Resumo de The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

The plot
This book is divided in 10 chapters: The first three chapters show Utterson?s worries about Jekyll and Hyde. From chapter four to chapter seven there are a lot of events which drive Utterson to realise that there is a problem between Jekyll and Hyde and that Hyde could be responsible for the murder. The last three chapters are the denouement: Jekyll is the prisoner of his own creation and he is driven back to his secret. The story ends when the reader discovers the true story of Jekyll and Hyde. Consequently, the book has a progression from the mystery to the revelation using some elements to interest the reader like fear, suppositions, worries and inquiry.

The symbols
The reader can isolate some symbols which reinforce the mystery and the secret. There is the image of the key: Hyde has the key to Jekylls? house. The key can be interpreted as a penetration of the intimacy of somebody and of the abandonment of: Jekyll, by giving the key of the house to Hyde, proves that he lets him penetrate his intimacy, that he has renounced to control to him and that he wants to help and protect his own double. He becomes his accomplice.
The letters are very important in this story because they reveal everything and they are like clues for Utterson. They are testimonies of the plot. Traditionally, the letters are symbols of something to hide and reveal the importance of the narrator: they make the inquiry progress and the reader gets some information.
The mirror is the symbol of the metamorphosis. It appears in Jekyll?s laboratory after the first experience. It is a way to check and to control the changes of his own body.(?p.58 this glass has seen some strange things/ and surely none stranger than itself?). It is symbolically a revelatory of what he is in reality. It shows how he looks and how he feels. There is the problem of truth and lie according to the aspect of the person.

The ?hybris? = the pride of man and science
Jekyll corresponds to the image of Prometheus because he tries to ?play God.? This story shows the risk of trying to control what God has created and in what measure man can be destroyed by its experiences. This emphasises the worries of the 19th century, concerning science and progress. Jekyll is punished and destroyed because he was too proud and too curious. He is completely became Hyde´s slave. (P.74 ?It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery? )
But at the same time, the scientific discoveries of Jekyll contribute to teach him how human nature is; that is why this story can be considered as a rewrite of a myth, an allegory. ?It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two nature hat contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both. P.70?

The power of evil
The split of the personality can be reduced, like in Dorian Gray, as a conflict between the good and the evil. The evil seems stronger than the good: the story is based on the risk that the evil may win. But evil has not a religious or spiritual signification: it is the dark side of human nature. It corresponds to the worries of the period and the fall of religious feelings.

The duality: Right and Wrong. Joy and Despair. Good and Evil
The main problem of the story is ?how to represent the split of the personality?. In this book, there is not only a double personality but a real transformation of the being: Jekyll and Hyde. There are two persons, two personalities, and two bodies. But they know each other and they hide and protect each other. But this situation cannot continue: at the same time Jekyll is more and more impotent and Hyde becomes more and more powerful. They are two persons but they share the same life and the life of one corresponds tothe decadence of the other. Jekyll is invaded and choked by Hyde.

There is a lot of duality in this story: not only the main character?s one. The entire story is shared in two sides and the entire story is based on the risk of falling into the bad one. The narrator always hesitates to explain what happens. That is why the only solution is the death of Jekyll/Hyde.
When Jekyll confesses, he explains the profound duality of his own being which was the origin of the creation of Hyde ?I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. P.69? He supposes that every man is exposed to such a feeling, but that he would find a solution to separate, to split into two different things, the good and the bad nature of human being. ?It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations, than any particular degradation of my faults, that made me what I was and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man?s dual nature. P. 69?

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