A True Mystery: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Kudos to Leanna Crossan for drawing Utterson

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is a mystery.

Like Dracula, the book is told almost entirely from the point of view of its non-titular characters. That is, the reader learns about Dr. Jekyll's problems second-hand through the observation and worries of his lawyer, Utterson.

(In pure Victorian fashion, Utterson determines that he is ever so worried about his friend and client but hey, people who are being blackmailed deserve their privacy!)

This approach is entirely in keeping with mystery literature. Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, unlike Columbo movies, almost never start with the action. They start with a witness/client arriving to relate the problem.

I happen to love this approach. And Loren Estleman wrote a book--Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes--that tackles Stevenson's classic text in the same way. In fact, I would love to see a movie of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that presents Utterson as the main character.

Very few of them do--most movies, even Barrymore's silent version (which is relatively close to the original)--use the final chapter/letter from Dr. Jekyll to move the cause (Dr. Jekyll's experiments) to the beginning of the movie. We don't discover WHY Mr. Hyde has such a mysterious hold over Dr. Jekyll. We watch Jekyll become Hyde.

The problem is that Jekyll is not all that interesting, however well-performed, especially since most versions excise his real motive in creating Hyde. It is not to rid "man" of his evil side. Rather, Jekyll wants to give his evil side freedom without remorse--and his good side freedom without doubt.

(It helps to note that Stevenson was raised in a Scottish Protestant conservative religious environment--which he rejected in adulthood. But it never really stopped haunting him.)

In fact, the book would make a good Criminal Minds episode as the Scooby Gang tracks down the ruthless, obviously sociopathic murderer of Carew (hey, there IS a Scooby episode that tackles the story). But it would mean focusing the audience's attention AWAY from the titular characters.

It is so much more interesting to keep the monster in the dark.