Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is set in London and the narrator is Utterson, Doctor Jekyll’s lawyer
and long-time friend. At the beginning of the story, Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield
reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months
ago he saw a sinister-looking and repugnant man trample a girl after accidentally bumping
into her. Enfield was able to stop the man and forced him to pay the girl’s family to avoid a
scandal. This mysterious man, whose name is Edward Hyde, paid by cheque, which was
signed by a reputable gentleman, Dr Henry Jekyll. Utterson is disturbed because Jekyll
recently changed his will to make Hyde the sole beneficiary. The lawyer is afraid Hyde is
blackmailing Dr Jekyll, who, in the meantime, has been disappeared for three months.
Wishing to understand what has been happening, Utterson gets in touch with Dr Hastie
Lanyon, both Jekyll and Utterson’s friend. Lanyon tells Utterson that Hyde can enter the
house and the med lab in the cellar all the times. Consequently, the lawyer keeps Dr
Jekyll’s house under surveillance until he can see Mr Hyde: his repugnance upsets
Utterson. Indeed, Mr Hyde is short and hunchbacked, hairy, and violent. Dr Jekyll, though,
reassures his friend about his relationship with Mr Hyde.
. A year later, a murder is committed in London: Sir Danvers Carew, one of Utterson’s
clients, is beat to death. Utterson leads the police into Hyde/Jekyll med lab and there they
find the cane used as a murder weapon, but Mr Hyde is vanished. Jekyll explains to his
friend that he has no longer any relationship with Hyde, giving to Utterson a letter wrote by
Hyde himself. Utterson notices that the calligraphy is very similar to Dr Jekyll’s one. For
two months, Jekyll reverts to his former sociable manner, but in early January, he starts
refusing visitors. Dr Hastie Lanyon dies of shock after receiving information relating to
Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter to be opened after Jekyll’s death or
disappearance. Utterson and Enfield are more and more worried, and, during their weekly
walk, they stop under Dr Jekyll’s house, and they chat with him until he closes the window
and hides in his apartment.
A week later, Richard Pool, Jekyll’s butler, visits Utterson and tells him that the doctor has
secluded himself in his laboratory for weeks. Utterson and Enfield break into the
laboratory, where they find Hyde wearing Jekyll’s clothes and apparently dead from
suicide. They also find a letter for Utterson written by Jekyll. Utterson reads both Lanyon’s
and Jekyll’s letter. Lanyon’s letter reveals his death resulted from the shock of seeing Hyde
drink a serum that turned him into Jekyll. Jekyll’s letter, instead, explains that Jekyll finds a
way to transform himself into Hyde, who was evil, self-indulgent, and uncaring to anyone
but himself. Initially, Jekyll was able to control the transformations with the serum, but one
night, he became Hyde involuntarily in his sleep. Jekyll tried to cease becoming Hyde, but,
another night, he drank the serum and Hyde, furious, killed Carew. Jekyll tried again to stop
the transformations, but in January he turned into the man involuntarily while awake.
Hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde needed help to avoid capture, so he wrote to
Lanyon, asking him to bring chemicals from his laboratory. Hyde drank the serum,
transforming into Jekyll in front of Lanyon, who was so shocked he died. Meanwhile,
Jekyll’s involuntarily transformations increased: fearing he would become Hyde
permanently, Dr Jekyll decided to kill himself.