The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The book provides examples of:

  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Not a full example as this is actually mused upon in the book, but the idea that the serum doesn't actually transform Jekyll into a different-looking evil man, it simply transforms him into a different-looking man, and it's the intoxication of being able to get away with any crime that leads him to act so evilly.
    • Of course many adaptations, especially recent ones, decide to eschew the idea that it changes his looks at all and represent the changes purely by acting.
  • Complete Monster: Hyde. Jekyll writes that all men are "commingled out of good and evil" except Hyde, who's pure evil.
  • Ho Yay: Too easy to read some Utterson/Jekyll into the former's concern for the latter.
    • Not to mention his fears that Hyde was Jekyll's lover, and was using that to blackmail him.
      • Homosexual undertones were read into the book early on, and a few of Stevenson's gay friends chided him for possibly bringing them to light at all. The recent passing of homosexual legislation up north meant that closeted homosexuality wasn't just a hot-button issue at the time, but that Stevenson could possibly have had it on the mind while writing. A closer look at the edits from the second manuscript seems to support this theory, as Utterson himself starts to read a little bit more into Jekyll and Hyde's perceived relationship. Then again, this was a time when two men could have a completely platonic Romantic Two-Man Friendship and not be chided for it (again, because the idea of two men having sex with each other was just too absurd for Victorian sensibilities).
      • A short story by Kim Newman, "Further Developments in the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", riffs on this; Essentially, Hyde is a separate person. And he's Jekyll's lover.
  • It Was His Sled: In a big way.
  • Mainstream Obscurity: Just ask a member of the general public to give you even a vague summary of the plot! As mentioned above, most people do not know that the dual identity was originally a Twist Ending, and it is not uncommon to see pastiches of it where Hyde is literally an ogre-like monster rather than simply an evil (but not even particularly ugly) man.
    • To be fair, Hyde is described in the book as a misshapen dwarf so ugly he inspires hatred in people without them understanding why.
    • A lot of people will assume the two girlfriends are part of the plot as well; they were introduced in the 1931 film and added to many subsequent versions.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Clearly, when Hyde brutally murders Sir Danvers Carew for absolutely no reason, he has reached this point. Even Jekyll denounces him. However, Jekyll's decision to continue using the serum despite now knowing the inherent danger of doing so causes him to cross it
  • What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Inverted. Stevenson wrote the first draft in one-sitting during a speed binge.

The 1988 video game provides examples of:

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