Feb 27, 2004 11:31 PM
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(Updated Feb 27, 2004 11:31 PM)
Clearly one of Robert Louis Stevenson?s Masterpieces, this book was actually born in one of his nightmares. The nightmare was so vivid that he managed to have the first draft of the book ready in less than three days. This book was written between the years of 1883 and 1887 when Stevenson was recovering from illness.
The book essentially talks about a man?s personality. It talks about society and how, more often than not, we need to mask our true feelings to such an extent that one day they finally burst out of us. It takes us through the mind of a scientist who forgets that there may be an extremely evil side to every discovery. However in this case more than society he pays the penalty himself. The scientist in mention here is Dr Jekyll who finds a medical formula by which he can split his personality into two. One is the part of him available for public display as the well known, generous and distinguished doctor of Medicine and the other side which he can allow no one to know about the mysterious and evil Mr Hyde.
While Jekyll is the ?Good Samaritan?, Hyde is the absolute opposite. And Jekyll loves Hyde for that. He loves the freedom Hyde allows him to be evil without bothering about his consequences. After all Jekyll believes that if ever things go out of hand he can just allow his alter ego to vanish from the face of the earth.
However things don?t go quite as planned and Dr Jekyll soon finds himself completely at the mercy of Hyde. He realizes he has created his own Frankenstein and really does not know how to contain him any longer. He realizes that the evil he has created could prove a menace to the whole of London but knows not what he can do to stop it. The only way Jekyll can kill Hyde is by killing himself which is exactly what he does.
This book is a must read and if it isn?t a part of your library at the moment, well it certainly deserves to be added ASAP.
