(+ Bonus Fiddauthor & Fiddleford Is Canonically The 45th President In The GF Universe Edition)

I've only been in the Jekyll and Hyde fandom for a few months, but one thing I've noticed is that most of the people I've seen who dislike/hate the book often say that it's because "It had an amazing idea, but it's executed terribly," or something along those lines. And while I think it's totally okay for someone to hate/dislike any book or media for any reason or no reason at all, I never really understood what they meant by this because I personally think it was executed amazingly. I think it might be because of people just misunderstanding what the idea is, but I could be wrong. I'd love to read why people think the book was poorly executed, maybe I'd add in my thoughts to that as well

Utterson: I incline to Cain’s heresy; I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.

Jekyll: *leaves all his earthly goods to Hyde in the case of his disappearance*

Utterson: ...Nevermind I'm gonna hunt down this devil and tear Henry Jekyll out of its grasp with my own bare hands

This is something that only comes up briefly twice in the final statement, but it would be interesting to discuss what ideas everyone has about Jekyll's father and their relationship based on those lines.

The first mention of his father is when he has changed back into Jekyll after murdering Sir Danvers —

The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot. I saw my life as a whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had walked with my father’s hand, and through the self-denying toils of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening.

The next reference is during his final days as Hyde engages in destructive behaviour, which Jekyll describes as if Hyde is a separate entity who hates and harms him —

His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded. Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin.

There's a lot of room for interpretation, as it's very little information to work off, but my personal reading is that Jekyll had a complicated relationship with his father where he loved and adored him as a child, but his father may also have played a role in his repression and perfectionism - the childhood moment is evoked both as a starting point of life in the context of the horrors and alongside memories of self-denial in adulthood - that led to his choosing to turn into Hyde and everything that followed; so when Hyde destroys the portrait, it's both Jekyll's unrestrained self lashing out at his dead father and a form of self-harm borne out of self-hatred perceived as Hyde hating Jekyll for resenting him.

low empathy henry jekyll. low empathy jekyll who always shows compassion and kindness because he chooses to. low empathy jekyll with a very strong moral code. low empathy jekyll seeing empathy as a performance and a duty (one that he must excel in, as in all things). low empathy jekyll who knows how society expects him to feel and on most good days can half-convince himself he genuinely does. low empathy jekyll thinking there’s something inherently wrong with him. low empathy jekyll thinking he can cut the bad parts out. low empathy jekyll becoming hyde, who is much the same, but has no morals, logic, societal expectation, or interpersonal connection to make him behave kindly. low empathy henry jekyll/edward hyde.

there's no Victorian female characters in Jekyll and Hyde to get sick and die for a stupid reason so Lanyon fills that quota

there are so many possibilities when it comes to other symptoms of HJ7 that isnt told to us and i cannot stop thinking about it

vomiting, distorted vision, twitching, breathing problems, increased appetite, muscle numbness, false memories, auditory hallucinations, increased heart beat, hypersensitivity, lack of sensitivity, stretch marks, damaged vocal chords, memory loss, increased blood loss, swollen muscles, tics, abnormal pain, poor circulation, dizziness, nose bleeds, peeling skin, weight loss

Rouben Mamoulian: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Gorgeous promotional photos of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. [X]

Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S.

VS

Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc.

VS

Patrick Hennessey, M. D., M. R. C. S. L. K. Q. C. P. I., etc.

FIGHT!

***Vaguely Implied J&H spoilers***

->

Rather quaint

***Spoilers proper under cut***

I thought I'd made a post about this before but I can't find it on the old blog so maybe it never made it out of my brain?? Anyway Jekyll is so very normal about Utterson.

The repetition of "good" in the Ch 3 quote reads to me either as a genuine strong reaction to how loyal and willing Utterson's comment is about his certainty he can help. Akin to a "you're too good to me" type comment. But it also kind of comes off, as repetition often does, as the speaker convincing themselves of something or refusing to hear otherwise. That's not to say Jekyll doesn't believe Utterson is Good Tm; I think he probably does to an excessive degree, to the point of seeing him as a model of restraint, reliability, trustworthiness... A way of thinking that makes Utterson's dodgy, deceitful behaviour in Ch 2 all the more unsettling.

There's a sense of that fear of how people actually act behind your back, yet the weird desire to see it too, to be sure; Jekyll gets to see Utterson for the first time without Utterson knowing it's him, and Utterson stalks him and lies to his face. That wouldn't be dealt well with by anyone. It's especially wouldn't be dealt well with by a man who is notably just the worst at dealing with multiplicity. It's Utterson's deceit that is the final straw, because it's not only a personal betrayal but a threat to who Jekyll envsions Utterson to be, and thus what he represents.

In that state, the reminder of Utterson's Goodness, the attempt to continue upholding him as Oh So Good and slide anything counter to that off to the side - it's very comforting.

No one:

Describing Mr. Hyde: