The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Summary

Books often suffer when over taken by the notoriety of the adaptations which they inspire. This was never truer than of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Yet in his novella Robert Louis Stevenson cleverly takes a primal human fantasy, in this case that of freeing oneself from all moral responsibility with impunity and explores the possibility of separating human nature into the diabolical and the virtuous.

Stevenson’s work stands as a work of philosophy, and indeed its narrative characteristics are slight with the final letter of confession from Jekyll providing us with much of the stories dark heart.

The tragedy of Dr Jekyll emerges in the truth that the two sides are really one nature that needs not separation but redemption