In High School I took a class called British Literature. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was one of our required readings. I, personally, was not a big fan of her writing. Perhaps it was the way we discussed the work. Nevertheless, I chose to read Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde instead. The comparisons to "Jekyll" and "Hyde" are very common and I was curious to know the story behind the names. When I saw Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was on the alternative list, I seized the opportunity.
I greatly enjoyed my experience reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll is a scholarly doctor who pursues a part of himself through some drugs he creates. He wants to be able to connect and experience his other personality, which is a complete opposite of his true nature. Dr. Jekyll's experiments became less controllable and ends up causing him to alientate his friends, which leads to his eventual demise.
The beginning of the story is interesting and I had to reread the first chapter because I did not realize the point of view the novel was going to be the lawyer's. Since the reader was getting the same information that the lawyer was, suspense was created and definitely made me wonder what was going on with illusiveness of the Doctor and the craziness of Hyde. As the story developed and events unfolded, the reader learns more about the doctor and his strange events and his caring of Hyde. Hyde is Jekyll; and the more and more he took of his own drug, the more he began to switch to Hyde on his own. He soon needed the drug inorder to stay Jekyll. It seems as if his violent personlity was the stronger; clearly pushing out the kind, polite Dr. Jekyll.
As I reflected on my reading, it occurred to me that Stevenson's novel was written before the clinical term of Schizophrenia. He was able to realize the complexities of having dual personalities without realizing that you do not need a drug to transform. It seems very fitting that Jekyll be a doctor and discover he has a dual personality.
