Latest Posts by estelleuse - Page 3

Imagine being Dr. Jekyll and gradually coming to the realization that what you thought was your personality, your life, your entire self, is actually a well crafted lie you ended up believing and that you’ve entangled who you are to what other people think for so long you’ve forgotten who were you supposed to be, that you’re not your mask, that no matter what you’re so deep in this charade even your true self is another shell to discard, an absolute mockery of the person you used to be underneath. Imagine dying, not without losing the grip on yourself and your reality first, in a completely distorted body, leaving another’s corpse behind, your casket as empty as your whole existence.

this is just my own interpretation of this scene, idk if i got it right a a a

All the way through The Last Night, we have these last vestiges of social and domestic order, of rationality, of normality, being clung to in the face of an impending total chaos, which eventually takes them over. We have the deeply eerie moment where Hyde's body is found; this domestic scene apart from the horror of the dead body. We have the sudden visibility of Jekyll's servants in general who, socially, ought not to be visible, and especially visible while doing nothing - and we have Utterson's indignation over this, as he's trying to comprehend and maintain a sense of control.

But I think the most striking revelation here is Poole.

Poole has been undoubtedly present throughout the book, but flies under the radar while the novella focuses our attention on the interactions of the upper-middle class friends. In terms of maintenance of social order and normality, that's absolutely how it ought to remain. Poole answers to Jekyll; when he actively seeks out Utterson without Jekyll's knowledge, he's acting outside of the social rules he ought to adhere to. He's implying that the situation is beyond the remedy of social order. (Note how Utterson immediately brings out the wine, which has an association in the novella with social order, status and power. Yet, Poole will not drink it.)

This then results in this fascinating "tug-of-war" of sorts as Utterson and Poole try to grapple with a situation that moves beyond order and rationality into chaos. Poole becomes an active player where his class ought not to allow it, yet, this only works so far as Utterson allows himself to be lead by Poole. And so Poole is very careful about walking the line! Although he takes the plunge in going to Utterson, he's very slow to tell what he's witnessed, and what he thinks. Instead he first expresses the extent of his fear, and how serious he believes the situation to be, to justify acting out of line. This is even as Utterson, wanting to help, wanting to establish a sense of control, asks Poole to be plain and open with him. Then, at Jekyll's home, knowing Utterson adheres to reason, (and that it's not his place to tell him what to think), Poole provides Utterson with firsthand evidence, so the conclusions are Utterson's. Poole reveals piece by piece, the more straightforward proof first, to gain Utterson's trust in his rationality.

He tries to lead Utterson to voicing his own fears, and enacting what he wants to enact. And it's truly awful, because Poole is trying desperately to lead Utterson, step-by-step, to the conclusion that his best friend has been murdered, and it's the last thing in the world Utterson wants to conclude. Understandably, he tries to reason anything else. But, after having been kept in the dark so long, and continually skirting the truth, things finally seem to be adding up in a way that is impossible to deny. And it's not the rational that convinces Utterson, but the emotional, the sense of abnormality and wrongness. Poole's more solid "evidence" Utterson can wave away as illness, but the protest that Poole knows Jekyll and thus that the figure couldn't be him, is what he can't find a way out of. There's a degree of chaos where Poole's seperation from Jekyll through class falls away, and all that really matters is that, yes, he knows him. And this is where Utterson gives.

And. Both Poole and Utterson, and their differing class positions, are needed to finally break down the barrier that is the door. As a servant, Poole can't make the choice to go against his master, especially in such a violent, dramatic way, without creating a whole new suite of problems. He needs Utterson to confirm he's justified, to order the thing done, and to protect him. As Jekyll's friend, Utterson has been shut out and made incapable of seeing the situation as Poole does. All the more, he still can't bring himself to use to own hand in force against the barriers Jekyll's placed around himself. That climatic, chaotic action can only result from Poole and Utterson acting in combination, and acting in ways that muddy typical class interactions.

I've been feeling particularly feral today so I'm going to go on a rant about the symbolism of the cane in Jekyll and Hyde.

Walking sticks like this during this time period would only have been owned by rich, respectable gentlemen. For this reason, it is symbolic of this idealistic, perfect man that Jekyll wants to be.

Hyde likely has it with him to keep some form of connection to the other part of him. Jekyll is struggling with his identity at this point and is torn between the two. He would choose his original persona if he had to decide (as he is relieved to do when he can no longer go out as Hyde) and wants to make sure he doesn't lose hold of it. The stick is probably his way of ensuring he is tied to it and it remains a part of him.

However, this cane becomes the murder weapon used to kill Carew. The symbol for the upstanding gentleman kills him, an interesting link to how it is Jekyll (if only a part of him) that carries out his murder. This act breaks the cane, just as it breaks that image of who Jekyll wants to be. As much as he tries to be perfect, he isn't. He cannot be good while also being capable of murdering someone for no good reason. This also represents him being taken over by the evil of Hyde and foreshadows the eventual loss of the better part of himself.

I also find it very interesting that the cane is split into two, just as Jekyll himself is. This cane is both a symbol of respectability and a murder weapon. It is broken into two parts. Jekyll is both a respectable gentleman and a murderer. He has two personas. The cane represents the duality within himself and reflects his two natures.

This is probably useless and boring to anyone other than me. I just really enjoy some good symbolism and analysis and very rarely get a chance to go into detail with these things.

He, I say—I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred. 

This seems like so transparent a way for Jekyll to distance himself from his own crimes that it’s hardly worth remarking on… but it’s really interesting to note when he does it. Because it’s a cab ride. Not even the first cab ride as Hyde, when he reflects how lucky it was that Hyde’s death glare made the cabbie stop laughing because otherwise there might have been another murder done. Hell, even when he was describing the actual murder that was done! Hyde was still “I” for that!

No, the transition from first to third person comes when Hyde writes the letters, ordering Poole and begging Lanyon to get him the potion. That’s what Jekyll can’t help trying to distance himself from, flimsy and pitiful though the attempt is: not killing strangers, but what he did to Lanyon.

I've seen a few people questioning if Jekyll knew about Lanyon's death at all seeing as it's never mentioned. I feel that as a long-time friend, there's no way he'd never find out what with people probably sending their condolences his way. I'd say a reason why he wouldn't mention it is that it's unspeakable.

He's rather blasé about his other known crimes. Trampling a child? Dammit, the family saw, but this is easily solved with money. Murdering a man? This is awful, but he didn't know him, he could just as well be any other man. And besides, this provides the perfect excuse to abandon the experiment forever.

Causing the death of one of his best friends? Unspeakable.

This is when he starts disassociating from Hyde altogether, trying to convince himself that he isn't Hyde, that no part of him is Hyde. He didn't just fatally shock his friend for a gloat! That was Hyde.

He won't even mention the consequences of Lanyon's horror, he cannot bear to think of it. He refuses to think of it because it wasn't him- it wasn't even real, it was a dream where Hyde acted of his own accord to turn one of Jekyll's dearest friends against him. The disdain with which Hyde treated Lanyon wasn't his own, he swears.

He doesn't attend the funeral- he's too worried that he'll turn into Hyde in public and doom himself. But the real reason is that he's afraid of facing the truth. If he doesn't attend the funeral, if he rejects visits from people trying to give their condolences, if he refuses to even write the words on paper, he never has to live in the reality where he killed his friend. Instead, he can pretend that Lanyon is just angry at him again, but it soon shall pass. It always does.

Utterson visits. He comes too often to be bearable, he's too genuine in his grief. He's breaking the illusion, send him away, Poole! He stands outside Jekyll's door, begging him to come out.

"He's gone, Henry. It's only the two of us now."

And Jekyll does not answer. Utterson stops visiting.

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!

And as she so sat she became aware of an aged beautiful gentleman with white hair, drawing near along the lane; and advancing to meet him, another and very small gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was just under the maid’s eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the moon shone on his face as he spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognise in him a certain Mr. Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling; but he answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman.

This bit is sticking with me in a way it didn't last year.

We'll see Jekyll's explanation for what he says is the cause of Hyde committing this murder. Maybe he believes it, maybe he's guessing, maybe he'll somehow believe there's a last fig leaf that needs hiding behind, even in the wretched condition he'll be in by the time of his confession. But looking at the details of poor old Carew laid out like this, I think I can spy a shortcut to a pretty good reason without just his word on it:

Edward Hyde saw in Sir Danvers Carew everything that Dr. Henry Jekyll could only pretend to be.

At least he leaps to that assumption. This is a story in which the impression of someone's character is always somehow visible at a glance--dreary but beloved Utterson, jovial Lanyon, respected but sly Jekyll, loathsome Hyde, odious housekeeper, et cetera--and we're to take the maid's opinion at face value. Carew was a stately old pinnacle of natural politeness and kindness. Aged, distinguished, self-content.

The point of Hyde's existence is to let Jekyll hide. To wear his own worst impulses as an outer disguise, free of inhibition or blame. Repression as physical manifestation, because he's so certain of his need to distill himself into two selves, the better to keep Jekyll 'pristine'--at least as presented to the world. Now here's Carew. Carew, who seems to radiate an intrinsic goodness. Carew, a happy old man. Carew, who is serene, who is at peace with himself.

No need of a 'Hyde' for him.

No shame.

Nothing to bury or let run wild.

Carew, for as much as we and Hyde get to know him, is only himself. Good. Kind. Needing nothing but directions, if you could point him along, sir.

Another strike. Sir Danvers Carew bowing and smiling to a loathsome little nobody like Hyde. This, when surely he has to have been disgusted like anybody else with sense..! Hypocrite! Liar! Fraud!

I think it's that very sterling regard that broke the dam in Hyde and let out the flood of verbal bile and violence. Insults and bludgeoning and a great childish fit--the kind of senseless viciousness of someone desperately flinging mud at the proof that they are Wrong, they are Lesser, they will Never Be Up to the Level of the Person Before Them.

Worse, Carew looks hurt even before the first blow lands. Not angry, not shocked. Just hurt. A final proof-positive (in Hyde's eyes) that he is as untainted and innocent as he looks.

So down comes the cane.

Striking the old man the way someone else might smash a mirror in frustration.

Still thinking about the night Utterson broke down the door/read the letters. To me it was all within the same 24 hours.

I’ve seen the idea here and there that Utterson read the letters there in Jekyll’s cabinet and then could look at Hyde’s body with realization and grief. However, I think it much more likely that he didn’t read Jekyll’s statement until at least a couple hours later, when he was at home alone. This would’ve been after searching for Jekyll or signs of where his body could be, notifying the police, telling them his statement (which includes however long they kept him hanging around before and after that), and going home and possibly processing this weird and distressing night for a bit.

While I definitely feel the appeal of wanting Utterson to have his closure to Jekyll by observing Hyde’s body with the knowledge, it’s so much more sad to think that he’s not going to get that chance. If there was a funeral for Jekyll (there probably was), it was with his body absent, because it was never found (unless there wasn’t a service because he would’ve been presumed missing).

By the time he’d read both letters, Hyde’s (Jekyll’s) body would’ve been in custody, waiting for autopsy, if not already begun. So then … what’s Utterson supposed to do? Tell people that’s actually Jekyll’s body? His friend since his youth whom he held dear to his heart and who deserves a proper burial and service? … No. He can’t do that. He’d be taken for having gone mad. Unless he showed the letters as proof.

But then, if they are believed, Jekyll’s reputation would be completely ruined. You know what people are like when someone they like/respect turns out to be a horrible person. And in a society when everyone puts on the facade in public … it would also haunt Utterson more out loud rather than just in his thoughts, and that’s horrible enough without making his everyday life worse.

No. There’s no saving Jekyll’s body. He died as Hyde and he can’t be recovered. His body will be subjected to whatever treatment the bodies of criminals were subjected to. And Utterson will likely keep quiet.

If there was a funeral service for Jekyll and Utterson went, he’d be surrounded by people who would know so little of the truth about the man they would be singing the praises of. And Utterson would have to be quiet and bear through it.

The main person he would’ve talked to about all this is already dead. From learning the truth firsthand. Anyone else he talks to would compromise Jekyll’s memory. What would finding out the truth do to Poole? Could Enfield keep his mouth shut? … Dare Utterson risk finding out?

I think he’d just keep it secret, keep it safe. If he did carry on through life, he’d be doing it with a new layer to the facade he already wore daily. He’d have to carry on, hear the platitudes—“Terribly sorry for your loss.” “Fine man, that Dr. Jekyll.” “London is all the poorer now.” “Good man, good man.” “How’ve you been holding up?”—and try to roll with it. Holding all that knowledge and emotion behind the facade. Confiding in no one.

Like his friend.

maybe it’s just me but Jekyll and Hyde loses something when it doesn’t have Jekyll’s first person narration (or other equivalent narration tool) (and it has to be book accurate) because you really can’t understand what Jekyll is going through unless we really get in his head. Even if he lies. if anything the lies are even more revealing. watching it from the outside you can see what his situation looks like, but not what it is. only when you understand him, his motives, his thoughts, the horror and the tragedy reveal themselves- the layers of metaphor are peeled back and we can really see Jekyll’s fear, confusion, hurts, losses- his shame, his guilt, the sort of person he is, the sort of person he wants to be, and how all that sent him down a spiral of self-destruction so bizarre it can only be truly understood from within, and even then, we’re at the mercy of his narration, of his denial, of his torment. only he can explain what is what makes this story scary, and he will control what we know of it.

“The real stab of the story is not in the discovery that the one man is two men; but in the discovery that the two men are one man. After all the diverse wandering and warring of those two incompatible beings, there was still one man born and only one man buried. Jekyll and Hyde have become a proverb and a joke; only it is a proverb read backwards and a joke that nobody really sees. But it might have occurred to the languid critics, as a part of the joke, that the tale is a tragedy; and that this is only another way of saying that the experiment was a failure. The point of the story is not that a man can cut himself off from his conscience, but that he cannot. The surgical operation is fatal in the story. It is an amputation of which both the parts die. Jekyll, even in dying, declares the conclusion of the matter; that the load of man's moral struggle is bound upon him and cannot be thus escaped. The reason is that there can never be equality between the evil and the good. Jekyll and Hyde are not twin brothers. They are rather, as one of them truly remarks, like father and son. After all, Jekyll created Hyde; Hyde would never have created Jekyll; he only destroyed Jekyll.”

— robert louis stevenson, g. k. chesterton

Progress of the earlier post. I have like ten pieces to draw for classes but absolutely don’t know where to start ok pal…if I want to get any sleep tonight I probably leave this for a while. And I don’t like jekyll’s face

au where every time Dr. Henry Jekyll introduces himself he attaches all his degrees and doctorates to his name and by au i mean this is absolutely canon and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Have you ever realized that Utterson treats Jekyll like a damsel in distress?

Like it's always like "I have to save Jekyll from the arms of this evil man". And like he's only interested in Hyde because he thinks that Jekyll is in danger. And just for record he even has a conversation with Jekyll from a window. Kind of, in Utterson's view Jekyll is a victorian 50-year-old damsel in distress

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

1995 Pre Broadway Tour: Philip Hoffman as Utterson, Robert Cuccioli as Edward Hyde

(click image for better quality)

Oh God help me

God have mercy

“Hyde is the innocence of evil. He stands for the truth (attested by a hundred tales of hypocrites and secret sins) that there is in evil, though not in good, this power of self-isolation, this hardening of the whole exterior, so that a man becomes blind to moral beauties or deaf to pathetic appeals. A man in pursuit of some immoral mania does attain an abominable simplicity of soul; he does act from one motive alone. Therefore he does become like Hyde, or like that blood-curdling figure in Grimm’s fairy-tales, ‘a little man made of iron’. But the whole of Stevenson’s point would have been lost if Jekyll had exhibited the same horrible homogeneity.

Precisely because Jekyll, with all his faults, possesses goodness, he possesses also the consciousness of sin, humility. He knows all about Hyde, as angels know about devils. And Stevenson specially points out that this contrast between the blind swiftness of evil and the almost bewildered omniscience of good is not a peculiarity of this strange case, but is true of the permanent problem of your conscience and mine. If I get drunk I shall forget dignity; but if I keep sober I may still desire drink. Virtue has the heavy burden of knowledge; sin has often something of the levity of sinlessness.”

— G.K. Chesterton: “Tricks of Memory”

Thinking about the birth imagery and pregnancy horror themes in Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde. How they’re going on opposite directions.

Frankenstein desiring to “birth” through unnatural ways out of spite, out of a need to prove a point. Jekyll being forced to continuously “birth” and simultaneously ”be birthed” as the aftermath of a choice which was to indeed birth the separation of good and evil.

Frankenstein creating an unnatural person, designed and expected to be perfect, through an unnatural conception with no pregnancy. Jekyll becoming an unnatural person that was never conceived, unwittingly made perfectly monstrous, through a process that is described as painful, something being ejected from his subconscious like a womb.

Frankenstein makes the perfect male body which is described as “wrong-looking”, Jekyll gives himself a “wrong”-looking male body which comes with a “wrong” mind to pair.

Creation = pregnancy and birth. Mad scientists are often characterized as fathers, being mostly men- but they’re still being the mother or taking such a role since the creation on itself is their doing- as life, or a distortion of it, or a perversión of its laws, an impossible thing is what they make.

And what more perverted an impossible -in the eyes of cishet society- than a male pregnancy?

One man wants pregnancy, dreams of it- wishes to attain it even though he knows it is impossible and suffers the consequence when a “pregnancy” with no woman ends badly, because he just wishes so; the other fears becoming pregnant, comparing the distress he suffers as he transforms as the “horror of childbirth”, as if he knew, as if he knew what it is like or felt it could be possible after all. Bodies. “Perfect” bodies, “wrong” bodies, pregnancies that end badly, men being metaphorically pregnant. I don’t know what it all could mean, frankly.

I don’t know.

big fan of liars. big fan of characters whose entire existence is a facade. love it when everything's stripped away from them and the lie is the only thing left of their identity. love it when the lines between an act and the truth are blurring. are they even them without the lie? the lie doesn't become the truth per se, but it's now such an intricate part of them it might as well be.

Hiii I am soo normal doctor don’t mind my mental breakdown decor (drawing based on the song Streak of Madness from the musical)

“Stevenson’s story is one which chronicles Jekyll’s self inflicted and protracted destruction of his body and mind in an attempt to rid his life of internal conflict.” Pg 235

(coughing and sputtering) we are so back

Oh Yeah, I forgot I edited these.

I edited these two pictures of Robert Cuccioli from the 1995 First US Tour of Jekyll & Hyde the Musical to be in color back in January.

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

The feeling when you have just found out your theory of multiple personality is true, proven your scientific research by taking a drug that releases the evil side in yourself, felt great pride and joy in your work, laughed at your skeptics, and then your nosy servant interrupts and asks about strange noises.

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

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

not over the fact that Jekyll only cries after having committed bloody murder but straight up dissociates after having traumatized Lanyon…

Honestly i don’t like it when people are like “oh Jekyll is the Good One” because the point is he IS. Complex. He struggles with his addiction with his anger and hatred and with so much shit. He represses stuff and he lies and he is so full of fear. He hurts himself in the most twisted ways he can think of. He believes he’s always being watched. He’s depressed and has an unspecified dissociative disorder that fucks over how he perceives his own humanity and the way he sees himself. He has good intentions, but misguided ones; and there’s arrogance at his core. He is mean, but he is nice, but he is cruel, but he is trying his best and LISTEN Jekyll has got so many layers and he admits that. He says that. So it also kills me when people are like “oh Jekyll is Evil” well. Yes but actually no but actually yes and you Know what? If you try to assign moral alignments to Strange Case characters then you didn’t read the book properly. You’ve missed the point. He deserves a slap in the face and a blanket. He has to get his shit together because if he doesn’t people die. Do you Understand.

The cheval glass scene completes the mirror imagery in Jekyll and Hyde, with the third incident highlighting the cruel irony of Jekyll’s fate. The cheval glass, displaying the hellish glow of the fire while facing heavenward, mocks Jekyll’s statement that the potion is “neither diabolical nor divine.” The mirror appears both diabolical and divine in this moment; the potion, in being merely a chemical mixture and not a magical cure, is too exactly the opposite of the diabolic or divine—it has no power whatsoever over the self. Just as the mirror distorts the laboratory room, failing to accurately reflect Poole’s and Utterson’s images, so has the potion warped Jekyll’s reality, driving him to suicide. What Jekyll has mistaken to be a problem of industrial commodity standardization—an inconsistent batch of chemical salts—actually demonstrates, through his inability to divorce his addictive desires from his otherwise respectable identity, the self’s fundamentally unitary nature. Stevenson positions this basic human truth as the ironic tragedy of Jekyll and Hyde, using addiction to establish that despite discordant desires, on a fundamental level the self is inescapably unitary.

-Jessica Cook, The Unitary Self in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde