—it is the same aesthetic in my mind.

There’s really not much else to say. There isn’t much of a story here other than the origin and death of Jekyll and Hyde, which we all know about already. And no one figures out the mystery; it’s left to Jekyll’s last written confession to sort out all the details for Utterson (who is basically a flat narrator/main character) and for the reader. Hyde’s big crime—a murder of a magistrate or something—is not too exciting; it’s told by a bystander who sees it from a distance. There was one funny moment that sadly had nothing to do with the text itself, but with the editor, who seemed determined to make sure we didn’t misread the old-fashioned words and accidentally conclude that Jekyll and Hyde are gay. The words “gaiety,” “faggot” and “comely” all have footnotes with definitions. How on earth did the meaning of the word “faggot” get changed from bundle of sticks to . . . oh, I get it. So anyways, I would say if you want to read some old gothic monster story, you might as well give this one a miss and read Dracula or Frankenstein instead. Of course, as it weighs in at a comfortable 72 pages, you can read it and decide for yourself without too much inconvenience.