Wednesday, October 30, 2013

In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, why did the protagonist commit suicide if he could have made a potion?

I would refer you back to the last chapter of this
excellent novel to re-read it very carefully. If you look at the last letter of Dr.
Jekyll and the explanation of what happened to him and how he started transforming into
Mr. Hyde, you will see that what brought him to a crisis point was the way that he
started transforming into Mr. Hyde without the potion, obviously symbolising the way
that his evil nature was growing stronger and taking control of his good side. When the
original salt that was used to make the potion ran out, Dr. Jekyll tried to obtain more,
but note what happened:


readability="12">

I sent out for a fresh supply, and mixed the
draught; the ebullition followed, and the first change of colour, not the second; I
drank it and it was without efficiency. You will learn from Poole how I have had London
ransacked; it was in vain; and I am now persuaded that my first supply was impure, and
that it was that unknown impurity which lent efficacy to the
draught.



Thus Dr. Jekyll
found himself not being able to make any more potion due to the "unknown impurity" of
the first batch of salt. This leaves him trapped in a terrible position, with the evil
part of him growing stronger every hour, and with suicide as the only
escape.

No comments:

Post a Comment

What is the meaning of the 4th stanza of Eliot's Preludes, especially the lines "I am moved by fancies...Infinitely suffering thing".

A century old this year, T.S. Eliot's Preludes raises the curtain on his great modernist masterpieces, The Love...