Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this book in 1886
About a doctor who found himself in a fix
He thought you didn't get character traits
From your mum or your dad
Because every man is commingled
Of half good and half bad
Jekyll was ambitious not a moral man right through
He worked hard
To create a potion to separate the two
His friend Dr Lanyon disapproved of this tool
He preferred his medicine traditional and thought Jekyll was a fool
Utterson is Jekyll's upright sensible lawyer friend
He doesn't find out the truth until Jekyll's letter at the end
He goes for a walk with his friend Enfield in chapter 4,
Where they see a blistered and distained old door
This should have given them a hint that things were amiss
This is symbolism where THAT actually means THIS
So the door is Hyde and the stain is his sin
(It also provides him with a handy way out and in)
Other motifs include the cruel London fog
That covers his misdeeds under the smog
Just in case things don't get any better
Jekyll has written everything down in a letter
That says Jekyll was successful in becoming wholly grim
But the problem was that this badness started to dominate him
To the point where his immoral, nasty evil side
Took on its own persona that he christened Mr Hyde
Who sneaked out of the back door (quite a convenient set up)
To commit crimes without remorse due to his new DNA get up.
Eventually bad things have a way of catching up to you...
And Hyde was suspected of killing a nice old man named Carew
So Hyde hid (get it?!) inside Jekyll, left the potion on the shelf
And tried to be religious, be sociable, his former good self
Unfortunately being naughty is a lot more fun to do
But people from society will judge and condemn you,
You just can't get away with it if you're from the upper class
So it wasn't long before Jekyll was reaching for his glass
Hyde didn't appreciate being locked in a cage
And when he came out again he was bursting with rage
He didn't want to be half when he could be whole
And Jekyll was finding Hyde harder to control
There are lots of settings in this Victorian story
Such as alley ways, fog, London and a laboratory
All of these tell the reader that it's going to be a gothic tale
So we can foreshadow that Jekyll's good intentions will fail
And when he cannot control the monster inside,
He starts to inconveniently accidentally turn into Hyde,
The potion he needs to make stronger and stronger,
Or he'll remain his bad self for longer and longer
Eventually just when you think Hyde might be winning the fight,
Jekyll appeals to Lanyon in the middle of the night,
Seeing him transform from hideous beast into his friend
Proved for Lanyon too much and he meets his end,
Jekyll can't get the ingredients he needs for his task
The butler Poole sees Hyde's face and assumes it's a mask
So he gets Utterson and they break down the door
Only to find Mr Hyde dead on the floor
Did guilty conscience kill him or was it Jekyll's last win?
Was it the cowardly fear of being hung for his sin?
Whatever the motive, Don't forget Jekyll's letter
Explaining what happened and how he wanted to be better
And create a world where people are all wholly good and upright
But he played God and proved that suppression just isn't right
So is Mr Hyde a symbol for all of our hidden desires?
Does he mean inside us all we are hypocrites and liars?
Or is he symbolic of Victorian fears of the other?
Was Hyde just a sort of naughtier younger brother?
So what was the overall lesson the reader learned?
"Don't mess with human nature or you're going to get burned"
