W.R. Gingell’s Reviews > Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde > Status Update

"the aniimal within me licking the chops of memory"

ye GODS this man has a way with words

"MUCH WAS DONE FOR OTHERS"

"MY BENEFICENCE"

Jekyll, after finding out that the murder he committed was "not only a crime, but a dreadful folly" becuase he killed an important man instead of just a man, and has to hide out as Jekyll and avoid being Hyde. and just...thinks that he can make up for the past by being really very nice and helping people (yanno, his JOB for which he gets PAID)

"...but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit"

Jekyll telling on himself AGAIN and me AGAIN shriekin' at how deliciously Stevenson is drawing this character--and indeed all of the banal evil of men in power who have the ability to keep their vice and wickedness hidden from the world behind an exterior of goodness

i will fight jekyll in the street and eat his self-righteous heart in the marketplace

absolutely SHRIEKIN' at Jekyll's self satisfied explanation for why Hyde's so much smaller physically-- "WELL YES YOU SEE I HAVE BEEN A GOOD MAN, A VERY VERY GOOD MAN, & MY BOUNTEOUS GOODNESS, HAVING BEEN THUS EXERCISED, HAS FAR OUTSTRIPPED THE EXERCISE OF THE BAD IN ME"

sir, you are a galah

your other self is tiny bc he is a small man with a small mind and curdled in on himself with evil and also HE IS YOU

TEARS OF PENITENCE, MY EYE

TEARS OF SELF-PITY MORE LIKE

"if i am the chief of sinners, i am the chief of sufferers, also"

the moment this grandiose lamentation bleats from jekyll, it's obvious why this has happened to him--and that this story has to end, and can only end, in destruction

his suffering doesn't drive him to repentance, it drives him to self-pity and further self-aggrandisation, this time in his woe instead of his abilities

"...a face smoothed by hypocrisy, but pleasant"

Stevenson is NOT pulling his punches

"the very minute i choose to, i can get rid of hyde"

the alien movies would like a word with you about pinching at least half their hubris, jekyll

i love the opening anecdote, and how the "damnable man" is described--hateful, invoking hate and fear, and fearful himself

absolutely chilling, and far better than expected--though why it should be when Stevenson is also responsible for Treasure Island and the intricacies of Long John Silver, i have no idea