The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Audible – Unabridged ridged
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson ID: B015NPWWNO
Dealing with split personalities, Dr. Jekyll battles with himself to overcome the evil Mr. Hyde. An old friend of Dr. Jekyll’s, lawyer Gabriel John Utterson, investigates odd occurrences that are linked to Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll is determined to stop becoming Mr. Hyde and uses a potion to stop the transition. This works for a time, but the need for the potion increases because he can’t stave off the beast.
Done.
Audible Audio EditionListening Length: 2 hours and 53 minutesProgram Type: AudiobookVersion: UnabridgedPublisher: Dreamscape Media, LLCAudible.com Release Date: September 21, 2015Language: EnglishID: B015NPWWNO Best Sellers Rank: #792 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Fiction & Literature > Horror #805 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Fiction & Literature > Classics #8171 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics
Robert Louis Stevenson’s "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is arguably the single most famous metaphor that Western literature has bestowed upon the public conscience, and certainly the most ubiquitous metaphor for duality of personality. But what of the artistic quality of the novella itself? The outer plot — involving the detection of Henry Jekyll’s double identity by his friend and lawyer Gabriel Utterson — is the least interesting facet of the story; Stevenson’s concept, inspired by a nightmare, and the vivid language he uses to convey it, are what impress the most upon the reader.
The respected London scientist Henry Jekyll seems normal enough, but he is fascinated by what he considers to be two distinct sides to his (or, he believes, anybody’s) personality, which can be described crudely as good and evil. He furthermore believes these sides are physically separable, just as water can be separated into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen, by electrolysis; and so he invents a potion that essentially splits his personality so that only one side will manifest itself while the other becomes latent. In this way, Jekyll reasons, the "good" side may be an agent of good works without being burdened by the disgrace of an inherent evil, and the "evil" side is free to do his damage without the pangs of remorse he would inherit from the conscience of his good twin. In Freudian terms, Jekyll is the ego, Hyde is the id, but unfortunately — and this is the point that drives the story — Jekyll has no superego to tell him that the potion is an irresponsibly bad idea in the first place.
"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is assured a place in the history of horror fiction because it the literary classic that represents the archetype of the werewolf (the human with the hiding inside). Along with Mary Wollstonecraft’s "Frankenstein" (the Thing Without a Name) and Bram Stoker’s "Dracula" (the Vampire) Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella is part of the gothic foundation of the modern horror story. All have in common the fact that they promise to tell a story that might best be left untold, which, of course, is exactly the sort of story we want to hear.
Given that Stevenson was writing when the genre of horror fiction was not recognized as such, it is surprising that "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is cast in the form of a mystery novel. Stevenson invites his readers to try and get ahead of the story, to put the clues together and come to the conclusion. Today it is nearly impossible to pick up this story and not know the "secret," but if you think back to the late 19th-century when this story was written you can get a sense for how Stevenson used the biases and limitations of his readers to his advantage in keeping them from what we might consider to be an obvious conclusion.
More importantly, Stevenson is writing several decades before the writings of Sigmund Freud revolutionized the whole idea of human psychology. Yet we can certainly find evidence of the conscious and subconscious mind of which Freud would write.
Download The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Audible – Unabridged ridged Free PDF
SinarJaeman647
