Stevenson's dream was the source of this tale of conflicting souls within one person.(Balfour).There is "no harm whatever-in what purient fools call "immorality". The harm was Jekyll, because he was a hypocrite- not b ecause he was fond of women; he says so himself; but people are so full of folly and inverted lust, that they can think of nothing but sexuality- the Hypocrite let out the beast hyde - who is no more sexual than another, but who is the essence of cruelty and malice, and selfishness and cowardice." (Stevenson).
"I had long been trying to write a story on this subject, to find a body, a vehicle for that story sense of man's double being which must at times come upon and overwhelm the mind of every thinking creature." "For two days I went around wracking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his persuers." (Stevenson) Stevenson writes about his .
Marc Thompson Page Three.
characters as" hot and hot, full of passion and the picturesque, alive with animating incident; and they have no prejudice against the supernatural.".
This story is "a marvelous exploration into the recesses of human nature." (Noble) The Times of London said that this strange case was absurd and improbable yet as Hamlet would have answered. there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. .
The Times also said that Stevenson went even further than Poe in the sinister and unseen world. We are shown the most shrewd lawyer hopelessly befuddled by the behavior of an old friend. There was no way he could understand the relationship he saw of his friend and the vicious criminal. "With no formal preaching.he works out the essential power of Evil, which, with its malignant patience and unwearying perseverance , gains ground with each casual yielding to temptation, till the once well-meaning man may actually become a fiend, or at least wear the reflection of the fiend's image.
Chapter 1: The novel begins with two men, Mr. Utterson, a quiet, respectable lawyer and his relative Mr. Richard Enfield, taking a walk through a crowded street in London. On their way, they meet a mysterious cellar door which Mr. Enfield to report a strange experience that happened on this very st...
