Talk:Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article, category, or template is part of WikiProject Horror, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to horror film and fiction on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.

	Literature Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to narrative novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit one of the articles mentioned below, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class.
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Short story task force. (with unknown importance)
	This article is supported by the 19th century task force. (rated as Top importance)
Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

Contents 1 Wikisource version 2 Misc 3 Utterson's first name? 4 Vagueness 5 Jack The Ripper 6 similarity to the matrix 7 Psychology 8 Pronounciation 9 Title 10 Requested move 10.1 Survey 10.2 Discussion 11 Separate Page 12 Uncited Material 13 Homosexual 14 Removed Subsection 15 Influences 16 introductory paragraph.

[edit] Wikisource version

There is now a Wikisource version The Annotated Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde that contains text annotations (footnotes and wikilinks). Just like Wikipedia, it is open to anyone who would like to add additional annotations. If your at all interested in the work please check it out. It is also the first annotated project completed at Wikisource.-- Stbalbach 18:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misc

The relationship of Ergot to Stevenson I don't doubt, but LSD wasn't invented yet, nor is it synonymous with Ergot. (Ergot is still used in some cases to treat migraines.) Anyone with pharmacological insights? User:Marta.Paczynska

See ergot and LSD. But yes, the claim as written in the article was false. I've rephrased it. Andrewa 06:43, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please could someone write the author's suggested pronunciation in IPA or some other pronunciation scheme. As it stands, it is unhelpful - is the "g" hard or soft? Which syllable carries the stress? — Paul G 17:14, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I believe it's (UR-gaht). Applejuicefool 13:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Or (UR-guht) (more correctly, (UR-gət).Applejuicefool 14:09, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Removed text:

He decided to commit suicide as Utterson and the butler entered the lab.

I don't think that is actually in the original plot. Utterson and the butler (Poole) have no way of knowing Hyde's last thoughts; The last communication they have from Jekyll is of course the letter written under the influence of what he knew to be his last effective dose of the antidote, written some time before. Andrewa 02:16, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Although Hyde was represented as a much younger man than Jekyll In the discussion concerning stage and film adapations, the play adapted in the 1990's that was stated as being a faithful adaptation? Whilst correct, it's superfluous to say ALTHOUGH Hyde was a much younger man, as Hyde actually was quite a bit younger than Jekyll in the novella, who was a respected 'older' gentleman, ie late forties, early fifties.

Stevenson was being treated with the fungus ergot at a local hospital.

Local to where? London? Edinburgh? --Chips Critic 18:59, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Utterson's first name?

Why is Utterson's first name given as Charles here? In the book, his full name is Gabriel John Utterson. - Kooshmeister

[edit] Vagueness

"It is currently believed that Stevenson wrote this novel in six days while on a cocaine binge. It has also been suggested that this book was written under the influence of a psychedelic drug."

Could these claims be firmed up with sources? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I modified the trivia section, posting information about the cocaine binge, complete with citation. However, I did not modify the main article. Stevensons behavior during the writing of the book was obviously that of someone on cocaine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.197.247.156 (talk • contribs) . 21:00 27 February 2006

This is not the first time I've heard this, it's also mentioned in the book review here, but without knowing where this information comes from, it very well could be speculation, and not based on factual evidence. The life of RLS has entered mythic proportions with 100s of biographies and just about every angle has been explored; if this is standard history, or gossipy sensationalism, I'm not sure. The standard history, according to the accounts of his wife and son (and himself) who were there, say he was bed ridden and sick while writing it. -- Stbalbach 05:21, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

There is another rumor in the trivia section that he was using ergot and/or LSD while writing the book. I suppose he could have been supposed to have been drinking wine since we know he died a few years later while opening a bottle. So ergot, LSD, cocaine and wine -- anything else, morphine and opium and ether ? -- Stbalbach 05:29, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Cocaine? Ergot? Opium? This is all awfully fanciful stuff—more fanciful than the book, really. The book reads more or less like an episode of Law & Order. Hyde tramples a little girl, has undescribed adventures carousing, beats an MP to death in the street with his cane, creeps around a bit, and writes dirty words in the margins of book on religion. There is only one extended transformation scene, presented as a description in a letter after Hyde is dead. It's all very well written and creepy, but it's hardly the ravings of a coked-up lunatic. --Tysto 16:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jack The Ripper

The Jack the Ripper murders took place within two years of the publication of the book, and some thought Jack had been inspired by it. Does anyone else know if it is true, and if so, could they add it to the article? Ryubread 16:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] similarity to the matrix

I would like to add In The Matrix, Neo is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill, to see "how far the rabbit hole goes". This scene bears strong resemblence to the final meeting between Dr. Lanyon and Mr. Hyde, where Mr. Hyde offers Dr. Lanyon a way out.

Stbalbach pointed out ("the rabbit hole" is an obvious reference to Alices Adventures in Wonderland)

I will try to clarity: the similarity is the choice between gaining powerful/dangerous knowledge and backing out to preserve an "ordinary world" viewpoint. My point was not the "rabit hole" allusion.

In The Matrix, Neo was offered a red pill- the choice to extend his knowledge beyond normal bounds, and a blue pill- a way to back out. This scene bears strong resemblence to the final meeting between Dr. Lanyon and Mr. Hyde, where Mr. Hyde offers to show Dr. Lanyon the results of his secret experiment, as well as the option to leave without any gain in knowledge.

does this sound better? Turidoth 01:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I dont disagree that the analogy could work, but honestly it sounds like original research. Is there any factual evidence that the authors of the Matrix were intentionally influenced by Jekyll and Hyde in that scene? If there is, it belongs in this article, to show how J&H has influenced other works. If not, it's literary criticism about the Matrix, and that belongs in the Matrix article. -- Stbalbach 03:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Psychology

Is Dr. Jekyll's loss of control over Mr. Hyde a result of his own denial of being Mr. Hyde (and the shock caused by his own actions as Mr. Hyde) and the tranformation itsself more of psychological than physical nature? Maybe Mr. Hydes actions in the first place are more a result of the repression of drives retained in Dr. Jekyll's psyche and a silent impulse drives him to do things which he could not possibly do with his appearance as Dr. Jekyll without fearing the consequences? Or am i way off?

---

Yes. It could be that he is reacting to the rigidity of Victorian society. At the time, there were lots of new cultures being discovered, what with the British Empire at its peak, and people may have secretly wanted to go wild a bit. However, that was stricly against the unwritten rules of the middle class. 62.253.142.61 17:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronounciation

Do we have a source for Note #2, on the JEEK-ull versus JEK-ull pronounciation? It seems like a rather bold claim to make without any source.OkamiItto 06:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Removed the "Stevenson insisted" part, sounds pretentious. If that's true than there is more to the story that needs to be discussed (why did he insist, and insist of who?). -- Stbalbach 12:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Restored the definite article to the title (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) in the text: the fact that it was first published without "The" is adequately footnoted; however, the form with "The" is the one now most used, sentences read oddly without it, and it corresponds to the page title. -- Picapica 10:17, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure. The correct title is without the "the" - most scholars believe he did that for a reason, so that it does read "oddly" - this is in the spirit of the of the work, which is stylistically like that (Richard Drury recently wrote an annotated version that points out all the odd grammar and words and meanings). The title has the definitive because we are supposed to use a title that most people are familiar with, but I don't see why we can't stick with what he intended in the text. -- Stbalbach 12:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

And I'm not sure why -- due note having been taken (as it has) of the difference between the original title and the one now most commonly used -- we cannot respect the Wp naming convention in the body of the text too. (To be scrupulously accurate, the work was not first published, in any case, as "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", but as "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Stevenson did not publish it either: that was done by Longmans, Green in London and Scribners in New York.)

I would prefer the article to begin:
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (originally entitled Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) <reference> ...

Have restored the "and" to the first sentence: R. L. Stevenson was not first published in 1886; his novella was. -- Picapica 09:43, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I guess it comes down to respecting and honoring the wishes and intention of the author, or that of an arbitrary and generic Wikipedia guideline which is not set in stone and open to interpretation on a per case basis. Also there are some in-print editions currently that don't use "The" -- generally the more professional and serious editions drop the definitive. I don't see why we can't aim for that level also. -- Stbalbach 13:43, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure that accurate titles are more important than Wikipedia convention? Band names do this (See the page on the Ramones; not The Ramones), and literature certainly should. The title is Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Wikipedia convention should not compel anyone to place the article under an incorrect name. --Switch 13:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Separate Page

I think that a separate page should be made on the character Dr.Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Son of Kong —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.69.137.15 (talk) 05:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Uncited Material

There is a ginormous amount of uncited material in the is article, and that needs to change rather quickly. Rather than place uncited tags all over the place, I am going to allow folk to begin citing material. If I see no decisive effort to accomplish with in a week, I will begin purgin the article of uncited statements myself. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 09:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)`

As promised, I am removing uncited info. Some of it will be placed here, pending citation, and some that is simply not notable enough will be purged altogether as cruft. Please do not re-add the examples without proper, reliable and verifiable citations.

(In popular culture)

• Direct examples
• Jekyll and Hyde are sometimes included in groups with famous movie monsters, such as The Ghost Busters and the film Mad Monster Party?.
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is often parodied in the Looney Tunes cartoons, such as "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide", "Hyde and Hare", and "Hyde And Go Tweet" (all 1950s cartoons directed by Friz Freleng).
  • A Marvel Comics supervillain was named after and based on Mr Hyde (see Mister Hyde (comics)).
  • The character(s) of Jekyll and Hyde appear in Alan Moore's comic book, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the film based on it. Bearing a stronger resemblance to Marvel comics' The Hulk than Stevenson's version, Hyde - stronger than ever, and with the Jekyll Persona buried in case it gets him killed - dies aiding the saving of earth from the Martians of The War of the Worlds. Curiously, neither are ever referred to by the names from the original book's title; Hyde is always called 'Hyde' or 'Edward' by other characters, but never 'Mr. Hyde'.
  • The character(s) of Jekyll and Hyde play a minor role in the film Van Helsing, as well as a substantially larger role in the animated prequel Van Helsing: The London Assignment.
  • The Who make a reference to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the song Doctor Jimmy, from their famous rock-opera Quadrophenia, singing about "Doctor Jimmy and Mister Jim".
  • The Who also have a song titled "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" that was composed by bass player John Entwistle and is considered a rarity, although it can be found on Magic Bus: The Who On Tour.
  • The song "Jekyll & Hyde" from the TV show Arthur, where Alan "The Brain" Powers envisions himself as Dr Jekyll (and, thus, Mr Hyde as well).
  • A R. L. Stine book Jekyll and Heidi depicts a young girl (named Heidi) moving to live with her reclusive uncle, only to discover he is the direct descendant of the original Dr Jekyll, and is carrying on his work.
  • In RuneScape, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are a random event. Dr Jekyll asks for a certain herb, and if the player does not talk to him for a certain amount of time, Jekyll will transform into Mr Hyde and attack the player.
  • The animated movie Mad Monster Party? features Jekyll and Hyde as guest(s) at Dr Frankenstein's monster ball.
  • In the movie The Pagemaster, Jekyll is shown transforming into Hyde.
  • The heavy metal band Iced Earth wrote a song called "Jeckyl & Hyde" on the 2001 album Horror Show.
  • Jacqueline Hyde is a softcore film from 2005 in which the eponymous character inherits the family home. There she discovers a potion her uncle had been working on which allows her to transform her body in a variety of ways.
  • There is a DuckTales episode entitled Dr. Jekyll & Mr. McDuck, in which Scrooge McDuck gets sprayed with Dr. Jekyll's "Moneybags Formula", causing him to lose his mind and throw his money around.
  • In the Alvin and the Chipmunks episode "Dr Simon and Mr Heartthrob", Simon invents a hair growth formula but it mixed with a different liquid that turns him into a suave ladies man.
  • An episode of Veggie Tales (A Snoodle's Tale) morphs the story into "Dr. Jiggle and Mr. Sly" to instruct children about self-worth. Dr. Jiggle is a gourd who only aspiration is to dance, but is afraid to do so because he is so "jiggly," and thinks everyone will laugh at him. Hence, he creates another persona, a disco-dancing "fiend" named Mr. Sly. Mr. Sly is eventually "outed," and Dr. Jiggle learns that people like both him and his dancing, jiggle and all.
  • The 1997 Backstreet Boy's music video for "Everybody (Backstreet's Back) features singer Kevin Richardson as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He appears with the two personas both reflected on his face.
  • Darren Hayes (former singer of the pop duo Savage Garden)mentions "my Jekyll and Hyde" in his song "Hero."
  • Jekyll & Hyde and Dr. Henry Jekyll are playable collectable figures in the Horrorclix game produced by Wizkids Games.
  • Ozzy Osbourne wrote a song called "My Jekyll Doesn't Hide" on his album Ozzmosis
  • The BBC programme Jekyll focuses on Tom Jackman, a modern-day man suffering from the same condition. The book is frequently mentioned within the show; the show has also been described by producers as a follow-up or sequel to the original story.
  • The backstory for 1986 Dungeons & Dragons adventure Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill has the Alchemist Strahd Von Zarovich create a machine to separate his evil half from his good half. It backfires when the evil comes to unlife in the form of the Vampire who starred in the original Ravenloft adventure.Graham1973 (talk) 14:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

- Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 00:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Homosexual

Jess Nevins's notes to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen attribute the theory that Mr Hyde is Jekyll's gay side to Elaine Showalter: "a fable of fin-de-siècle homosexual panic, the discovery and resistance of the homosexual self." --Error 20:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Nifty. Not being familiar with Jess Nevins' prior works, the link appears to be to a blog, which doesn't meet the RS standard for the Project. Can you find a stronger source that comments similarly? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 21:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Subsection

Pulled this out of the article, as it is completely uncited, and cannot remain in the article without it. The examples below need citation.

[edit] Influences

• Around the time of writing the book, Stevenson was being treated with the fungus ergot at a local hospital. While ergot has been known to induce psychoactive experiences, it is not widely accepted that ergot was an influence on Stevenson or the book, but some such as Robert Winston^[1] believe it was the case. Winston points to a letter, dated “end of August, early September 1885”, which Stevenson’s wife wrote to William Henley, her husband’s friend and literary agent saying: “Louis’s mad behaviour . . . I think it must be the ergotine that affects his brain at such time.”
• Stevenson's book may have influenced detectives investigating the Jack the Ripper murders three years later. Theories of the killer being a "mad doctor" may have sprung from the storyline.
• Stevenson's death in 1894, eight years after finishing the story, happened while he was straining to open a bottle of wine in his kitchen. He suddenly exclaimed that his face had changed appearance. Collapsing on the ground, he was dead within six hours of a burst blood vessel in the brain. It remains a curious thematical link between the last episode in Stevenson's life and the transformations he wrote about in his book.
• According to Paul M. Gahlinger, M.D., Ph.D., "Robert Louis Stevenson used cocaine for inspiration, and is said to have written The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a single six-day and night binge" (Gahlinger, 2001). Whether this is based on factual evidence, or is merely speculation, is unclear.
• At Makar's Court in Edinburgh there is a museum dedicated to Stevenson, Robert Burns, and Walter Scott. Among the exhibits is a large chest of drawers, one of the few surviving pieces known to have been made by the notorious Deacon Brodie, a famous citizen of Edinburgh who led a double life as a cabinetmaker by day and a house-breaker by night. This chest was in Stevenson's room when he was young, and bears a strong resemblance to the press in Doctor Jekyll's cabinet.
• According to Wendy Moore, author of The Knife Man, Dr Jekyll's house was modelled on that of the famous eighteenth-century anatomist and surgeon John Hunter. Hunter, always in need of cadavers for his research, was deeply involved in the Resurrectionist business, employing body-snatchers to dig up graves (often entire graveyards) in search of corpses. His house was designed to receive high society at the front and stolen bodies at the back, reflected in the dualist nature of Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde and his surroundings.
• According to BBC documentary "Ian Rankin Investigates: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", Stevenson was influenced by his nanny telling him tales of a local man, Major Thomas Weir, who was executed along side his sister as a warlock. Weir was an apparently upstanding preacher, who confessed to practicing sexual acts such as incest and bestiality.

• Motif examples
  • This is a motif which is often applied, for example in the following BBC news report Shadowing the Conservative leader in which the analogy with Jekyll and Hyde is clearly meant "Over the course of our filming we sometimes felt that Michael Howard seemed unsure of the image he wants to project of himself and his party. At times it was the new, touchy-feely Tories, at others – as with immigration and asylum – it was hard-line stuff. A kind of Dr Jekyll and Mr Howard."
  • A Marvel Comics supervillain called the Lizard. He is Dr. Curt Connors who transforms into the lizard after an experiment goes wrong. (see Lizard (comics)).
  • The Hulk, the powerful and brutishly emotional alter ego of an emotionally repressed scientist who comes forth whenever he experiences extreme emotional stress like anger or fear, is an example of the Jekyll and Hyde motif. While the Hulk often proves vital to saving the day, seeking usually to protect, his terrifying nature drives Bruce Banner into isolation, much like Jekyll, fearing discovery.
  • The book was the inspiration behind Two-Face, a supervillain Bob Kane created in 1941 to battle Batman. An upstanding citizen and DA, Harvey Dent was horribly scarred and traumatized. This caused his formerly repressed Hyde to emerge. The two personalities come into direct conflict often and make decisions they are split on using the outside moderator of a flipped coin. Submerged in the underworld, it appears that the darker side of Dent finally replaced the better side.
  • In the Disney cartoon short, Motor Mania, Goofy takes on a Jekyll and Hyde-type split personality when he gets behind the wheel and becomes a demon driver and a menace at the wheel.
  • Fight Club, the novel and movie, share numerous elements, with the protagonist and antagonist revealed to be the result of a split personality. Tyler Durden embodies the wild, violent, destructive side of the unnamed narrator, who appears an average office employee with severe insomnia. Unlike Jekyll, the narrator cannot control when he becomes Tyler Durden, but as in the novella he begins to overpower the meeker half and wreck havoc.^{[citation needed]}
  • Jekyll & Hyde Club, a themed restaurant in New York City.
  • Matthew Amerling's The Midknight (novel) features a character (Jesse Sands) who obtains enhanced abilities after bullies force him to drink a top secret government serum. One of the side effects is that his emotions often turn him into a "being of rage" whose violent tendecies surface more easily and help him to become a ruthless vigilante.
  • The Australian band Men at Work scored a pop music hit in 1983 with "Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive", the lyrics of which briefly tell of a scientist who developed a potion allowing him to "slip easily into conversation" and making him "cool in every way".
  • See also DID/MPD in fiction.
  • A mention of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde occurs in the thriller 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' in which, as a part of the League, Dr. Jekyll frequently transforms himself into Mr Hyde in order to gain strength and power.

Again, do not re-add any of these "motif examples" without reliably sourced citations. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 18:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you've gone too far. Most of these are junk, but one entry clearly cites "Ian Rankin Investigates: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" and another includes an external link to a BBC article with an explicit J&H reference. And we don't need an outside citation to tell us that the Jekyll & Hyde Club—which has its own article—is a reference to the subject of this article. Wikipedia is not The Lancet.--Tysto 18:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] introductory paragraph.

the intro paragraph makes the following claims:

The work is known for its vivid portrayal of the psychopathology of a split personality; in mainstream culture the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has come to signify wild or bipolar behavior.

from a psychological, historical, and contemporary perspective, these claims are somewhat problematic. at the time of the novella "split personality" was a muddled psychological concept, though not out of the purview of physicians. although it later came to be called multiple personality disorder and dissociative identity disorder, and codified in the DSM, it was relatively rare and hence poorly defined at the time. it is also possible these latter diagnoses are related but not contiguous with "split personality." another issue that is raised is that the main contributing factor for the development of DID, as we now know, is trauma, not drug use (Jekyll' potions of his own design); one could claim drug use as a contributing factor for Jekyll's transformations. Finally, popular conception can be wrong, where behavior has come to signify "wild or bipolar behavior" (see misconceptions about MPD and schizophrenia, for example). I'm cautious about the psychologized language ("bipolar") in this conext, as it can misdirect a reader into confusion of MPD with bipolar disorder and perpatuate a similar, albeit technical, error as in MPD and schiz.

in short, i think the claims overattempt at psychologizing the behavior and miscontrue the diagnoses that stand for the behavior so described. if necessary to retain the general content, i suggest the following:

The work has come to be known in popular culture as a portrayal of "split personality;" the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has come to mean a person who may show a distinctly different character or profoundly different behavior from one situation to the next, as if almost another person.

the focus for the change is to reflect the popular conception (not psychiatric/psychological) of the claim. i'll leave this open for comment.Platypusjones 03:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

oh, i just noticed that "bipolar" is linked to a wiki page for bipolar disorder. i am certain that this should be removed.Platypusjones 03:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Italic textAbout the Author

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), was born and educated in edinburgh —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.149.54 (talk) 16:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)