Jekyll and Hyde – Chapter 2 (Part 2)

[00:00:00] You’re listening to. Elaine is reading the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, episode four, chapter two, part two. Thanks for coming back for more. This is a continuation of my discussion of chapter two, the search for Mr. Hyde. Jekyll and Hyde are the least interesting characters to me and I see very little worth discussing when it comes to how evil, broken nature, negative selfish people move through the world wreaking havoc on the lives of good people. I’m interested in the good people. I’m interested in those trying to survive a hell they don’t deserve, like Utterson.

[00:00:48] There’s no other explanation for this because the dude ain’t that serious as far as I’m concerned. Yet. We’re not there yet. We’re not at a place where oh my God, monstrous crazy lunatic guy. We’re not there. We got small dwarf, that’s what we have. Who’s maybe a little rude and isn’t, you know, the best version of a London gentleman. That’s all we have right now.

[00:01:15] Everything else is coming from inside of these disgusting people. Their actions and their assumptions and the stuff that they did to him clearly indicates who the satanic part of this description is.

[00:01:30] He hasn’t done half as much as that group of people. And that includes Enfield, who took it upon himself to drag that man back to this crowd of people and try to get money out of him.

[00:01:44] Sorry, you’re not.

[00:01:46] You’re not convincing me that Hyde is the problem.

[00:01:49] Yet.

[00:01:50] Where I am in this book, I don’t see that Hyde is a problem. I see a bunch of triggered obsessive people who absolutely cannot stand the fact that their friend, this well known man who is well respected, is in any way friends with somebody that they are just grossed out by. That’s really all this is so far.

[00:02:18] That’s. That’s literally all I see.

[00:02:21] We don’t like Hyde because he’s disgusting and there’s no way that our friend could be associated with him. So he must be Satan or our friend must be being blackmailed. There’s no other explanation in the minds of any of these people. It has to be blackmail. Enfield said it and even Utterson says it at the end of this chapter. He’s clearly being blackmailed. He has power over him. What does he say? He says he might see a reason for his friend’s strange preference or bondage, call it which you please.

[00:02:58] So he’s either friends with Hyde in a way that Utterson and everyone else can’t possibly conceive, or he’s in bondage to Hyde, he’s. Hyde has something over him.

[00:03:10] Does anyone have friends like this, like friends that people don’t understand how you’re friends with them?

[00:03:16] Like, that’s basically what this seems like to me. I don’t understand how you could be friends with that person. Like you two are so different. Even though one of the first descriptions we get of Utterson and Anfield is that they. People can’t understand how they’re friends.

[00:03:30] The way when they see them walking in the park, they can’t understand how these two people could have anything in common or. Or anything to talk about. And when people see them walking together in silence, they think that the only reason they’re together is to wait for another person.

[00:03:46] So to me, this is the same situation. Jekyll is friends with Hyde and no one understands why.

[00:03:53] And therefore Hyde is awful.

[00:03:56] And because he has some tendencies that people don’t like and he has something about him that’s disagreeable. He. He’s a terrible person because he doesn’t have the best manners. How could Jekyll possibly be friends with somebody like this?

[00:04:09] Somebody that crushes children at every street corner in London?

[00:04:15] But you people are somehow way better than this. The. The blackmailers, the. I want to kill him in the street. And since we can’t kill him, let’s get money out of him. People.

[00:04:33] Nope, ain’t working with me.

[00:04:38] So he sees Hyde coming up to the door, pulls out his key and he says, you know, he drew a key from his pocket like someone approaching home. Which is significant too. Like he. It’s not like he’s sneakily putting the key in a door. Like he’s. He’s going into this place as if he lives there. He’s very comfortable. He’s just like, I’m going home. Here’s my key in the lock.

[00:05:01] Utterson steps out and touches him on the shoulder. Mr. Hyde, I think Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of breath, but his fear was only momentary.

[00:05:12] And though he did not look at the look the lawyer in the face, he answered coolly, that is my name. Do you want.

[00:05:22] Okay. And again, we still haven’t gotten a description of Hyde’s voice yet. It does come later, but up to this point, we don’t know what Mr. Hyde sounds like. We only know the emotions he evokes, invokes, evokes, provokes in others. That’s all we know. And that he’s small.

[00:05:45] So again, Richard Armitage does a very interesting version of Hyde. And I think it’s based on the description of his voice that we have later.

[00:05:53] But he. He gives him this very gruff tone, you know, like a gravelly gruff tone, which automatically makes him sound very suspicious. But when I first read this, I don’t. Characters don’t have voices in my head.

[00:06:12] Aphantasia’s wonderful that way.

[00:06:16] It’s. It. To me, it just reads how I read it in my. In. In my voice.

[00:06:22] Hyde sounds like me. He doesn’t sound suspicious in any way. And nothing about his behavior in this scene gives me any other feeling.

[00:06:33] Utterson is more suspicious than Hyde right now. He’s been stalking him for. For a week. Hanging outside his house, waiting for him to show up.

[00:06:43] Utterson says, I see you’re going in.

[00:06:46] I’m an old friend of Dr. Jekyll’s. Mr. Utterson of Gaunt Street. You might have heard my name. And meeting you so conveniently. Lie. Er.

[00:06:57] Pants on fire.

[00:07:02] And meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might admit me for real.

[00:07:08] That’s what you say.

[00:07:11] I’ve been stalking you for a week. And I’m waiting here outside of your house, pretending to, you know, be hap. Meeting you by happenstance.

[00:07:20] Meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might admit me. I’m not letting you in my house.

[00:07:25] Do I know you? Who the hell are you?

[00:07:29] You’re a friend of a friend, and therefore you should let me in. I. I don’t know about the etiquette of the day, but I guess this is somehow normal. It still doesn’t seem very normal to me.

[00:07:40] Hyde says, you will not find De. Dr. Jyll. He is from home.

[00:07:48] Okay.

[00:07:50] How did you know me?

[00:07:52] He asks.

[00:07:55] On your side, Mr. Utterson says, will you do me a favor? With pleasure, replied the. Replied the other. What shall it be?

[00:08:05] Will you let me see your face?

[00:08:14] Is this how.

[00:08:17] This is how people talk?

[00:08:20] Is this normal?

[00:08:24] Will you do me? First of all, I’m lying to your.

[00:08:28] Will you let me in your house?

[00:08:29] You don’t know me, but we probably have a mutual friend. And since I’m standing here late at night, would you mind letting me in? And by the way, can I see your face?

[00:08:43] Can I look inside your purse?

[00:08:45] What kind of shoes do you wear? Where’d you buy that coat? Can I get in your business?

[00:08:58] Bonkers.

[00:09:00] Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate.

[00:09:04] Yeah.

[00:09:05] And then, as if upon some sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance.

[00:09:12] And the pair stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds.

[00:09:19] Now I shall know you again, said Mr. Utterson. It may be useful.

[00:09:26] Yes, returned Mr. Hyde. It is well that we have met. And apropos, you should have my address.

[00:09:35] And he gave a number of a street in Soho.

[00:09:39] I’m still failing to see the Satan part of this gentleman so far. So far Mr. Hyde has done nothing except recognize very quickly that he’s about to be blackmailed by a group of people, people who want to kill him. And he’s been unnecessarily right polite to a guy that just kind of showed up and is all in his business.

[00:10:01] He even gave him his address. I’m glad to have met you. Here’s my address.

[00:10:14] Horrible, horrible person. I.

[00:10:17] Horrible.

[00:10:19] What a terrible, terrible person Mr. Hyde is, clearly.

[00:10:25] Make it make sense, Please make it make sense. It gets even better.

[00:10:33] So Hyde says, and now, how did you know me?

[00:10:37] And Utterson says, by description.

[00:10:41] Hyde says, whose description?

[00:10:45] Utterson replies, we have common friends.

[00:10:50] Hyde says, common friends echoed Mr. Hyde a little hoarsely. Who are they?

[00:10:57] Jekyll, for instance, said the lawyer, this is the best line for me, this. Honestly, if.

[00:11:07] If I didn’t like Hyde already, and I do, I have no reason to dislike him again. Yes, he ran over the kid, but I’m still not convinced that he ran over anybody.

[00:11:17] Despite what Corey said the other day. I don’t think that he could have crushed anybody in the circumstances that was being relayed. So I don’t have anything against Hyde except that he’s maybe a little rude. And I know plenty of rude people. I don’t think he deserves to be killed for that. I don’t think he deserves to be blackmailed for that. I don’t. I don’t think he deserves to be distrusted simply because he doesn’t look and act like the person that he’s friends with, that everybody respects and they don’t respect Hyde. I do not see Hyde as a bad person as of yet in this book. As far as I’m concerned, he’s doing whatever he needs to do to get through life.

[00:11:57] So I love this line. This is sort of akin to the line where he says, you know, nobody wants a scandal. How much do you want that kind of line where it’s very clear like that he knows what’s going on and he understands that this is all bullshit and he’s just playing this game.

[00:12:13] He says, you know, after Utterson says, we have common friends. And he says, jekyll, for instance. Hyde says, he never told you.

[00:12:24] And then he says, I did not think you would have lied.

[00:12:30] So first of all, Utterson has lied twice. In this scene, he lied when he said, having met you here. So, you know, conveniently like, wow, I just happened upon you kind of thing. First of all, that’s. You’ve been stalking him probably for a week.

[00:12:51] And now he’s lying about, you know, he didn’t lie about the fact that he heard about him from description, but the mutual friends and all that.

[00:12:59] We know he’s lying. Right. And so does Hyde.

[00:13:02] He never told you.

[00:13:05] I did not think you would have lied.

[00:13:09] And Utterson has the nerve, the absolute nerve to be offended.

[00:13:17] Come, that is not fitting language.

[00:13:26] Do you know how much I could say about people like this? I’m not going to get into it because I’m really enjoying this series and I don’t want to piss anybody off. But as far as I’m concerned, people who do this nonsense, people who feign offense when they are the ones who are offending, really annoy the hell out of me. I cannot stand people who. Who will sit there and, you know, spit on the ground and pretend to be shocked. I just can’t take it. And I cannot stand anybody who’s going to sit and tell a lie to your face and be mad when you call them on it.

[00:14:06] This is absolutely unacceptable. And what I love about Hyde is he’s like, I didn’t think you would have lied. Like, Hyde is legit. Like, why are you lying?

[00:14:15] You don’t strike me as the kind of person who would have lied. Why are you lying to my face?

[00:14:21] Me, a liar?

[00:14:24] Never. Right. Like who?

[00:14:28] I love Utterson. I do. I genuinely love this character. I love the fact that this entire story exists because this one soul, solitary guy who cares so much about his friend who wants to know what is going on and he spends the whole book trying to unravel this mystery by himself. That is what I love about Utterson and that is what I love about this book. That is also what I love about Dracula, which is about a group of people trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and save people from a menace that no one else seems to perceive. It is ultimately a story about a Buffy team and. And I love that about that. It’s about a group of very mismatched people coming together to solve a mystery that. And they have no help and they’re completely on their own. I love those kinds of stories. Utterson is very similar. He’s by himself. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. He’s not scientific. He has no reason to even remotely suspect what comes by the end of the book.

[00:15:41] And he’s just trying to be the best friend that he can be. And in that I’ll allow that he’s being a little obsessive and a little nosy and he’s willing to go through, you know, go to some lengths, right, to find out information.

[00:16:02] I can accept that it’s in service to this old friend of his that he obviously cares about very deeply and is worried about.

[00:16:11] I love that about Utterson. What I’m saying right now, as far as the type of person he is and the type of people I have met so far in this book, they’re all disgusting. And I have yet to see a problem with Hyde, aside from the fact that he happened to collide with a person that he did not see and she did not see him, knocked her over and he kept walking because honestly, she wasn’t that hurt.

[00:16:41] Like I said the other day, I understand that it’s his role to help her up and apologize and be gentlemanly. I’m not dismissing that. All I’m saying is his crime so far is nothing compared to what all of these people are doing and saying.

[00:17:01] I don’t see it. It’s not here. It is not in the text.

[00:17:06] There is no reason for me to think that Hyde is the villain in this story. As of right now, as of page 18, I do not see it.

[00:17:15] He is going about his business. There’s no reason why he should be accosted, blackmailed, threatened and lied to.

[00:17:24] It’s not here for me.

[00:17:27] That’s not to say that I don’t know later what the problem is. I’m just saying right now there is no evidence to suggest that how he’s being treated is remotely logical, sane or fair.

[00:17:42] It’s just not there. And I see Utterson lying to his face and I love that Hyde calls a minute. He never told you.

[00:17:53] Why are you lying?

[00:17:55] That is not fitting language that come, said Mr. Utterson. That is not fitting language. This is great. The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh.

[00:18:08] And the next moment, with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house.

[00:18:15] Good, because that’s some bullshit.

[00:18:19] Absolutely. That is the stinkiest, slimiest, nastiest bullshit.

[00:18:26] I like that. I’m liking Hyde. So far I have no problem with Mr. Hyde at all. Not a one. Do I think the will is suspicious? I do.

[00:18:36] Am I a little worried about what’s going on between him and Dr. Jekyll? I don’t know Dr. Jekyll so I couldn’t say. I only know that he’s the pillar of whatever and that he’s considered a good man according to Enfield.

[00:18:53] And I do think it’s a little sus that he is friends with someone who is considered kind of outside of right, the society of gentlemanliness.

[00:19:04] But aside from that, and this is all stuff that I’ve heard from other people.

[00:19:08] My reading of Hyde, I don’t see what the problem is. I’m still not getting that issue.

[00:19:21] So after, you know, Hyde goes inside and you know, Utterson is kind of standing there, he starts walking down the street and he’s just very perplexed and he’s very.

[00:19:33] He’s just thinking hard, right?

[00:19:37] He says Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish. It is written right here.

[00:19:45] Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish.

[00:19:50] He gave an impression of deformity without any namiable malformation.

[00:19:56] He had a displeasing smile.

[00:20:00] He had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture, get this of timidity, boldness.

[00:20:14] Remember what I said about the contradictions.

[00:20:19] There’s a lot of contradictions in this and the contradictions are probably purposeful.

[00:20:28] And the contradictions might be.

[00:20:32] What do you call them? Like breadcrumbs of some kind or hints of foreshadowing or something.

[00:20:40] There’s too many contradictions for. For me to get a good feel for Mr. Hyde.

[00:20:50] The contradictions I see are basically interpretations from people who are as bad or worse than him projecting themselves into the description, the commonality of the deformity. And again he. We’re pulling these words from what Enfield said. Oh yeah, he is kind of deformed. Would you use the word deformed if Enfield hadn’t said he was kind of deformed? I doubt it. I would be curious to know what Utterson would have thought of Hyde if he hadn’t already heard Enfield’s description of him and you know, had that. He’s carrying that around with him.

[00:21:35] Pale and dwarfish, gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation.

[00:21:46] He had a displeasing smile and borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness.

[00:21:58] How are you at the same time murderous, timid and bold?

[00:22:10] How are you at the same time detestable, deformed and extraordinary?

[00:22:20] How are you at the same time small and dwarfish and a juggernaut?

[00:22:37] Make it make sense.

[00:22:41] The words don’t word, the math isn’t mathing and the words are not wording.

[00:22:52] These are very Very contradictory. And I’m not saying that they’re not also kind of complementary. I’m not saying that they don’t go together, but I’m saying that they cancel each other out in a way that makes you question whether they were real to begin with.

[00:23:11] Murderous, timid and bold. I’m trying to put together what that means in my mind. He has a murderous sort of intent about him that’s both timid and bold.

[00:23:26] Does that suggest that he’s faking it? That he. He appears timid, but he has so much confidence that the. His timidity seems put on. It seems fake, like he’s pretending to be small.

[00:23:43] But he has so much of a bold, you know, attitude and a confident demeanor that he’s. He’s not really truly as timid as he seems. Like, you know, someone who’s very dangerous but doesn’t appear dangerous outwardly, but their sheer level of confidence is. And coolness is what makes them seem very dangerous indeed. Right. And I got that impression when all the people were surrounding him and yelling at him and trying to blackmail him. And he responded very calmly and coolly. And Enfield said that it was like he was so unbothered. He had this sort of countenance about him that was like Satan because he was unbothered by all of the. The mob of people with pitchforks and who want to kill him. But he’s completely calm. I. I noticed that It. It brings into my mind the idea of people who get more angry when someone isn’t as angry as they are. Like when someone is doing something and these people are raging and screaming, but the person that they’re raging and screaming at is completely calm and won’t, you know, doesn’t come up to their level of energy. And it just makes people more angry and hate that person more. And again, it’s because it’s a reflection of them. They’re the only people acting crazy. They’re the only people raging and screaming and out of control and everybody else is in control. And it makes them look like the lunatic.

[00:25:19] I think that this is so very similar to me, this gives off that same exact feeling. None of these people are well. And if Hyde isn’t well, I don’t see it. And if he’s hiding it really well, great, he’s a psychopath or something wonderful. But what he’s doing is just pissing everybody off simply because he’s not like them. That’s what I see. He’s not like them in some way. He is not like them. And that makes him grotesque, that makes him deformed. That makes him, you know, someone that’s sort of like Satan because he’s simply not like them. And where we are right now in the world in this day and age, there’s plenty of people who subscribe to the same idea. If you are not like me, you are grotesque. If you are not the same as me, you should be killed. You are disgusting. You make me sick, you make me feel nauseous.

[00:26:16] Because you are so different and you are so unlike me and I can’t understand you.

[00:26:21] That is what I get here from this story so far. That is what I’m hearing out of the mouths of these characters about Hyde. He’s an other. He is the worst kind of other. He’s the kind of other that reflects back at you.

[00:26:44] Am I wrong? I could be wrong. I, I, I’m not literary, I’m not, you know, some genius college literary person.

[00:26:57] I’m just reading this book.

[00:26:59] I’m just telling you how I feel. I’m just telling you what it gives off. I’m reading you the exact lines and I’m telling you exactly what’s happening. I’m not leaving anything out. And so far that is what I see.

[00:27:13] I see a lot of bullshit from a lot of really fucked up people.

[00:27:20] And I see Hyde just living his life as an Other, as the other, the ultimate Other, the one that is so outside of these, you know, the gentlemanly, you know, elite doctorly sort of society or whatever that these people inhabit, that he’s literally Satan and he makes people physically nauseous. I think there’s a point where he says that, that he’s walking down the street and he’s, it’s very unlike him, but that he feels really nauseous or something like that. And I can’t find it, but I, I, here it is, the face of Hyde set heavy on his memory. He felt what was rare with him, a nausea and distaste of life and in the gloom of his spirits.

[00:28:15] So, like the whole experience of meeting Hyde and dealing with Hyde is like making him nauseous.

[00:28:22] This, this, it’s sucking the life out of him, which I think is such a powerful idea. And this, that’s, this is the first time that kind of comes up, but the second time it comes up as well, that, that hide kind of the experience of Hyde is soul sucking. Like it just, it sucks the life out of you.

[00:28:43] His presence reminds people of all of the worst things in life, I think, and I think that’s why they have such a nasty response to him.

[00:28:57] So after meeting Hyde and getting called out for being a liar, he continues to walk down the street. And again, it’s got to be late at this point. It’s got to be like eight, nine o’ clock.

[00:29:09] So now he’s finally going to Jekyll’s, which he probably should have done at the very beginning. He should have just gone to Henry’s house and said, what is up with his will and hide. I’ve heard this story. Please explain to me what’s happening. That’s what he should have done. This is like a Korean drama. This is like a Korean drama that would be over in the first five minutes if people just talked to the people that were causing them problems. You wouldn’t have 24 episodes of chaos.

[00:29:36] I think this book would be much shorter had he just gone to Jekyll in the, like the second page and said, what is up with this will? And who is this dude? It would have been so much shorter.

[00:29:46] But he finally goes to Jekyll’s house, okay.

[00:29:51] And the one of the servants opens the door. This guy, Pool. And Pool is again one of these characters that I just love.

[00:30:05] Anyway, he’s like, is Deck. Is Jekyll home? And he’s like, I’ll go see. And he’s like, wait here.

[00:30:11] And he, he goes down the hall and you know, he’s like, he’s not. Basically, he’s not there. He’s. He’s not home.

[00:30:26] So instead of just going, oh well, you know, I’ll come back later. He’s. Utterson is now fishing for information.

[00:30:33] This guy, he says, and again, I. I love Utterson. Like I said, I. But I hate people like this.

[00:30:42] I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting room.

[00:30:46] Is that right?

[00:30:48] When Dr. Jekyll isn’t home.

[00:30:52] Is that your business?

[00:30:53] Just wondering. Is that. Is that any of your business?

[00:30:58] How far from that?

[00:31:01] My business is here.

[00:31:03] You’re here. And you’re now here in my business. This. This doesn’t make any sense.

[00:31:11] The servant says, quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir, Mr. Hyde has a key.

[00:31:16] The conversation should end right there. But no, no, no, no.

[00:31:21] Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that young man pool.

[00:31:25] Yes, sir, he does indeed. We all have orders to obey him.

[00:31:35] Then he lies again.

[00:31:41] Well, technically it’s not a lie. He’s still just fishing for information. But he says, I do not think I’ve ever met Mr. Hyde. And I think he means I’ve never met him socially. Right.

[00:31:53] He’s like, oh no, I don’t think so. He never dines here. Indeed, we see very little of him on this side of the house. He mostly comes and goes by the laboratory.

[00:32:03] So Utterson has, has done the most shady shit in this chapter. I said I had a lot to say about this chapter because I just think it is so off on the one hand.

[00:32:15] And on the other hand I understand how he is so deeply worried about his friend and he’s so deeply invested in finding out what’s going on, that Utterson is doing stuff that is just super shady and super sus and really none of his business.

[00:32:36] It is his business. As far as him being Jekyll’s lawyer, I do understand that, that technically this is his business, this sus Will and the sus guy. And if he’s actually being blackmailed, that sort of thing, I understand that part of it. I’m not saying that that’s lost on me. I’m just saying from a simplistic sort of fan based perspective, I think Utterson is going way out of his way, doing way too much work and he’s getting into everybody’s business in ways that are really not honest and sort of skirt the line for me as far as being likable behavior when, when he’s fishing for information and he’s just sort of taking it upon himself to decide that, you know, is this like as if Pool isn’t aware of what’s right and what’s not right? It’s almost like he’s trying to get Pool in trouble. And I’m not saying that that’s what he’s doing, but when he says, you know, is that right? You know, when Dr. Jekyll isn’t home for this guy to be able to just come and go as he pleases?

[00:33:41] Pool has been this guy’s servant for God knows how long. It says he’s elderly. So he’s been this guy’s servant forever. I’m sure, I’m sure that he knows very well what’s acceptable to his master and what isn’t. For you to come in and be like, you know, are you aware that this is happening? You know, like what the. Are you serious?

[00:34:02] Yes. He knows what’s happening. Of course he knows what’s happening. He is a servant in that man’s house. He knows everything that is going on.

[00:34:10] He’s not a.

[00:34:13] Is that okay for him to just go around like that? Like as if he’s telling Pool something he doesn’t know? Do you expect Pool to be like, my God, you’re right. This shouldn’t be happening. I should do something.

[00:34:23] I mean, shut up, man.

[00:34:27] He’s just fishing for information. He’s trying to find out how deeply embedded like, Mr. Hyde is in this household. And like, I just, I hate people like this. I cannot stand them, cannot stand them. It is such.

[00:34:42] And you know, pool does not deserve this. Pool is the greatest character alive as far as hurt for no reason whatsoever that anyone’s gonna understand but me. But I love pool. And it just really, really bugs me that he had the nerve to pull that nonsense. Is that really okay? Do you think that’s okay for this to be happening?

[00:35:06] You know what? Just go home and go to bed with your paranoid self.

[00:35:13] So when after that he leaves, after he’s fished for information with his nosy self and gotten all the information he needs, he walks back home. And on his way back home, he’s now even more convinced that this is a blackmail situation.

[00:35:33] Was blackmail like super common in this time period? Was blackmail like the end all be all of how good men, you know, went down kind of like, you know, quicksand in the 80s?

[00:35:49] Like, was blackmail the thing? Because that is the first thing that everyone has thought of and said it must be blackmail.

[00:35:58] So he says, you know, Jekyll was always wild when he was young, a long while ago to be sure, but in the law of God, there is no statute of limitations.

[00:36:12] It must be that the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace.

[00:36:20] So, okay, he was a little wild when he was younger and you know, there’s no statute of limitations on things that you may have done when you were younger.

[00:36:31] And he puts it in this really interesting way that I kind of liked. It was.

[00:36:40] It was something like that you, you come to terms with things that you have done in your past that because you have self love, there it is years after memory has forgotten.

[00:37:01] It must be some. Some concealed disgrace, a punishment in coming years after memory has forgotten and self love condoned the fault.

[00:37:11] And I kind of like the way that’s put that everybody does things in their past that they may regret or that they shouldn’t have done or that are not so good and that you either forget or you come to sort of forgive yourself for those mistakes or those indiscretions.

[00:37:37] You self love condones the fault that you accept that you have faults and you accept that you were this person in the past, but you’re not that person now, and therefore you can let those things go.

[00:37:51] I like the way that that’s put.

[00:37:54] And he starts thinking about his own past. And he says his own past was fairly blameless.

[00:38:01] Few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension. Yet he was humbled to the dust by many ill things he had done and raised up again into a sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to not doing, so near to doing, yet avoided.

[00:38:26] So I. Again, we’re getting this impression of Utterson, and I like that he can say his life has been fairly, you know, it hasn’t been full of a lot of mistakes and he hasn’t done bad things and that he doesn’t have a lot of apprehension when he thinks back on his life. But when he does think back on his youth and his. His past, think there are things in there that he does recall as being maybe problematic things and even more things that he maybe almost did but didn’t do that he’s glad that he’s aware of and remembers those close calls or whatever of things of decisions that he might have made and didn’t.

[00:39:16] So he’s really reflecting on his life in that regard. Right.

[00:39:25] He’s really thinking about, you know, the fact that there are things that can haunt us, right, in our past. And that when those things come back, they can have a hold on us. And that maybe something in Jekyll’s past, when he was kind of wild in his youth, is being held over him by Mr. Hyde. And that it’s something that Utterson can understand because, you know, we all have things that we regret or have done. And there’s no statute of limitations. This ghost of some old sin, that must be something that’s being held over him. And I. I like that he can reflect on that and say, you know, I’ve got quite a few things, you know, in my past. Not a lot, but there’s definitely a few things that, you know, I. I have regrets about. And so he can kind of understand where Jekyll would be willing to make this will and. And succumb to this blackmail to protect himself. So I like that Utterson has that much understanding that he’s willing to look at himself and not just be like, oh, my God, Jekyll’s a fool, or, oh, my God, you know, why is this happening? But, like, he’s saying, like, I understand how this could happen. And we all have things that. That are probably dark in our past. And here’s this guy holding this one over on Jekyll, and I have to do something to help him. It’s not fair and it’s not right. And, you know, that I appreciate. That’s again, something that I like about Utterson. He’s a true friend in that regard. That he’s willing to go through all this shady, you know, the friend that helps you bury the bodies kind of thing. That’s not Utterson. But I’m saying like, that. That friend that will go through those lengths for you, that will, you know, stand up for you and, you know, stand between the bully and you and, you know, really have a clear understanding of whatever might be going on with you by even looking into themselves and saying, this could happen to me as well. Like, I could also be someone who’s got a secret or a sin in my past that that has been uncovered, or someone is holding over me. And I would hate for that to happen. And therefore I hate to see that happen to Jekyll. That’s what I. Something I like about him.

[00:41:51] And I think that that’s important to recognize that he’s able to see in himself also the. The. The capability of fault, of having faults and having made mistakes and understanding that his friend could have done something that would, you know, result in this act of Hyde being a power over him.

[00:42:19] So the chapter ends with him kind of saying, I must put my shoulders to the wheel if. If Jekyll will let me.

[00:42:32] And that really stood out to me. He says it twice. He’s like, I must put my shoulders to the wheel if Jekyll will but let me. If Jekyll will only let me.

[00:42:43] So he really wants to help his friend.

[00:42:48] And he. And he. He’s just like, if he’ll let me help him, I want to help him. I want to put forth all this energy to help my friend.

[00:42:58] That is why I like Utterson, even though I don’t approve of the way he’s going about things. I love his attitude. I love how much he cares for Henry enough to be going around talking to people, trying to find things out, Going to his house in the middle of the night, stalking, you know, the streets until he finds Hyde, and doing shady things to get answers, to get information, to find out as much as he can so he can be armed with information when he goes to Jekyll to say, hey, I understand what’s going on. Let me help you with this.

[00:43:34] I like that about him. And that’s what makes him such an interesting person to be carrying this story.

[00:43:42] You know, in the end, it’s just about a guy who really cares about someone and wants to help that someone.

[00:43:52] And is willing to go through all these different things to make sure he can do right by that person. I think that’s such a great character. And I just don’t understand why you would leave him out of any telling of this story. That’s not true. I know why. Because people read this and all they care about is the last chapter. All they care about. They’re like me, maybe, in this regard where I look at the. The woman in Stargate, and I’m like, I’m interested in her life. I’m gonna write a whole book about Catherine’s life and everything that she had to do to keep that Stargate and her father’s legacy, you know, in her control.

[00:44:32] And, you know, someone might read that book and be like, who the hell would write a book about this woman? Right. I get that. I. I think that that’s all what this is in my mind. I think that people are taking the things that they like the most, the things that resonate with them the most, and then they make those into movies or they make those into TV series and forget everything else. Like, they could read the book and they just. They’re not interested in Utterson. They’re interested in Jekyll. They’re interested in Hyde. They’re interested in what it’s like to live that life and have that dual, you know, existence in the world and how fascinating that must be and all that. And that’s what they want to explore. And as an artist, writer, director, that is totally your right.

[00:45:16] I am not interested in any of that. So it doesn’t appeal to me. What appeals to me are the little bits and pieces that make the story more, like, compelling.

[00:45:36] I’m interested because Utterson is doing all of this because he cares about his friend.

[00:45:48] There’s a mystery that he wants to solve. There’s something happening that he feels is unjust and unfair to someone he cares about. And he wants desperately to get to the bottom of it.

[00:46:01] That is something I can relate to. That is something I can feel right and be motivated by Jekyll’s perspective of the world, his disgust with people and society and rules and conformity and restrictions.

[00:46:29] I get it.

[00:46:31] I just don’t agree.

[00:46:33] And I.

[00:46:35] Because I don’t necessarily agree, it doesn’t motivate me. That’s not my primary interest.

[00:46:42] I think that people who are primarily interested in the psychological study of right would be very interested in this book.

[00:46:53] And I think that’s partly the purpose of why this book is written. To sort of stir up discussions of soul and good and evil and like all of the psychological sort of spiritual aspects of that, I get that that’s what this is supposed to be.

[00:47:17] If you’re beyond that, if you’re past that, if you have already resolved yourself to how you feel about a person’s role in the world or whatever, I don’t know that that’s as a compelling argument and certainly not in modern times. Right back then, this would have been sort of mind blowing.

[00:47:39] But nowadays I don’t think that this question and dilemma and equation that Henry is trying to solve is as interesting.

[00:47:51] So for me, this book is, you know, because I already know about Jekyll and Hyde. Before I read the book, I had less of an interest in finding out about Jekyll and Hyde.

[00:48:07] When I finally got to the end and found out how we got to Jekyll and Hyde, I was less interested in that perspective.

[00:48:17] The how we, how we figure it out was more interesting to me.

[00:48:23] Who figured out Jekyll and Hyde? How did they come to understand what, that, you know, who Jekyll and Hyde were? How, how did they solve that mystery at a time where the idea of Jekyll and Hyde was completely inconceivable that I’m interested in. How did we get there? Who figured out this mystery?

[00:48:46] How did we put the pieces together to determine it?

[00:48:52] That was what made me sort of fascinated when I, when I picked this up. How did we get there? But I think most people who make movies and TV series, they don’t care about the mystery.

[00:49:04] They care about one character in the book and they want to make the whole book about that character, the whole movie about that character. Like Dracula. They want to make Dracula about Dracula. I don’t care about Dracula. I care about Dracula in the sense that nobody seems to appreciate how much of a genius real estate agent Dracula was. But like, and how long Dracula’s plan was and what a long con he was he was planning. No one cares about that. They only care about the fact that he’s a vampire and that he was a conqueror and that he wanted to bite women or whatever else, right? They don’t, they don’t care about the intrigue of who Dracula was. They want to give him all of these extra lives and reincarnate his wives and all this nonsense. They’re, they’re, they’re fixated on the one character in the book, not all of the other characters that make the book the book. The book is not the book because of Dracula. The book is the book because of a handful of People whose perspectives and letters are making the story. As long as it is the story is the perspectives of all of these people. How can you make a movie where none of these people are involved. Except for the people that you think are necessary to propel the story forward?

[00:50:25] I just don’t get it. You need all of the people to tell the story. You can’t just cut out the ones you don’t like and then say, let’s make it about Dracula. Who doesn’t even have a perspective in the story. That’s your perspective that you’re putting in.

[00:50:38] If I was writing this or writing my version of this. I would probably make it from the perspective of the person I think that’s. That it would be most interesting to tell the story from. And that would be Pool, maybe Utterson also, because I think his perspective is interesting. Writing a book from the perspective of Dr. Jekyll. Who cares?

[00:51:01] The dude ain’t. Well, he’s not right in the head, okay? I’m not saying he doesn’t have some fascinating ideas. But I don’t care about the crazy guy.

[00:51:12] I don’t care about the guy who’s willing to go through all these lengths, right? I don’t care about his twisted perception of himself in the world. I’m not interested in that.

[00:51:24] That’s everybody I’ve ever met in the United States of America. That has a completely twisted perception of their place in the world. And how the world sucks. And how they want to be able to do things that they can’t do because of rules and God forbid. And I want to be able to. To do awful, terrible things. And still be able to walk through life. That is the most boring persp.

[00:51:48] In the world to me.

[00:51:50] I’m not interested in that. That is the last thing I care about. I’m interested in the people who are inhabiting the world that that lunatic lives in. And how they navigate the circumstances of that life with that dark force in it. That is what I liked about Jekyll and Hyde. And that is what I loved about Dracula.

[00:52:14] It is the wake of these awful people. And how these awful people affect the lives of everybody around them that interests me.

[00:52:25] Because that is something I absolutely, positively can relate to and understand.

[00:52:33] That’s what draws me to this and that’s what I like about this.

[00:52:37] And I love Utterson because he’s a good friend. He’s a good man, despite the shady tactics. He’s a good man and a good friend.

[00:52:47] And I wish more people saw him that way.

[00:52:53] I wish more people Cared about the person who’s telling the story and why it’s them.

[00:53:03] If Robert Louis Stevenson wanted to write about nothing but Jekyll, he could have written the book as a first person narrative.

[00:53:11] I love the fact that it’s not written that way.

[00:53:16] I love the fact that it’s just this kind of side character, right, who.

[00:53:28] His life has been disrupted in this way.

[00:53:32] His life has been disrupted by this craziness, this crazy weirdness.

[00:53:39] And how does his ordinary life. How does everybody’s ordinary life, including those in Dracula, get disrupted by this evil and this negativity and this desire to, you know, disrupt right. The. The laws of the world and the laws of society?

[00:54:02] I hope that I’m able to get across that this story as written has its own kind of merits and that I think people, or wish people would recognize and appreciate that if you took Jekyll and Hyde out of your brain, like the person Jekyll and the person Hyde and just kind of muted them a little bit and focused instead on how we got there, that it could be just as interesting to you. If you cared about the story as a whole and not just cared about the person that all of these writers and directors seem to be so fascinated by. I don’t see what is fascinating about Jekyll at all. He seems to be so boring to me. He seems like all of these people that are in the process right now of destroying the world we live in.

[00:55:04] I just don’t care.

[00:55:07] I care about people like Poole who are surviving in households run by these people who are trying to do their best jobs and be good servants and be loyal and survive in a world made into a hell by one person with some twisted idea.

[00:55:29] I am interested in people like Utterson who are just trying to do right by the people they care about.

[00:55:39] That’s this book right here.

[00:55:43] So chapter three is called Dr. Jekyll was quite At Ease. And if I recall, I really liked this chapter. This is a super short chapter. I think it’s one, two, three, three and a quarter pages. It is not long.

[00:56:07] But I really did like this chapter. And for very similar reasons that I just finished saying about Utterson.

[00:56:15] It just gives us a great feel of these characters. And we finally, finally get to hear Jekyll’s a line from Dr. Jekyll himself. We get to actually meet him as a person.

[00:56:33] That’s kind of an interesting kind of meeting.

[00:56:39] So I feel like there’s a part of me that’s a little worried. I’m giving a weird impression of how I feel about this book and how I feel about people who have interpreted the book. And I don’t want to do that.

[00:56:59] Everyone is entitled to, you know, their, you know, media is subjective. Media is what it means to you. Media is what you put into it from your personality, your bias, your. Your traumas and your understandings of the world get, you know, get put into what you watch and read.

[00:57:18] So I’m not. I’m not trying to put anybody down who thinks that Jekyll is a fascinating character or that, you know, his perspective is worth exploring. I’m not saying that it’s not the way I move through the world. And the way I have moved through the world in my life has been navigating people like this. People who feel that the rules shouldn’t apply to them. People who feel that the world would be better if.

[00:57:54] And that they want to be able to be whatever they feel they want to be and do whatever they want to do to whomever they want to do it to. Outside of all of these rules that say or dictate what a good, decent person is, those people are the people who systemically destroy the world and make the world a more difficult place for everybody to live in.

[00:58:23] And you see this play out every day on social media. People who don’t think the rules should apply to them and think that they should have every freedom and think that they should be able to explore themselves in ways that are detrimental to other people.

[00:58:38] And I don’t agree with that. And I think that everybody who’s a victim of people like this should have more of a voice to say what their perspective of living in a world like that is.

[00:59:01] So I think that depending on the type of person you are and depending on the kind of life you’ve lived, certain things are going to appeal to you differently. Certain things are going to turn you off, certain things are going to turn you on.

[00:59:14] And while I do agree that when I got to the end of this book, I was very kind of surprised to sort of come to understand Jekyll’s perspective reading his journal at the end of the book, it didn’t change my opinion of, you know, what I thought.

[00:59:41] I think everyone’s perspective is valid. And I think that, you know, everyone is going to have a different take on books based on who they are as people and the kind of lives that they’ve lived. And I don’t think that that invalidates anyone’s any book or any story or any book. I think that media is subjective.

[01:00:02] So if you’re a victim of horrible people. I don’t think that you’re going to find the perspective of horrible people interesting.

[01:00:10] And that’s kind of how I see it. I see Jekyll as kind of a horrible person and I understand why. I understand everything about.

[01:00:23] I think I understand where he’s coming from. And I It’s laid out plain and clear. I. I don’t think that it’s really subject to too much interpretation, though I think people are still interpreting it to this day. I don’t know why.

[01:00:37] It seems very clear to me, but I just don’t think it’s terribly interesting and I don’t see how it’s beneficial to spend a lot of time examining it. I think if you look out the window and turn on the news, I think you can very well see the examples of how such perspectives end up changing people’s lives in horrible ways.

[01:01:04] So we don’t need to talk about it.

[01:01:06] I want to talk about people like Utterson. I want to talk about people like Dr. Lanyon. I want to talk about people like Poole in this book because I don’t think that they’ve ever gotten enough credit for existing as characters.

[01:01:25] And they should because they’re very interesting people and good people.

[01:01:30] So I hope that I’m able to get that across and I hope that you guys look forward to more of my discussions about this great book.

[01:01:42] So thank you very much for hanging in for all of this and continuing to take an interest in it. And I will see you next week for the super, super short third chapter of strains case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde end of part two.

[01:02:06] Thanks for listening to my discussion of chapter two of the strange case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

[01:02:15] Coming up is one of my favorite chapters in the book, chapter three. Dr. Jekyll was quite at ease. You really get to see the relationship between Utterson and Jekyll and you get to hear from Jekyll, who is a rare voice in the story. As usual, I’m up in arms again about why men interpret this book the way they do and why no one seems to like this book as it is written. Utterson as a character deserves so much better than erasure in every adaptation. I hope you’ll continue to enjoy the rest of my podcast and thanks so much for your interest and support.