Imagine this: you are taking an innocent stroll down a quiet street when quite suddenly, you hear a scream. You turn, and see a horrible sight: a hideous, hunched man trampling calmly over a child's body. That, in fact, was what Mr Enfield saw.
He related it to his friend, a lawyer known as Mr Utterson, the main character in the book. Utterson is possessed by a sense of curiosity, and thus decides to do a bit of investigating. Throughout the story, as he unearths more of the mystery, he is horrified when he finds that the cruel-hearted man mentioned by Enfield, alias Mr Hyde, is related to his dear friend, Dr Jekyll.
Jekyll mentions in his will that, in case of his decease, all his possessions were to pass into the hands of Hyde; in the case of his unexplained disappearance, Hyde should immediately step into his shoes.
Later, a man known as Sir Danvers is brutally attacked by Hyde. This calls in the attention of the authorities, and Hyde disappears without a trace. Utterson confronts Jekyll regarding his connection with Hyde. Jekyll assures him that he will have nothing to do with Hyde any longer, coming out of seclusion, hosting parties and doing good.
Suddenly Jekyll refuses to see people. Tension rises as Jekyll starts behaving strangely, reaching a climax when he locks himself in a cabinet. Utterson and Jekyll's butler, Poole, break the cabinet open and discover the body of Hyde, who committed suicide via poison.
The truth is revealed to Utterson via a narrative left for him by Jekyll. Jekyll had a theory that man had dual natures of good and evil, and that all human beings were commingled out of the two natures. In order to test his theory, he had concocted a potion that would stimulate and bring into physical form, his evil doppelganger, Hyde. As Hyde, Jekyll would be able to rejoice in a double life of freedom and wild evil. Although his initial reason for developing the drug was to test his theory, the drug's unpredictable side effects raged out of control and Jekyll began transforming into Hyde at random times of the day. Facing the realization that he could no longer obtain a pure salt crucial for the concoction of the drug, Jekyll knew that he could no longer continue his double life. He then locked himself away in the cabinet, writing his confession with the knowledge that , if Hyde took over then, there would be no turning back.
I admire Utterson for his inquisitive nature, which triggered his determination to see the strange mystery solved. I recommend this exquisite fusion of horror, science-fiction, and mystery to teens and adults.
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