A Look at the True Monsters of Life: Our Minds

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Logan Davis
Monsters Inc. MWF 1­1:50
November 6th, 2014
A Look at the True Monsters of Life: Our Minds
Culturally, the idea of a person having multiple, distinguishable personalities entrapped within one body is not so far­fetched.. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”(1886), Stevenson uses Jekyll and Hyde as a prime example of this. Within his novella he incorporates other narrators to further push our belief that there truly are are two characters that are really separate personalities within one body, and how others would view them. With the help of some science and the creation of a new drug that in fact helps Dr. Jekyll become the evil Mr. Hyde, Stevenson uses these two characters stuck within one body under the influence of one conscience to show how someone with multiple personalities can outwardly affect others. Jekyll and Hyde’s toxic relationship shows just how much you can have control of your mind under the influence of drugs. There is an evil within them, and with the use of a drug created by Jekyll that he uses to transform himself into the feared Mr. Hyde and it allows for Jekyll to act out his monstrous thoughts without having to deal with the consequences of the law, even though in the beginning of the novella and maybe even at times later in the novel both Jekyll and Hyde seem to be two separate people, two separate entities with their own evil traits, yet they are really two separate sadistic personalities stuck within the same

Davis 2 conscience in Henry Jekyll, one keeps his evil thoughts to himself and other just acts out these evil thoughts under the direction of Jekyll’s conscience. In Peter K. Garrett’s “Instabilities of Meaning, Morality, and Narration” (1988) he uses a great deal of textual support to show the relationship of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and how toxic it really is. Garrett’s interpretation of this novella raises a lot of questions about the novella. Many of these are personal opinions such as, “who is the true monster?”, or “are both guilty or is just one of them guilty?” but after reading Garrett’s piece, his textual support may, in some sense sway an opinion on who the true monster could be. “Tension between the splitting and joining of persons is both represented in the narrative and enacted in the narration of this passage. The “I” who seeks pleasures and wonders at his vicarious depravity is replaced by the formally distanced “Henry Jekyll”; The “I” who judiciously describes Jekyll’s pleasures modulates into an unmarked “omniscient” voice that judicially condemns Hyde’s and, like a typical Victorian authorial narrator, both ironically represents Jekyll’s rationalizations and irresponsibility in indirect discourse and adds a summary moral comment” (190) What this is interpreting is that Garrett recognizes the difference between Jekyll and Hyde, that the narration and how situations are acted upon can separate the two men. In the portion stating

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“The “I” who judiciously describes Jekyll’s pleasures modulates into an unmarked “omniscient” voice that judicially condemns Hyde’s” (190) Garrett recognizes how Jekyll’s pleasures radiate from his conscious, which is the part that becomes Hyde when transformed. Hyde acts out all of Jekyll’s thoughts and feelings that he doesn’t outwardly express as the doctor himself. However it also does this due to the fact that Stevenson uses the voice of at least 5 narrators but forgets to include the accounts of one man, and maybe the biggest character in the novella itself, Mr. Hyde. Opinions could be separate if both Jekyll and Hyde narrated the novella. Like most monsters in their respective stories, the monster never gets their own voice, they are critiqued by other characters and have no accounts of their own. The narration is supposed to further a readers true views of who the “monster” technically is, Though Stevenson uses two characters that both have evil and sadistic traits to them, Jekyll, the true monster in the novella uses his voice within Hyde’s mind to create the image that it is in fact Mr. Hyde that is the monster. He causes other characters besides Dr. Lanyon later in the novella, to believe that Hyde is the evil man and that both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are separate people. The transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde is done with the use of a drug that Jekyll creates. The drug distorts his figure, changes his appearance and stature to make it seem as if Hyde is one totally different person. Drugs alter the appearance of Dr. Jekyll, but it stops after that, when he becomes Mr. Hyde his conscience and thoughts belong to Jekyll, that is why Jekyll is able to transform back, he recollects his ability to change back on page 58 and 59: “Then I remembered that of my

Davis 4 original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand…” Jekyll uses this knowledge and remembrance to do two things, one is show that he is in fact controlling the mind of Mr. Hyde, and two, that he can use certain things to change himself back to his original form. We don’t get a full view of who could be that monster until we get to page 41 of the novella. That is when Lanyon receives the letter from Dr. Jekyll and is aware of a problem. Though the letter is signed by Jekyll it was originally wrote by Mr. Hyde. Garrett points this out in his interpretation on page 192. In his accounts he states that “Whether we consider Hyde capable of extraordinary ventriloquism or rather suppose that much of Jekyll subsists within him, their relation hardly matches Jekyll’s description”(192). This means that Hyde, with no narration throughout the novella and some broken sentences here and there, managed to write a full letter to Dr. Lanyon, or so we thought, but it was really done with the help of Dr. Jekyll. Therefore we are unaware whether or not Hyde contains true dictation or not. Jekyll is the true monster because he is the one that keeps going to back to the form of Hyde so he can commit these evil acts because he is in fact looking to get his release but is so terrified to ruin his well built reputation that he looks to the use of drugs to transform himself into the monster he wants to be in order to fulfil the satisfaction he is yearning for, because as a wealthy doctor, a public figure, he isn’t capable of acting upon these urges that he has. That being said, since Jekyll is transforming into Hyde and using his thoughts to control Hyde’s actions, the real monster is in fact, Dr. Henry Jekyll. Though they could both be the monster because one is committing the act

Davis 5 while the other is thinking about the act, Hyde is merely an invented pawn in Jekyll’s game to commit evil acts. That’s how the creation of Hyde surfaced, because Jekyll could use him as his scapegoat for evil. Hyde’s sole purpose of creation was so Jekyll can commit these violent acts through him and not suffer the consequences of it, thus introducing evil into this world, which also shows that Jekyll is indeed evil. Though at times Jekyll may show remorse and feel bad about his acts he is still vicariously committing these acts through Hyde, he becomes dependent on the drug he’s taking to change him into Hyde, which also shows how the idea of evil and power has stuck to him and has taken over his life, making him yearn for the release to commit and he’s become reckless with this and gives Hyde too much pull in this, which in the end destroys Jekyll’s life. Mr. Hyde starts to gain control of Dr. Jekyll’s life because Jekyll begins to rely too heavily on the drug that he created. This drug becomes a part of his life much like a heroin addict relies on that. The drug becomes such a substantial part of their life just like it became a part of his. He became dependent on it and he went from such a small amount needed to fulfill his rush to needing more every time. The true monster, Dr. Jekyll, strengthens and even better finalizes our true ideals of him being the true condemned soul in this novella in his accounts of the murder. “Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every

Davis 6 blow; and it was not until the weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror. A mist dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost peg. I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance doubly sure) destroyed my papers;..” (56) This shows how Dr. Jekyll was consciously committing this in the form of Mr. Hyde. He talks about the joy and thrill he feels from dismembering and destroying the life of another human being. Jekyll knows that he himself, in the form of the prestigious doctor, cannot go about killing people and committing heartless crimes. Dr. Jekyll goes about living a double life as Mr. Hyde in order to complete his satisfaction he has for crime and evil. Stevenson does a fantastic job at making everyone view Hyde as the true evil, the black soul in the novella. But he also hints at how it isn’t Hyde, but Jekyll that is the one that is truly thinking the actions through. In the above quote a particular sentence stands out that shows who was in a sense committing this evil act. “...I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow; and it was not until the weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror…”(56) Jekyll uses “I”. Not he, or Mr. Hyde, but I. He

Davis 7 doesn’t try to hide the fact that he is the one thinking it and that it’s Mr. Hyde that he is essentially forcing to commit these brutish evil acts. In the end though, Hydes body begins to take over, to take Jekyll’s conscience and keep it trapped within his body and not allow Jekyll’s body to come back without the potion. Eventually Dr. Jekyll loses control of the body but still has to watch firsthand as Mr. Hyde commits the evils that Dr. Jekyll thought and when Dr. Jekyll finally wants to get away from it he is pulled in too far and cannot escape the clutches of his own evil. When one meets someone that suffers of multiple personality disorder they may seem scared or even a little intimidated and weirded out by them. But now it is something that is so common in society. This disorder has caused many problems for some people, sometimes its just their attitude, other times there’s more things that change including their preferences and lifestyle choices. This was different though, this was a man that created a drug that didnt alter his mind, but a drug that changed his appearance completely so he could hide behind the face of another and not have to face the law, Jekyll did this in order to help himself fulfill the thrill, the satisfaction and even more disturbing, the pleasure of committing a crime. This novella has taught us that the though there are some people in this world that do some sadistic and sick things, the most sinister evil lies within the minds of some of the most outwardly innocent people.

Davis 8 Works Cited Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Katherine Linehan.
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Performance Adaptations, Criticism . New York: Norton, 2003. Print.

Cited: Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Katherine Linehan. ​ Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.  Hyde: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Performance Adaptations, Criticism​ .  New York: Norton, 2003. Print.