Henry Jekyll, or better known as Dr. Jekyll was a 19th century physician who studied the chemical basis of the duality of the human mind, and eventually came across a formula to separate a man's evil, uncivilized self from the rest. By drinking this formula, Jekyll found himself transformed into the dwarfish, strange-looking, violent, hedonistic, and purely self-centered man that used the name Edward Hyde.
At first, Jekyll could transform back and forth into his "Mr. Hyde" persona by drinking his serum; until he found that prolonged exposure to it had altered his body's natural balance in some way, and the transformations into Hyde started to happen involuntarily.
Biography[]
-He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can't describe him. “Richard Enfield,about Mr. Hyde. Henry Jekyll is a naturally tall, well-built and good-looking man; but when he changes into his Edward Hyde form, his appearance changes drastically as well. Hyde is a pale man, so short that he's been compared to a dwarf, and all those who've seen him have described that there is something wrong, hateful, and thoroughly unpleasant about his semblance, although it's hard to pinpoint what it is. He speaks with a "husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice", and gives the impression of deformity. On the other hand, he is also noticeably younger and more energetic than Jekyll. Some of his aspects appear to be animalistic, as his hands have been described as "thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair".
Jekyll attributes these changes to the fact that Hyde is nothing but the embodiment of his evil self, which doesn't have the chance to be "exercised" so frequently in the course of a normal civilized man's life; therefore Hyde being both younger-looking and physically smaller. It has also been noted that Hyde's short stature and some of his physical features, such as his hairy hands, are evocative of a primordial ape form, suggesting a kind of atavistic evolutionary regress could be at play. Utterson has also suggested that there might be something "troglodytic" about Hyde's appearance.
In terms of personality, Jekyll and Hyde are completely distinct. While they share each other's knowledge and memories, they see themselves as separate entities, and, although initially indifferent to each other's actions, eventually grow to hate each other. According to calligraphy expert Mr. Guest, Jekyll's and Hyde's handwritings are identical, "only differently sloped".
The more that Jekyll makes use of the serum, the easier it becomes for him to involuntarily transform into Hyde. These transformations are particularly prone to happen while he's asleep.
History[]
Like so many other men, Dr. Henry Jekyll was drawn towards pleasures that he himself described as "undignified"; the nature of which is not revealed. He was also obsessed about the idea of the duality of man, and the unavoidable guilt it created. According to Jekyll's worldview, the two sides of one's mind couldn't coexist peacefully: whenever a man indulges in sinful activities, his moral self reprimands him for it; and whenever he refrains from sin, his bestial self craves for it and the abstinence makes him suffer. Driven by the idea that separating the two selves into distinct personas could put an end to these problems, Jekyll eventually came across a chemical formula that allowed him to achieve just that. Whenever he drank from it, he was transformed into his evil self, free from any conscience and morals, and therefore immune to guilt. This man was viewed by Jekyll as an entirely separate agent, and was named Edward Hyde.
At first, Jekyll was pleased. Changing into Mr. Hyde allowed him to indulge in any kind of activities, without compromising his own name and reputation as a professoral gentleman. The nature of such activities isn't revealed (one might speculate they might have involved opium, brothels, or gambling). Jekyll felt no guilt for what Hyde did, as he rationalized Hyde as a distinct person and believed none of Hyde's acts could ever be traced back to him; while Hyde himself didn't care about anything but his own freedom, so, in both personas, he was happy. Jekyll bought a second house in the district of Soho to be used as Hyde's "residence". He told his own butler and other employees that Mr. Hyde was his protégé, and that they should obey Hyde's orders whenever they saw him. He even wrote in his will that, in the eventuality of Jekyll's "death" or disappearance, Hyde was to inherit everything.
The situation started to become more complicated given that Hyde, unrestrained by morals, was prone to extreme acts of violence at the slightest provocation. The first incident happened when a young girl ran into him and fell to the ground, at which point Hyde cruelly stepped on her, to the horror of those who witnessed. Although the child was more scared than hurt, her father, the local apothecary and a passer-by named Enfield made sure to confront Hyde, and told him that the case would be made public. Outnumbered and afraid that the newly-formed mob would lynch him, or raise so much noise that it would create problems for him in the future, Hyde agreed to pay a large sum to the girl's family to compensate them, which, since "Edward Hyde" had no bank account in his name, had to be done in the name of Henry Jekyll. This incident became known to Jekyll's friend and lawyer, Gabriel Utterson, who was already puzzled by the strange nature of Jekyll's will, and wondered why his friend was benefiting a man of questionable nature like this mysterious Mr. Hyde. Utterson's fear, at first, was that Jekyll was being blackmailed due to some undignified deed from his past.
An even more worrisome incident followed sometime later, as Jekyll woke up to realize that he had turned into his Mr. Hyde form while asleep, even though he had drunk none of the serum. He was horrified to find that his body had acquired the ability to transform into Hyde involuntarily, particularly while sleeping, and that he now needed the formula to go back to his normal form. Scared by this discovery and realizing that he couldn't go on with his double life, Jekyll tried to remedy the situation by letting go off his Hyde adventures and never drinking the formula again. For the next two months, it worked, but Jekyll found that he missed being able to go around town doing anything he pleased as Hyde. This feeling grew stronger until, "in an hour of moral weakness", he drank the potion again and was transformed into Hyde again.
Now more reckless than ever after the months of restraint, this Hyde committed his greatest crime by far when he viciously bludgeoned an old man to death with his cane over a slight disagreement. The victim, named Sir Danvers Carew, was a popular and well-liked Member of the Parliament, which, combined with the fact that Hyde was recognized as the perpetrator by a witness, created a situation in which Hyde could never appear in public again. Edward Hyde was now a fugitive, a wanted man.
After Carew's murder, Jekyll decided that he was done with Hyde, and intended to never transform again. Since he couldn't abstain from certain pleasures, he went back to being a "secret sinner", as he put it (i.e. committing sins secretly as Henry Jekyll, and not openly as Edward Hyde), but for the most part, he went back to being a social, generous, and friendly man with a respected social life. For the next two months, he lived mostly at peace, but even then he wasn't cured, and eventually, he started involuntarily turning into Hyde again, which; since Hyde was wanted by the police; created an extremely dangerous situation for Dr. Jekyll. If caught, Hyde would surely be executed.
The transformation started to become increasingly common, triggered every time he dozed off. Jekyll locked himself in his laboratory and tried to work on a solution. Even while turned into Hyde, he dared not leave the room, for the fear of being captured and facing the death penalty. When he ran out of ingredients, he ordered his servants to buy more, but found that he couldn't replicate his results. At first, he figured that the chemical ingredients were impure, but then he realized it was probably some impurity in his original serum that made it work, and that could never be consciously replicated. Knowing that he didn't have much time before Hyde permanently took over, Jekyll wrote down his confession, altered his will to benefit his friend Utterson, and took cyanide. He died already transformed: the body found in the laboratory was that of Edward Hyde.