Jekyll and Hyde – Chapter 4 (Part 2)

[00:00:04] You’Re listening to. Elaine is reading the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, episode eight, chapter four, part two.

Thanks for coming back for more of this madness. This is a continuation of my discussion of chapter four, the Carew murder case.

So much about the story has changed. This must have been where Stevenson’s wife had burned his manuscript because the whole tone and writing style is different.

The most poignant part of this story so far for me has been this chapter. It felt so now, especially when talking about how the police behave and how the mob delights in other people’s misfortune. It’s giving social media, you know, okay.

[00:00:49] Let’S just say that I, I, I believe that. Let’s just say that I’m going to accept that Hyde is this person and.

[00:00:58] That all of a sudden he just.

[00:00:59] Snapped a year later.

I’m just going to pretend to go along with that.

[00:01:07] So the only witness to this is.

[00:01:09] The maid who they made a point of telling us has romantic notions.

[00:01:13] But okay, we have the body.

[00:01:16] The body doesn’t get described. The only thing that gets described is this mass of cruelty that the body is mangled and that it’s a thick, heavy wooden cane that’s actually broken in two.

So you have to then imagine the.

[00:01:33] Brutality of this crime.

[00:01:37] So Mr.

Sir Danvers Carew was the.

[00:01:44] Victim and he was carrying a sealed and stamped envelope which he had probably been carrying to the post that bore the name and address of Mr. Utterson.

So here’s how Utterson again comes into the story.

[00:01:59] Utterson is the person who I told.

[00:02:02] You is telling the story.

[00:02:05] Without Utterson we have no story.

[00:02:08] He is the main character.

[00:02:10] He’s driving the narrative forward which means he has to be involved in everything that goes.

[00:02:18] We are not getting the perspective of other people.

[00:02:21] We’re getting his perspective as someone who’s.

[00:02:24] Witness to these events.

[00:02:27] He is brought into this case because.

[00:02:30] Carew was carrying an envelope meant for Utterson.

[00:02:35] And I don’t think there’s anything else to that except that Utterson is a lawyer.

[00:02:41] He’s a very well known lawyer. He’s probably a lot of people’s lawyer.

[00:02:46] So this guy is another well to do gentleman. He is well known and his death.

[00:02:53] Is a big deal. It is a sensation in a sense because he is such a well known person.

[00:03:00] So Utterson is a lawyer to a.

[00:03:03] Lot of well known people.

So it’s not strange that this guy.

[00:03:07] Is carrying on his something on his.

[00:03:09] Way to put in the post for him.

But that’s how Utterson gets involved. So they go to see the lawyer the next day.

[00:03:16] They’re like, do you know this guy?

[00:03:18] He was carrying this, these papers for you.

[00:03:22] And the, the Scotland Yard detective tells him what happened. And Utterson’s like, I need to see the body first.

Okay?

So they show him the body and.

[00:03:36] He identifies the guy.

[00:03:37] He says, this is Sir Danvers Carew.

And I made a special note of.

[00:03:44] This in my mind.

Good God, sir.

[00:03:47] Exclaimed the officer. Is it possible?

[00:03:50] And then the next moment, his eye.

[00:03:52] Lighted up with professional ambition.

[00:03:57] This will make a great deal of noise, he said.

[00:04:03] So this again, these are these little.

[00:04:08] Bits that pop up, these bits about the society.

[00:04:11] Like right, about that first group of people, for example, who decided to blackmail Hyde because they knew they could get away with it.

The fact that the officer is sort of excited about this death, that he has professional ambition, this is going to.

[00:04:31] Be good for him.

[00:04:33] This is one of those lines that.

[00:04:35] Doesn’T need to be here.

[00:04:37] It could have just said, you know, good God, sir, is it possible this.

[00:04:42] Will make a great deal of noise?

[00:04:44] Meaning this is going to be a really, you know, well known situation. This is going to cause a lot of chaos, let’s say, because he’s so well known.

[00:04:55] But in there he adds, the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition.

[00:04:59] So he’s telling you something about this detective. He’s telling you that the detective sees.

[00:05:06] This man’s death as an opportunity of some kind.

Right?

[00:05:13] That’s an important sentence that he’s telling you. He’s telling you who these people are. He’s telling you who these Londoners are by giving you this information.

So the guy, the detective takes Utterson and he’s like, you know.

[00:05:40] Can you show us?

[00:05:42] Well, he says, basically like, is this.

[00:05:45] Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?

[00:05:48] Utterson asks. And he’s like, yes, particularly small and.

[00:05:53] Particularly wicked looking is what the maid called him.

[00:05:57] So Mr. Utterson’s like, I think I.

[00:05:59] Can take you to his house.

[00:06:00] So Utterson, you know, heard the word.

[00:06:03] Name Hyde, but he needed to kind.

[00:06:04] Of confirm, you know, first and all.

[00:06:09] He says is, is he a person of small stature, particularly small and particularly wicked looking?

[00:06:16] Oh, that’s definitely him.

I’m surprised he didn’t say.

[00:06:20] And did he fill you with an.

[00:06:22] You know, an immediate sense of disgust?

Like, this is the description of our.

[00:06:28] Of our assailant who murdered him.

[00:06:30] A small guy who really pissed me off because he looked disgusting and he made me feel gross.

Right. This is our description of our assailants now.

So he knows that this is the hide that he’s been, you know, he knows about. And he says, I think I can.

[00:06:49] Take you to his house.

The other thing that’s unique about this chapter is there’s a lot of description in this chapter.

[00:06:56] And this book doesn’t have a lot of description, like you know, the Tolkien kind of description where, you know, a tree is described for six pages or like a king kind of description.

[00:07:08] There’s not a lot of that in here.

[00:07:10] There’s been a couple of descriptions of.

[00:07:16] Like let’s say a street, like a city street, but only in service to creating the mood. It’s not big on description.

[00:07:25] Jekyll and Hyde is mostly a lot of dialogue between people, but there’s not.

[00:07:31] A lot of time spent on describing.

[00:07:33] The buildings or, you know, the sun or the, the way that the sun hits the cobblestones and things like that. That’s, that’s not this, it’s not this kind of story. There’s, it’s just very quick.

But there’s a ton of description here.

There’s almost, I want to say two pages, you know, from the bottom of.

[00:07:59] One page to like the middle of the next. I would say there’s approximately two pages of full on description. No dialogue, no talking, no nothing about the way that Utterson sees the city.

[00:08:13] As he’s in the carriage, you know, with the, the detective going to Hyde’s house.

[00:08:21] It is very, very specific.

[00:08:25] It is very specifically talking about his, the way that the, the lighting, it looks, it’s like in between, you know, it’s very early in the morning. So some areas of the city are.

[00:08:44] Sort of bathed in darkness and the.

[00:08:46] Sun is kind of up in another area. And some areas are bright, some areas are kind of in between. They’re like a little dim. And then as you move forward, you move forward into, you know, the sunlight coming down.

So there’s all of these descriptions here.

[00:09:04] To sort of give us a sense.

[00:09:06] Of his mood as he’s moving through the city. And it’s deliberate because it’s sort of taking us from where he lives to where Hyde lives and how.

[00:09:25] Gloomy it’s.

[00:09:28] Getting like from some areas that are split between light and dark to this area that’s entirely bathed in darkness, either because, you know, the sun doesn’t hit.

[00:09:40] That area of the city because the buildings are too tall or whatever the reason is.

[00:09:46] And this, this sort of struck me.

[00:09:54] The dismal quarter of Soho seen under.

[00:09:57] These changing glimpses with its muddy ways and Slatternly passengers and its lamps, which.

[00:10:06] Had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful re.

[00:10:11] Invasion of darkness.

[00:10:14] Seemed in the lawyer’s eyes like a district of some city in a nightmare.

The thoughts of his mind, besides were of the gloomiest dye.

And when he glanced at the companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of terror of the law and the law’s officers, which may at times assail the most honest.

I read this very differently, I think, as.

[00:10:51] A modern reader of this story.

And I’ll go so far as to say a modern black reader of this.

For some reason, this kind of jumped out at me.

Basically what this is describing is.

[00:11:21] Like something terrible has happened, okay?

[00:11:24] Someone has been murdered in an absolutely brutal way.

And the detective who we have been told sees this murder in a way that can, let’s say, advance his career, right?

[00:11:41] This is going to be one of those cases that’s going to advance somebody’s career.

[00:11:46] This professional ambition, this gleam of professional ambition in his eye.

They’re now going through the city and we’re getting our first kind of real.

[00:11:58] Description of the city being kind of.

[00:12:01] Divided between light and dark.

[00:12:05] And as they’re going closer towards where Hyde’s home is, Utterson is saying that.

[00:12:15] He’S conscious of a touch of the.

[00:12:22] Terror of the law and the law’s.

[00:12:24] Officers, which may at times assail the most honest.

Like I’m having a hard time putting.

[00:12:38] This into words.

[00:12:42] But it’s. It’s like, you know.

[00:12:51] That the officer.

[00:12:55] Has an agenda.

[00:13:01] Right? The officer has power.

[00:13:05] And they know who did it.

They are certain who did it.

And as they’re.

They’re moving towards the destination of where Hyde lives, where the perpetrator is.

And we know that this officer sees this as an opportunity to kind of advance his career. And Utterson, as a lawyer also has.

[00:13:37] An understanding of this.

This terror of the law and the law’s officers.

[00:13:46] He was conscious of some touch of.

[00:13:49] Terror of the law and the law’s officers, which may at times assail the most honest.

[00:13:58] I don’t know if someone better can.

[00:14:01] Put this into words, but there’s something.

[00:14:03] Very modern day about that terror of law.

[00:14:12] Do you get what I’m saying?

[00:14:15] Like even Utterson kind of knows what their intention is, right?

[00:14:27] The terror of the law and the law’s officers.

[00:14:33] That is really poignant.

And it really jumped out at me.

[00:14:40] And then it was sort of even.

[00:14:41] More solidified when they kind of described where Hyde lives.

It’s a Dingy street.

[00:14:57] That has all these different places.

[00:14:59] A gin palace, a low French eating.

[00:15:02] House, a shop for the retail of.

[00:15:05] Penny numbers and tuppenny salads.

[00:15:09] Many ragged children huddled in the doorways.

[00:15:13] And many women of many different nationalities passing out, key in hand to have a morning glass.

So am I wrong in thinking that he kind of lives like in a low status.

[00:15:41] Kind of ghetto?

[00:15:44] Is that, is that what I’m.

Is that what’s being described here? Like, you know, a poor neighborhood?

Like, again, this is something that I think reads differently for someone who is.

[00:16:15] Not white.

[00:16:17] I don’t know how else to put this, and you may think I’m reaching in a sense, but when I’m saying this, but I feel like this is really.

I was really taken out of this for a minute.

[00:16:35] Like all of a sudden I felt.

[00:16:36] Like I was reading something modern.

I was reading some understanding of police and their ambitions and their single mindedness about how to uphold the law in.

[00:17:02] Certain kinds of neighborhoods.

[00:17:06] And that even Utterson is conscious of some touch of terror of the law.

[00:17:14] And the law’s officers.

[00:17:19] Which may at.

[00:17:20] Times assail the most honest.

[00:17:24] So even he knows that there’s a little bright, like kind of ambition and corrupt nature of the law and the.

[00:17:41] Law’S officers that only someone who’s kind of honest can necessarily be willing to admit that they see.

Do you get what I’m saying?

[00:17:52] This is rough.

[00:17:53] This is hard to explain. I’m terrible with words and I’m even.

[00:17:57] Terrible at, you know, explaining where my.

[00:18:01] Brain is going sometimes.

[00:18:02] But this took me out for a minute.

[00:18:05] This took me out of.

This is an old book and it felt like a new book.

[00:18:09] It felt like.

Do you know what I’m saying, Corey?

Am I making any sense in what I’m trying to say?

[00:18:23] Right.

[00:18:27] The governing of this area?

[00:18:29] Yes. Right.

[00:18:30] And like it’s told to us that the cop has like this ambitious.

[00:18:35] Right. It’s. You’re, you’re. You’re told there’s a reason why that.

[00:18:39] Line is written by Mr. Stevenson.

[00:18:42] He wrote this down.

[00:18:45] The officer got a gleam, right, of a professional ambition. And he’s like, ooh, this is going to be good, right? He’s telling us that there’s this corruption, that there’s this.

And even in this, the first time that we have this deep amount of description, it’s a description of darkness and.

[00:19:07] Light, of how some sections of the.

[00:19:13] City are like there was a way that it was kind of said that kind of.

That there’s some areas that are always Dark and then some areas that have touches of morning light.

And he’s.

[00:19:39] They’re passing between them on the way to Hyde’s house.

[00:19:43] And it’s, it’s really, it’s like super.

[00:19:49] Clear what is being said in this page. And it’s not something that I can.

[00:19:54] Explain well, but it really took me out of. Of this book and brought me into more of a modern understanding of modern law enforcement having their eye on a prize and sort of judging in their own way.

And.

[00:20:19] The black and white of it.

[00:20:21] Not literally or literally, depending on how you want to take this, the shrouds of darkness and being broken up by bits of light and then you move.

[00:20:33] Through those into darkness again.

[00:20:36] It’s speaking really strongly to me in a way that I can’t explain, but I think is very well portrayed, especially when we get to the location where Hyde lives.

So we learned that, you know, Hyde has a servant.

[00:21:02] One. One servant.

[00:21:04] And you know, they knock on the door and she opens it up and you know, they’re like, we want to see Mr. Hyde’s rooms. And she’s like, oh, no, right, you can’t do that. And Utterson says, this is Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard.

[00:21:22] A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman’s face.

[00:21:27] Ah, said she, he’s in trouble.

[00:21:30] What’s he done?

[00:21:32] So, like, this whole chapter is about people being excited that someone’s died. I mean, if you, if you look at it like that, right, there’s a sick amount of glee and excitement that someone has been brutally murdered and we know who it is. And there’s this gross level of like, you know, that sort of gladiator feel with the citizens, like excited to see someone die. Like there’s this sense of, oh, this is going to be good. And everybody, we’re being told that everybody has something that, where they’re invested in this, someone has died.

[00:22:17] And the only thing that we’re learning.

[00:22:19] Is, is that everybody’s excited about this, that this is going to be new gossip.

[00:22:24] This is going to be.

[00:22:25] This is going to make some noise.

[00:22:27] The officer says.

[00:22:28] And the, the woman who works for Hyde is like, oh, what’s he done? This is juicy, right?

[00:22:34] Odious Joy, right?

[00:22:37] Odious and joy, right? And doesn’t odious mean foul? Doesn’t that mean foul or distasteful or something like that? Doesn’t it. It’s an.

[00:22:50] It’s a negative word, right?

[00:22:53] Hateful, odious, deserving of hatred, hated, regarded with avarice and repugnance.

[00:23:00] So that’s such a wonderful description of the kind of sick glee that you.

[00:23:06] See, especially, let’s say, on social media.

The kind of gross mob mentality that people have when they pile on to something and anyone’s destruction or anyone’s, you know, at fault or an accident or a car crash or something horrendous that happens in. In the world. And everyone on social media is just.

[00:23:31] Getting in on it.

[00:23:32] And they’re like, the way that people share sick shit to each other as if it’s entertainment.

That’s odious joy. And I love that. That’s. That’s such a wonderful descriptive phrase. It is both disgusting and repugnant and joyful.

And it’s not like the. The.

The.

What’s that weird German word? The. Schrauden.

Schraudenfrade. Fradel shrouding.

You know what I mean? Where you get excitement when someone fails like you. You. You have this, like, where you think that they deserve whatever happened to them and you feel like they had it coming. And so you get a kind of sick.

[00:24:18] A kind of glee.

[00:24:20] It’s more. It’s worse than that.

[00:24:22] This is more like everybody sees an.

[00:24:24] Opportunity to gain something through this man’s death and there’s this happiness being described. There’s two things that are happening in this book, and I think that they’re.

[00:24:38] Summed up nicely in this one very descriptive passage about moving through areas of darkness and light.

At the beginning of this chapter, some.

[00:24:48] Guy was absolutely brutally murdered right in.

[00:24:53] Front of the window of a maid who.

[00:24:55] Who was sitting contemplating how beautiful the world was at that moment, right? And then she witnesses this absolutely brutal murder out of nowhere, in which now the cop is like, oh, this could be good for my career, right?

So there is all this darkness and light.

[00:25:20] There is all these.

[00:25:22] All of the sudden we’re getting all this information that we didn’t necessarily get before in such a blatant way where there’s a clear distinction between the good.

[00:25:35] People and the bad people.

And as much as Hyde is the.

[00:25:40] Bad people, the good people are also bad.

[00:25:45] Which I was saying at the beginning with these people who blackmailed him simply.

[00:25:49] Because they were so disgusted with him.

These people are not the good people.

[00:25:57] Right.

Jekyll, as much as he’s described as.

[00:26:00] A good person, is not the good person.

Utterson, however, is the one at the.

[00:26:08] Moment, the one character who is most honest and most himself.

[00:26:13] And not stepping in between all these.

[00:26:16] Areas of darkness and light, he’s being moved through them in this carriage.

[00:26:23] And the description suggests that moving through.

[00:26:27] These areas is giving him a sense.

[00:26:30] Of gloom and like the city is.

[00:26:34] Like a kind of nightmare. This is a city that he lives and works in, that he knows.

[00:26:38] But somehow in this particular moment, moving through it the way that he is.

[00:26:44] And seeing it in the way that he’s seeing it.

[00:26:48] As far as this woman witnessing a murder, this brutal murder of this well to do guy, this ambitious cop, and.

[00:26:58] So on and so forth.

[00:26:59] He’s seeing these moments of dark and.

[00:27:03] Light in these people.

[00:27:05] And that’s the. I think that’s. This is the first chapter where I feel there’s a clarification finally being made as far as what Stevenson is trying to say.

[00:27:17] I think this is the first time.

[00:27:19] That this has been made clear.

[00:27:23] The first time we’re getting a deep amount of Description.

[00:27:26] The first 26 pages of this book is like, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. It’s a lot of dialogue.

[00:27:32] But all of a sudden things are getting deep.

[00:27:34] And when I say deep, I mean.

[00:27:36] There’S multiple things going on.

[00:27:38] And he’s trying to give you multiple.

[00:27:42] Perspectives of how to interpret it for the first time.

[00:27:45] And it also feels like a lot.

[00:27:47] Of time has gone past. It almost feels like the writing is.

[00:27:50] A little different in this section too, because it feels different. It reads different. It reads wordier and more metaphoric than.

[00:28:02] Everything that came before it.

[00:28:04] So I don’t know what the circumstances, but it’s possible that maybe a lot.

[00:28:09] Of time had gone by as far.

[00:28:11] As how he was writing it or whatever. I don’t know. But this feels very different than everything else.

[00:28:18] At the end of the chapter, basically, they find that. They find that he tried to burn the other half of the cane that he took with him because they found.

[00:28:26] A piece where the body was that broke off. And they found a piece of it burned in the.

In Hyde’s fireplace.

[00:28:36] And Utterson also recognized the cane as a present that he had given Jekyll at some point in time.

[00:28:43] So they know that Hyde and Jekyll are acquainted and that, you know, he’s.

[00:28:47] Got Jekyll’s cane, he’s beating people with it.

[00:28:50] And the cop is very excited to have found, you know, the cane and everything. Because now he knows, like, okay, I’ve absolutely got this guy, that there’s no.

[00:29:00] Doubt that he totally did it. He left the evidence here, for the.

[00:29:03] Love of God, kind of thing.

We get this feeling that.

[00:29:10] All that’s.

[00:29:11] Left at this point, all the evidence is here, is to find, hide and.

[00:29:17] Arrest him, which is easier said than done.

[00:29:19] Because, you know, who is this guy? We still don’t really know anything about him.

[00:29:26] We don’t know if he has any family.

[00:29:28] All we know is that he’s associated with Jekyll, that He’s friends with Dr. Jekyll, but we don’t know how to find him. He’s not at home.

[00:29:35] Even though he left all the evidence.

[00:29:36] Of the murder at his home. It looks like the place has been ransacked and he’s looking for money or whatever. You know, he’s taking out money so.

[00:29:44] That maybe he can flee or whatever.

[00:29:45] But we just have to, you know, the cops, like, all we have to do is wait and find him and arrest him, which is going to be harder than it seems.

And it says that Mr. Hyde had.

[00:29:59] Numbered few familiars, so hardly anybody knows him. Even the master of the servant maid had only seen him twice.

[00:30:06] And, you know, the woman who answered.

[00:30:08] The door said she hadn’t seen him for months.

[00:30:12] You know, like that he.

[00:30:13] He barely comes around and that.

[00:30:15] I think she said it. It’s been something like four months since.

[00:30:18] She even saw him.

[00:30:20] So, you know, no one knows him.

[00:30:23] His family could nowhere be traced. He had never been photographed. And the few who could describe him differed widely as common observers will. Only on one point were they agreed. And that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed upon his beholders.

That’s the last line of that chapter, the unexpressed deformity.

[00:30:50] And again, because it’s unexpressed, it’s something.

[00:30:54] That can’t be described.

[00:30:55] That’s why I say. I think it’s more in an internal perception of deformity that you know when you see it because you look in the mirror every day and you have.

[00:31:07] To sit with yourself every day.

[00:31:09] So you know when someone is off because you know you’re off.

[00:31:13] That kind of unexpressed deformity.

This chapter is very different and it’s.

[00:31:20] Odd and I both love it and hate it because one, it doesn’t make any sense and it’s a year later and it seems like such a cop out.

[00:31:28] A year later he kills somebody and.

[00:31:31] It’S like, really, now we’re gonna get on with the story kind of thing. I don’t like that in regular books, but I just think that it feels like there’s something missing. So somehow it feels like there was more and all of a sudden they just skip ahead.

I don’t know, it just feels weird. But at the same time, it’s also the most powerful Chapter as far as the imagery and the feeling that is.

[00:31:56] Very clearly coming across that the author wants to get across this juxtaposition of.

[00:32:05] The ugly, the grotesque, the brutal, the beautiful, the romantic, the odious joy of it. All right. It’s so clear in this chapter and it’s really.

[00:32:22] It really takes an interesting turn.

[00:32:24] It makes the book seem suddenly more.

[00:32:30] Interesting and more in depth and than.

[00:32:32] Just the story of this guy wandering around trying to get information.

So I really liked it for that reason, but I also didn’t like it.

[00:32:44] Because it didn’t make any sense.

[00:32:46] It felt like all of the sudden.

[00:32:50] This chapter comes out of nowhere and.

[00:32:52] It’S like, oh, we just want to get on with the story.

[00:32:55] There wasn’t enough build up for me.

[00:32:57] There wasn’t enough, you know, there wasn’t enough evidence to give me any kind of feel of anything that.

That comes out in this chapter.

[00:33:12] It doesn’t make sense.

[00:33:13] It feels like all of a sudden, right.

And that to me just feels false, it feels fake, it feels just sort of dropped in your lap just to kind of get the story moving forward, that kind of feeling. So I. I didn’t like this chapter as much, but I think the story.

[00:33:32] Is getting more serious.

[00:33:34] I think that there’s something in there.

[00:33:37] That the author is trying to pull.

[00:33:38] Out and that the author is trying to say.

[00:33:41] And this is the first time that.

[00:33:42] I feel I’ve really started to hear.

[00:33:44] What the author is trying to say.

[00:33:47] So there’s that, you know, not the odious joy, but I love it and I dislike it at the same time kind of thing. So I feel like I just. I couldn’t really get what I wanted to say.

I hope that people kind of can.

[00:34:11] Get a feel for what I’m trying.

[00:34:13] To suggest in this chapter that’s happening, especially when you look at it in a modern lens.

And honestly, with everything that’s been going on lately in the news and everything.

[00:34:26] And with like social media and the Olympics and the mob mentality, that’s definitely first and foremost on my mind, certainly.

[00:34:34] But it was so well reflected weirdly in this chapter. And I don’t think that I’m putting.

[00:34:41] That into the chapter. I think that the chapter reminds me.

[00:34:45] That this stuff is not new.

This judgment of people, of how they look, this mob mentality of everybody taking great pleasure in seeing other people in pain and kind of seeing tragedy as entertainment, that has never changed. That’s what it’s telling me. Like it’s. Even though this book is old, that has not changed. We are still doing that now. We are still making those judgments and we’re still taking odious joy in other people’s failings or tragedies, or we’re still, you know, having that gleam of ambition, you know, sharing some horrible thing on.

[00:35:37] Social media to get a lot of.

[00:35:38] Likes and to get a lot of it, you know, a lot of traffic to our feeds or whatever. Like, it’s.

[00:35:45] It’s the same kind of thing.

[00:35:46] And it was. It really took me out when I. When reading that. It was like. Oh, like it felt like now. Like it was so.

[00:35:56] It was weird.

[00:35:56] It was really powerful and also sort of depressing if you think about it, that people are. Have not learned and haven’t changed in any way. And that there’s still.

[00:36:10] These two sides to society that exist at the same time.

[00:36:14] Right? And you move through them just as easily as Utterson’s carriage moves between, you know, areas that feel like they’re still.

[00:36:23] Trapped in the evening, in areas that.

[00:36:26] Are just newly being lit up by the sun, you know, and anything that’s in between, that’s half and half. Like, I feel like that would be.

[00:36:35] Such a powerful.

[00:36:38] Visual if someone was.

[00:36:40] Making, like, a film of that moment.

[00:36:42] Of him in the, you know, the carriage and as the carriage is going.

[00:36:49] Through the streets and his.

[00:36:50] His face is sometimes bathed in half darkness or half light, depending on where.

[00:36:55] He’S going in the city.

[00:36:56] And he’s thinking about all of these different things that, you know, the.

The romantic maid who. Who is daydreaming about all the goodness.

[00:37:08] In the world and then witnessing this brutal murder.

[00:37:11] And, you know, that. That would, I think, could be really powerfully portrayed on screen, you know, showing though that moment and him thinking of.

[00:37:22] It and turning and looking at that.

[00:37:23] Cop and kind of seeing that.

[00:37:26] That ambitious gleam in his eye as.

[00:37:29] He’S going, you know, to the house.

[00:37:31] Of the suspect because he. He wants to boost his career and.

[00:37:35] Kind of seeing that, you know, also through these flickers of light and dark. I think that would be really powerful if someone, you know, did it that way and showcased it, I think, in the way that Stevenson was trying to write it.

So I apologize for not really being able to succinctly, you know, explain.

But I think that people who are way more literary than me and have a lot more.

[00:38:03] More words to use and have a.

[00:38:05] Better way of articulating themselves, I think will kind of get what I’m trying to suggest or how I understood this chapter as a modern reader.

[00:38:18] The next.

Let me see the next Chapter is Instant of the Letter.

[00:38:29] And I feel like I don’t. I don’t remember this as well.

[00:38:37] Let me just quickly.

[00:38:45] Okay, yeah. All right.

[00:38:48] Now I remember. So this. This.

[00:38:50] I think, like this. The book just kind of goes off the rails. You know, once Stevenson has decided to murder somebody, then it gets.

[00:38:59] It starts to get going.

[00:39:00] Like, it starts to really ramp up. And everything now is like, okay, this guy Hyde is absolutely a crazy murderer, and we got to catch him. And this is when things start getting weird and weird and weird.

[00:39:16] The next three chapters are incident of.

[00:39:19] The letter, incident of Dr. Lanyon, and incident at the Window.

So there are these, like, sort of.

[00:39:26] One off moments, one right after the.

[00:39:29] Other, where it builds this new tension.

[00:39:33] And this new sense of absolute bonkers.

[00:39:36] Weirdness that really sucks you in at.

[00:39:39] This point in the story.

[00:39:40] So it’s getting.

It’s getting good. It was always good. But I’m saying now things are really happening and things start really taking off.

[00:39:50] With all of these incidents going forward.

[00:39:52] So I’m looking forward to getting into. Especially the thing with Dr. Lanyon, which really, really mauled me when I first read this.

[00:40:03] It stuck with me for a while.

[00:40:05] And it just, you know, it really grabbed hold in here.

And I’m looking forward to trying to articulate how that made me feel and why that gravitated, why that sort of stuck in my mind when it happened. It’s not something that I’ve kind of gotten into before, but I think that when I talk about it, hopefully I’ll be able to express it a little.

[00:40:32] Better than I express things today.

So thank you for tuning in and.

[00:40:36] Checking out this new episode and for.

[00:40:40] Listening to other ones.

[00:40:41] I really appreciate all of your time.

[00:40:42] And all of your interest, and I.

[00:40:44] Hope you’re looking forward to the next.

[00:40:46] Chapters as much as I am.

See you then.

[00:40:52] End of part two. Thanks for listening to my discussion of chapter four of the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Coming up is chapter five, the Incident of the Letter Y. And I’ll be honest with you, this is one of the chapters that I kind of wish Stevenson’s wife had permanently destroyed. It’s the most contrived, forced, and lazy chapter of the whole book. Thanks again for your interest and your support of my podcast.