Dr Jekyll - Mr Hyde

Dr Jekyll and Mr  Hyde

Summary:

The book begins with two men, Mr. Utterson and his cousin Mr. Richard

Enfield, on a walk in London. Although the two men are initially silent,

after passing a mysterious door , Mr. Enfield tells the lawyer, Mr Utterson,

a strange  occurrence that centred around the door. Late one night, while he

was on his way home, he chanced to see an act of  violence, a short man who

walked on  a girl who was on her way to get a doctor. The girl's family and

Mr. Enfield catch the mysterious man and instead of getting the police, they

decide to blackmail him and force him to give the girl's family money.

Agreeing to this, the mysterious man disappears into the same door and comes

out with a cheque bearing not his own signature , but that of the

respectable, honoured and very well known man,  Dr. Jekyll.

After hearing the story, Utterson returns to his home where he takes out Dr.

Jekyll's mysterious will, which he recently filed away in a safe in his

business room. Jekyll's will stated that in case of his death, everything he

owned  will pass to Mr. Hyde, but even stranger, in case of his disappearance

for more than three months, Hyde will assume Jekyll's life without delay.

Utterson decides that Jekyll is being blackmailed by Hyde. So he searches

after him to see his face in order to understand why. After seeing him he is

sure that this evil man is the same as in the story which his cousin Enfield

has told him.

One year later, Hyde murders Sir Danvers Carew with a cane. With help from

Utterson, the police find Hyde's apartment. At his flat they find the weapon

with which Mr Carew was murdered. After leaving, Utterson confronts Jekyll

with the murderer. Jekyll claims that he is done with Hyde and promises that

he has nothing left to do with him. He does, however, have a farewell note

from Hyde. Utterson takes the note home and his clerk, Mr. Guest, later

discovers that the handwriting from the note matches a dinner invitation

written by Dr. Jekyll. Angrily, Utterson assumes that Jekyll has written a

false letter for a murderer.

More time passes, and we learn that although Hyde has not been located, Dr.

Jekyll becomes more and more social until one day Utterson attends a dinner

party at Jekyll's where Lanyon is present. Shortly thereafter Jekyll locks

himself in his workroom and Dr. Lanyon fell ill and died. After his death,

Dr. Lanyon left Mr Utterson a letter that instructed him not to read it until

H. Jekyll dies or disappears . After these mysterious events, Enfield and

Utterson again walk by the mysterious door.

About a week later, Poole, Henry Jekyll's butler, visits Utterson. He is

afraid because his master Dr Jekyll has locked himself up in a room above the

workroom and the only things to be heard were strange sounds, including

crying. The only communication that has come are letters urgently asking for

a special type of white  powder. Utterson follows Poole to Jekyll's house and

breaks down the door with an axe to enter the dark room where the body of

Hyde is found. In the laboratory, the two discover a large envelope addressed

to Mr. Utterson. Inside, Jekyll urges Utterson to read the letter from Lanyon

and if he wished to know more, to read the further description that Jekyll

has put within the envelope.

Lanyon's paper begins by describing a strange letter he received from Henry

Jekyll, the night after a dinner party at Jekyll's residence. The letter

urges Lanyon to go to Jekyll's house and get a drawer full of  chemicals out

of the laboratory. Afterwards, a strange caller will come to Lanyon's house

in Jekyll's name and will ask for all these things he took from Jekyll's

room. Lanyon does as much, thinking that Jekyll is crazy, and Mr. Hyde

appears at the subscribed time. He gives Hyde the chemicals; Hyde mixes them

into a potion, and after drinking it transforms into Dr. Jekyll. This shock,

the pure evilness of the situation, was the reason why Lanyon dies soon.

After reading the confession of Dr. Lanyon, Utterson then reads Jekyll's own

confession of his failed experiment. Jekyll believed that he had lived two

separate lives : The evil and the good. These two beings had always been in

conflict with each other. So slowly, Jekyll begins an experiment where he

makes two potions and transforms himself into Edward Hyde. Shortly after

becoming Hyde, he drinks a second potion and once again becomes Henry Jekyll.

He decided to use his discovery.

For some months, this behaviour continued until one moment, 'I had gone to

bed as Henry Jekyll, I had awakened as Edward Hyde.' Afraid that the

character of Hyde might irrevocably stay, Jekyll gives up drinking the

mixture to become Hyde any longer. But then once again he took the potion and

brutally murdered Carew. Because Hyde was becoming too evil, he decided not

to bring him back.

This, however, failed because Hyde was an irrevocable part of Jekyll's

character. One night, while contemplating the deeds of Hyde, Jekyll was once

again transformed into Edward Hyde. Realising that he could not return to his

house, he sent the letter to Dr. Lanyon and Mr. Poole and went immediately to

a hotel. He went home once again but every time he would fall asleep, he

would revert to Mr. Hyde. In the end, Hyde  kills himself, by taking some

poison, and therefore lets both Jekyll and Hyde free.