For many people, the greatest horror stories come from external forces. The idea of something uncontrollable breaking through a safety net feels horrifying, keeping audiences questioning how they would fight back. For Robert Louis Stevenson, he decides to explore the war of the self, producing one of the most memorable novellas of the late 19th century with two characters in one. "Strange Case of Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde" begins as the mystery of a scientist getting wrapped up in a murder mystery and famously ends with the discovery that the real enemy lies inside, waiting to break out. Is he capable of controlling everything, or is he doomed to give in to the torment inside? It's a morality tale like no other, and one that becomes more horrifying once you realize that Mr. Hyde is not an exception. He has the potential to exist inside all of us.
The premise alone could earn Stevenson immortality, drawing iconography that has since become nomenclature of a man battling with science and discovering something even more horrifying. On the surface, Dr. Jekkyl feels like the archetype that couldn't possibly be evil. He's done nothing but brought good to the world with his thankless studies. He's more likely to diagnose a problem than start it. He's a mediocre character, only drawn into a murder because Mr. Hyde has the same penmanship, forcing the police to wonder if there are any ties.
What follows is a mystery that has been lost to time, presenting the story of a man slowly unveiling his personal demons inside. The mystery goes from exploring invisible forces that could be out on the streets to something more personal. The way that Stevenson slowly draws in on this one man allows for a shocking reveal that may have lost its punch, but still symbolically has a haunting amount of relevance. This is a story that feels inherently religious, finding guilt inside and the fear of humanity's ability to be animalistic, reveling in grotesque acts that would make them an outcast in society. Everyone has that deviance inside, and Stevenson found the best way to express this urge.
Mr. Hyde starts as the culprit, even as the audience knows very little about him. However, he slowly becomes something more threatening to Dr. Jekkyl by virtue of labeling him a murderer. It's a force that is uncontrollable, eventually finding science unable to hold back the potential wreckage. He's a man of physically different posture not only for haunting visuals, but because he's like a plant, an ulcer that grows inside Dr. Jekkyl. His symbolic evil starts small and immature, growing by the end to be something more uncontrollable. He begins to look more human, and that's when things begin to get worse.
At just 100 pages, this novella is an incredible page-turner that starts as a typical murder mystery and ends as a commentary on our morality. Even if we all start the story believing that we're closer to Dr. Jekkyl, there is this subtle fade into Mr. Hyde that becomes plausible, drawing on everyone's own impulses and desire to break from reason. What it lacks in a particularly active story it more than makes up for as an exchange of ideas, finding something more profound in this excellent horror story that set new bars for what kind of stories can be told. Suddenly the fear wasn't coming from outside the house. For the first time, it may have been all in our head the entire time.
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