The truth behind the
personalities: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a comparison between Literature and
Cinema.
Thiago dos Santos
Almeida¹
The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson deals with this situation and, on
one hand, there is a man who accepts the rules of society and in the other hand,
there is a total rebellion
against these very same rules. We can also think
these ideas may seem confusing; however there is a narrow connection between
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde since these personalities belong directly to one
person. Even in their names, there are hidden references about their characteristics, Jekyll which means I kill and Hyde referring to something hidden inside of us.
Although these two characters may
have different features, they share the same person and this point needs to be explained. It is known that
people, along their lives, develop characteristic traces which will be basis
for their formation but this does not mean that they cannot have lack in
personality, in other words, they may act differently face to extreme
situations. Apparently, in the plot, we have a person that changes his
behavior, points of view and beliefs and instead becomes a violent cruel
person.
Jekyll is considered to be a kind
man:
(…) To this rule, Dr. Jekyll was no exception; and as
he now sat on the opposite side of the fire – a large, well-made, smooth-faced
man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of
capacity and kindness – you could see by his looks that he cherished for Mr.
Utterson a sincere and warm affection.(…) page 12.
Nevertheless, it seems that Dr.
Jekyll is not so confident about himself and there is the need of being someone
else, Mr. Hyde, which occurs by drinking a certain potion created by Dr. Jekyll
himself:
(…) I compounded the elements, watched them boil and
smoke together in the glass, (…) with a strong glow of the courage, drank off
the potion.(…) (…) I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was
conscious of a ready recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images
running like a mill race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an
unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul(…) page 44.
This other half is result of the
repressed beliefs and the feeling of guilt that surround Dr. Jekyll. In a
certain way, this other person was nothing but all his hidden wills and wishes
that Dr. Jekyll could not expose - which were disguised in order to avoid
other’s judgment. In the midst of this confusion, Dr. Jekyll -who was
constantly pressed by society-, needed to prove that he was capable of, not
only doing things for his own, breaking those chains that were attaching him to
conventions that did not belong to him, using Mr. Hyde as a scapegoat for his
behaviors.
However, Dr. Jekyll was not
concerned about his other half until he knows that Hyde was not alike him. It
is important to say that these differences were not only psychological, there
was a physical difference giving this other half a particular characteristic:
(…) Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish; he gave an
impression of deformity without any namable malformation, he had a displeasing
smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of
timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat
broken voice (…) (…) The last, I think, for, O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if
ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.
(…) pg 10.
When Mr. Hyde murders Danvers Carew,
Dr. Jekyll starts a fight not to direct his thoughts to this other half, but
the more he tried, the more Hyde was becoming part of him. Mr. Hyde was so in
control that Dr. Jekyll was not able to deal with him: at that point, Mr. Hyde
was in command and consuming Dr. Jekyll’s mind. This situation leads Dr. Jekyll
to take extreme steps and the only way of stopping Mr. Hyde’s uncontrolled
behavior was to finish the only thing that allows Mr. Hyde to appear:
destroying the same body they shared, so Dr. Jekyll decides to kill himself.
As far as it can tell, the changes of humor, even behaviors, are typical
of people and the person must be able to balance them. As in a roller coaster,
personalities can change suddenly, being high or low, and it is necessary
control in order to avoid bad consequences.
In the first scene of the movie,
Jekyll wakes up and finds a bloodstained girl in his bathtub and, at the very
moment, the girl wakes up and Jekyll kills her by suffocating.
Picture
1: Scene 1, when Jekyll finds out about the girl in his bathroom.
He does not know what to do² and then takes the drug (Scene 5) because the other half of him was capable of
deal with this situation³ and gets rid of the girl.
Picture
2: Scene 5, when Jekyll takes the drug.
Here
there is an important contrast between work and film, once after taking the
drug these bad characters are able to
control and mold situations, and this feature is not seen in the good ones.
As the drugs experiments go by,
there is a total dependency of Jekyll in becoming Hyde, the self-esteem is now
involved because, in a certain time of his life, he wanted to be accepted[5].
Again, the rules of society imposing certain orders end up containing what it
is inside of a human being, causing the perfection opposition between these two
personalities. These experiments, little by little, change his character
turning him into a sadist killer.
As the same way in the literature,
the only way of finish the problem is through Jekyll’s suicide. In the movie
there is also the fact that he is love with Martha (Bree Turner) and Hyde wants
to kill her. In order to avoid this, Jekyll recorded his suicide and begging
pardon for everything.[6]
Picture 3: Scene 13, Jekyll’s
suicide.
At last, it is necessary to remind
the importance of Stevenson’s work for Literature and through the psychological
path, there is the connection that, combined with the analysis of the
characters – which, in this essay, was based on the comparison between
Literature and Cinema-, allowed us to go deeper into the human psyche in a way
that affected society and the perception of the people as well.
References
STEVENSON,
Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 1st edition. New York: Dover Thrift
Editions, 1991.
JEKYLL + HYDE.
Nick Stillwell. Canada, Urban Chillers Films Ltd. 2005. DVD (97 minutes).
[1] Undergratuate
at Universidade Federal do Ceará taking the fourth semester of Letras degree.
[2]
“So here I am, afraid to move. Have no idea who she was or how she got there.”
[3]
“But I know what I have to do. When I bring back Hyde, when I take the drug…
everything’s ok.”
[4] “Disposing
of a human body is never easy, unless you can tell where to start.”
[5]
“They dream in school that how you play the game is all that matters but that’s
not true. Who cares who comes is second? Winning is why you play the game and
it’s all that is: beating the other guy. Without that, you’re nothing. I’m not
gonna come in second anymore.”
[6]
“I can hear you outside the tunnel. Please, Martha, don’t judge me too harshly.
All I ever wanted to be was somebody else. When an experiment fails, you
terminate it. If I don’t… If I did not kill myself now, I would kill you
Martha! And God knows I love you more than life itself, I’m so sorry Martha.”
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