Thoughts on the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

I have already seen 1, if not 2, remakes of this classic story. So unfortunately I already had a pretty good idea of what to expect. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy reading the story though. The remakes that I saw were modernized and made to be much more thrilling than the original, which happens with most stories-turned-movies.

I wrote a paper in High School about dissociative identity disorder, and it seems like a particularly scary and uncontrollable issue. Where-as in this story Dr. Jekyll is able to control his transformations to a degree using a potion. I’ve always been curious how the legal justice system treats murder cases involving attackers claiming to suffer from dissociative identity disorder. I’d assume that they would test their sincerity as much as possible, and potentially place them in a mental facility.

I also found it hard to believe that Utterson was able to hold off from curiosity and wait until after Jekyll’s death to read the letter than was given to him by Lanyon. Also, while I understand that Lanyon was likely terrified watching a physical transformation take place in front of his eyes, it seems like dying of shock and terror is an exaggerated response…

I’m looking forward to more deeply investigating the story with our class, and I definitely enjoyed having this book on the reading list.

 

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