Two sides to every story

MAD DOCTOR OF THE WEEK

DR. JEKYLL

Another classic character, from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As the story goes, Jekyll is a scientist that creates a potion that lets him turn into another identity. By doing this, he lets his alternate self (Hyde) run around committing crimes, knowing he won't get in trouble for it because he doesn't look anything like Jekyll. Eventually, he randomly changes into Hyde without the use of the potion and instead needs the potion to turn back to Jekyll. To make matters worse, he runs out of a very important ingredient for the potion and eventually pertinently changes into Hyde, who kills himself thinking the authorities are after him for a murder he committed.

This is a classic mad doctor that I like. Not only is it a crazy idea, but he doesn't whine about his situation like Frankenstein but rather scientifically says the equivalent of, "Uhh... oops. This can't possibly be good."

Some fun facts, Hyde is not actually a hulking monster like most movies show him as. He's actually a human that's smaller than Jekyll, being the book often times makes fun of Hyde for being too small to fit in Jekyll's clothes.

SCIENTIFIC WRITINGS

I actually wrote an essay about Jekyll and Hyde once.

Jekyll’s Diagnosis

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Hyde was accused of committing murder and other crimes in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from 1886. Is it the fault of Jekyll and Hyde of classic literature for unleashing the menace against humanity or did he have no control over his actions? People who are diagnosed with the psychological illness called dissociative identity disorder (DID), also known as multiple personality disorder, see Jekyll’s point of view when their other self acts against their own intention without control. However, does that mean that Jekyll understands the point of view of people with DID? This essay will examine how the tale of Jekyll and Hyde differs from the contemporary diagnosis of DID. In order to accomplish this, the original story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will be fully explained. This essay will also address the historical context of the story of Jekyll and Hyde and the cultural relationship between dissociative identity disorder and Jekyll and Hyde.

DEFINITION
“DID is a severe condition in which two or more distinct identities, or personality states, are present in -- and alternately take control of -- an individual” (Psychology Today). To most people, this sounds like the core idea behind the story of Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll, a respected 19th century British scientist, turned into Hyde, a complete madman, who ran rampant through the city and killed a man. In reality, the original story differs from the definition of DID and this essay will explain how Jekyll does not represent the symptoms of this mental disorder.

PLOT SUMMARY
To explain this concept further, one must understand the plot behind The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the story, Jekyll creates a potion that transforms him into a smaller man who looks nothing like his former self. The doctor decides to take advantage of this discovery and prances around his neighborhood doing whatever he pleases, released from the binds of maintaining a formal respectable identity. Jekyll, prior to creating his potion, was strict to keep a good image of himself and was well liked. He desired to be able to do whatever he wished without the consequence of being persecuted. In the Victorian era, “The story is about the repressed, empty lives of upper-middle-class professional men, whose insistence on a public appearance of restraint and respectability goes against their own human nature” (MacLachlan). As time goes on, he names his other identity as Mr. Hyde. Hyde develops a personality based on all the sins he commits. After awhile, Jekyll begins randomly turning into Hyde without the aid of the potion and he panics, promising to never use the potion again. Temptation gets the better of Jekyll and he drinks the potion again; Hyde is now wild and kills Danvers Carew, a member of Parliament, over being locked up for so long. Since Jekyll was using the potion to transform so often, it gets to the point where he is only able to turn back into his normal self with the potion. He runs out of the main ingredient for this elixir and records his story before he finally turns into Hyde permanently. Hyde commits suicide, when trapped in his office while being pursued for murder.

CAUSE OF DID
Symptoms and the details of DID vary, as do the causes for the disorder. One of the major contributing factors for DID is abuse as a child, though it is not the specific cause. “In addition, some people were not abused at all, but rather, suffered an important early loss, such as the death of a parent, a serious physical illness, or some other very stressful experience” (Merck Online Medical Library). This is the key difference between Jekyll and individuals who suffer from DID. Jekyll chose to drink his potion to transform into Hyde; he had no psychological issues before experimenting on himself. It was his own free will that caused him to switch over to Hyde, not some stressful childhood event that led to his choice. At one point of the story, Jekyll swore he would never drink the potion again, but gives into temptation. It is his own actions that make it so he later can’t control his transformations, not the result of medical illness.

DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES
Patients have different reactions to DID and means for communication with their other personalities, ranging from continuality struggling between one another, to acting as the leader. One patient described having multiple personalities like this: “it’s like sitting in the back seat, someone else is driving, and I’m in the car” (Saks 12). Yet another patient described it as a “tug of war,” fighting over who would remain in control. Jekyll doesn’t communicate to any other personality within his mind prior to drinking his potion, and at first the switch between personalities is entirely drug induced. It’s only when Jekyll abuses the potion that Hyde takes over.

PHYSICAL CHANGE
DID involves more than one personality inside one mind, though some patients hallucinate and see themselves in a different body. There is no transformation or any physical change that happens to a person with DID. Jekyll, after drinking the potion, physically transforms into Hyde. This is one of the reasons that Jekyll was constantly tempted to switch back to Hyde; he could go out and do he wished without anyone realizing it was him. Lanyon, a friend of Jekyll, describes his meeting with Hyde.
“Here, at last, I had a chance to clearly see him. I had never set eyes on him before, so much was certain. He was small, as I said; I was struck besides the shocking expression on his face, and great apparent debility of constitution, and—last but not least—with the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his neighborhood…. This person (who had thus, from the first moment of his entrance, struck in me what I can only describe as a disgusting curiosity) was dressed in a fashion that would have made an ordinary person laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although they were of rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for him to every measurement—the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders.” (Stevenson 57)

Of course, DID patients don’t physically change.

COUNTER ARGUMENTS
It could be said that there are some parts of DID that Jekyll does fit quite well. Medically, one of the diagnostic criteria of DID is “the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment itself)” (DSM-IV-TR 529). His symptoms also relate to having “at least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person’s behavior” (DSM-IV-TR 529). The issue with this line of thinking is that Jekyll would be dismissed of having DID under the criteria of “the disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance…” (DSM-IV-TR 529). Due to the fact that he uses a potion to gain the effects of having another personality, he cannot be diagnosed with DID.

GOOD VERSUS EVIL
From a doctor named Theodore Dalrymple, “In fact, my patients who explain their own evil conduct by reference to Jekyll and Hyde exactly overturn the meaning… of The Strange Case…” (Dalrymple 24). Jekyll and Hyde is not an explanation of DID. Stevenson wrote the book for the purpose of examining the existence of good and evil in everyone. “… The moralizing interpretation. Jekyll's attempt to split off his evil side into Hyde leads to its growth and development. Hyde becomes Jekyll's disguise when he wants to indulge his evil nature, but too frequent indulgence in secret vice corrupts Jekyll. The story has a moral message like that of Faust, except that temptation comes from within Jekyll himself” (MacLachlan). There is never any reference within the literature about DID and makes no association with it. Stevenson was writing a story to reflect on the age, when Darwin’s ideas were being considered in contrast to the morals of the late Victorian era. Jekyll represented the typical, upstanding Victorian. “Darwinian dismay - Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory shocked Victorians with the idea that humans are basically animals. Hyde represents the primitive, animal side of human nature, which is closer than Victorians liked to think” (MacLachlan).

INTRO TO FILM ERRORS
The image of Jekyll in popular culture is constantly twisted from the original plot. One of the main reasons people may mistake Jekyll as suffering from DID is that many people are misinformed by other media regarding the original intent of his story. In fact, many adaptations to the original story completely disregard any ideas behind the book such as the evil within oneself and the character of Hyde, warping the idea behind Jekyll beyond even the definition of good versus evil or DID.

MONSTER HYDE
Many films love to take the idea of Hyde and make him a literal monster, smashing enemies left and right with nothing standing in his way. In the original story, Hyde is a human being and does not at any point turn into a creature to wreck havoc around London literally.

In the 2004 film Van Helsing, the main character (Helsing) is sent by the church to defeat Mr. Hyde, who has been killing innocents and leaving the corpses on the sidewalk. Helsing follows the trail of corpses to a church. Hyde, who viewers could easily mistake for the Incredible Hulk, confronts the hero as he enters the church. Hyde swings from the ceiling supports of the church and duels with Helsing, smacking him around as if he were a fly and taking shots from the hero’s crossbow. The battle eventually leads to the roof to the church. Helsing falls from the side of the building and pulls out a hook shot, shooting it through Hyde’s chest as the main character plummets. Hyde balances precariously on the edge of the roof and nervously watches as Helsing yanks the cord of the hook shot, causing Hyde to fall. During the fall, Hyde changes into Jekyll and dies on impact, making it convenient for Helsing to call the mission of Hyde’s death a success.

Another example of Monster Hyde is 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Though Jekyll is shown drinking his potion to turn into Hyde, Hyde himself is represented as a monster, again resembling very much like the Incredible Hulk. The situation itself is the same as Van Helsing in terms of Hyde becoming an actual monster rather than a human being showing Jekyll’s dark side. It also introduces Jekyll talking to Hyde in his mind, which would be a misinterpretation of thinking Jekyll has this as a DID-like symptom.

SUPERNATURAL HYDE
Another way films and TV shows like to depict Hyde is as a supernatural being and having strength comparable to Hercules. An example of this would be the Tom and Jerry short “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse” from 1947. In the episode, Tom gets angry at Jerry for stealing his milk. Taking the bowl of milk, Tom creates a concoction with it in hopes of poisoning Jerry. Unfortunately for Tom, Jerry ends up gaining supernatural strength from the potion and proceeds to beat Tom until the potion runs dry. Jerry experiences no evil side when he drinks the potion, only becoming powerful and using it to gain revenge on Tom. There is no personality change since Jerry typically plays tricks on Tom even when he has no potion.

KILLER SPREE HYDE
Another misinterpreted adoption from the original story changes Hyde from being guilty for killing one man to Hyde being guilty of killing a large amount of innocent people. In the 1999 animated film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde is not only shown as resembling a monster, but he also happily explores London while clobbering people with his cane. His cane eventually shows signs of damage from all the people Hyde murders with it. Jekyll also is commanded by Hyde to make a will made out to him, unlike the original plot of Jekyll doing it on his free will just in case. This again shows a DID-like symptom of talking to voices.

Mary Reilly (1996) took the classic story and wrote it in the point of view of one of Jekyll’s maids, Mary Reilly. As Mary gets to know Hyde, there are several occasions that he ruthlessly kills. He kills not only people who stay at a run-down apartment, but also the owner of the building when she requests to see Jekyll about Hyde living on her property. Hyde has intentions of killing Mary, but he cannot bring himself to commit the deed because of his lust for her.

COMPLETE PLOT CHANGE
Some adaptations, though claiming to be a film about Jekyll and Hyde, completely twist the plot away from the original story. The 1920 silent film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adds a love interest for Jekyll. Her father, however, does not approve of Jekyll associating himself with Hyde. Hyde kills the father in a fit of rage and hides in Jekyll’s laboratory. He switches back to Jekyll who locks himself in the laboratory in fear of transforming into Hyde again. His love interest knocks on the door and just as he is about to let her in, he transforms into Hyde. After Hyde scares her off, he commits suicide with poison as Utterson (Jekyll’s lawyer), Poole, (Jekyll’s butler), and Lanyon (Jekyll’s friend) run into his laboratory. Hyde switches back to Jekyll after his death, leading the three men to tell Jekyll’s girlfriend that Hyde killed Jekyll to avoid telling her the truth.

VEGGIE TALES
In a strange spin on the story, the Christian cartoon Veggie Tales decided to take the story of Jekyll and Hyde and make a cartoon of it, disregarding everything associated with the original story. One of the characters of the show even asks about telling the story of Jekyll of Hyde, commenting nervously that it was a bit scary. Another character replies, “Not if you don’t tell it that way!”

In the Veggie Tales adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde, known as “Dr. Jiggle and Mr. Sly,” a carrot and cucumber discuss among themselves about the appearance of Mr. Sly, a squash with an afro and disco outfit that comes out every night to dance. The cucumber represents Poole, even though Poole is suppose to be Jekyll’s butler. The cucumber acts more like the carrot’s sidekick. The carrot is presumably Utterson, though the carrot’s name shares no relation with Utterson’s name. The carrot wishes to find the identity of Mr. Sly, having issues with his dancing despite the cucumber enjoying the dances. The cucumber and carrot talk to Dr. Jiggle, a squash with weight issues lamenting over not being able to dance like Mr. Sly. One night, Mr. Sly is dancing when his disguise is pulled off him, revealing to be Dr. Jiggle. The carrot and cucumber help Dr. Jiggle, who claims to not be able to dance. The moral of the cartoon is that God made everyone for a reason, therefore there’s no point in pretending to be someone else.

The issue with this cartoon is that it not only takes the idea of Jekyll and Hyde and completely changes it beyond comprehension, but it is being presented to children as the “non-scary” version of The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde and giving them the wrong idea of the plot at a young age. The idea is the opposite of the original intent of the story; it changes from a story about giving into temptation to one about loving oneself. Altering the story for a younger audience is understandable, but this went far beyond the boundaries.

TRANSFORMATION
The original story revealed the transformation sequence at the very end of the story, being the plot twist of the mystery. The reader is meant to view the story treating Jekyll and Hyde as two different people until it’s revealed at the very end that they’re the same person. Since everyone in the present know that Jekyll and Hyde are one entity thanks for it being a literary classic, the majority of film adaptations show the transformation sequence quite early in the story rather than saving it for the end. There are different variations of the transformation as well. In the original story, Lanyon witnesses Hyde changing into Jekyll much to his shock and horror.

“He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change—he seemed to swell—his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter—and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arm raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.” (Stevenson 60)

In Mary Reilly, the transformation is shown with a body emerging from Hyde’s as he turns back onto Jekyll. A baby’s cry is heard as Jekyll is “reborn” as his body parts overpower Hyde’s, making Hyde’s head and limbs shrink into nothing inside his body. Though it is very well done and even saved for the very end, it does introduce the idea of being “reborn” that was not a part of the original story. Van Helsing and the silent film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both have Jekyll and Hyde randomly transform without the potion, with Van Helsing having Hyde switch back to Jekyll conveniently as he is falling to his doom and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde having Jekyll turn into Hyde and Hyde switching back to Jekyll without the potion. Jekyll accidentally turning into Hyde was a part of the original idea, but not Hyde switching back to Jekyll without a potion. Veggie Tales didn’t even have a transformation, but rather the squash in a different outfit.

CONCLUSION
When it comes to the diagnosis of Dr. Jekyll, the medical condition of DID is not an accurate description of his issues in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He shares little relation to patients with DID and his original purpose for the story was a representation of good versus evil in one being rather than having a split personality. He willingly takes the potion to transforms and starts off having full control when Hyde came out. Films can be to blame with all the confusion about the story of Jekyll and Hyde, making Hyde out to be a monster killing machine and disregarding the original context of the book. In the end, Jekyll’s true diagnosis is simply giving into temptation.

Bibliography

Dalrymple, Theodore. “Mr. Hyde & the Epidemiology of Evil.” The New Criterion
Sept 2004: 24-28.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fourth Edition. Text Revision.
DSM-IV-TR. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2000.

“Dissociative Identity Disorder.” The Merck Online Medical Library. Feb. 2003.
Merck. 26 February 2008 .

“Dissociative Identity Disorder.” 24 Oct. 2005. Psychology Today. 26 February 2008.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dir. John Stuart Robertson. Perf. John Barrymore,
Martha Mansfield, Louis Wolheim. Image Entertainment. 1920.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Goldhil Home Media. 14 December 1999.

“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse.” Tom and Jerry. Fred Quimby. 14 June 1947.

“Dr. Jiggle and Mr. Sly.” Veggie Tales. Warner Bros. 2004.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Dir. Stephen Norrington. Perf. Sean Connery,
Naseeruddin Shah, Jason Flemyng. 2003. DVD. Angry Films, 2003.

MacLachlan, C J M. “EN1003 Ghosts and Doubles: Lecture Outline: Robert Louis
Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Dr. MacLachlan’s Homepage.
11 April 2008.

Mary Reilly. Dir. Stephen Frears. Perf. Julia Roberts, John Malkovich. 1996. DVD.
TriStar Pictures, 1996.

Saks, Elyn and Behnke, Stephen. Jekyll on Trial. New York and London: New York
University Press, 1997.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York:
Barnes & Noble Books, 2005.

Van Helsing. Dir. Stephen Sommers. Perf. Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale,
Richard Roxburgh. 2004. DVD. Universal Pictures, 2004.

MORE FUN TIMES

Speaking of freaky things, the Soap Factory is totally doing the haunted house thing. I'm going to be working there almost every night because I love it so much. I would say more on the subject, such as possible mad doctors involved int the haunted house, but that really ruins the fun.

So what you should do is pay $15 and get your ticket online, then come and see for yourself.

You know you want to.