{"id":1765,"date":"2018-02-27T11:59:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T16:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/?p=1765"},"modified":"2018-02-27T12:08:06","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T17:08:06","slug":"mr-hyde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/mr-hyde\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Hyde"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde<\/em><\/a>\u00a0has been adapted for movies, television and comics so many times that many people who haven’t read Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella feel as if they have. After all, Mr. Hyde is firmly embedded in literature and pop culture as a fiend as recognizable as Frankenstein\u2019s monster.<\/p>\n

Hyde has evolved considerably in 20th<\/sup>\u00a0and 21st<\/sup>\u00a0Centuries. To most modern moviegoers, he is the Victorian progenitor of The Hulk: a powerful, violent, unrestrained incarnation of pure id. And to fans of Steven Moffat\u2019s BBC miniseries\u00a0Jekyll<\/em><\/a>, Hyde is a sexy, sociopathic Superman. The modern Hyde is a fiend of monstrous proportion, perhaps not physically, but he\u2019s certainly no Gollum-like dwarf.<\/p>\n

Except, in the original text, he\u2019s exactly that:<\/p>\n

Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice \u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hyde\u2019s youth and tiny physical stature \u2013 he\u2019s so small he\u2019s swimming in Jekyll\u2019s clothes after his transformation \u2013 is a surprise to new readers. And so is Hyde\u2019s demeanor, since he has none of the wicked charisma that Moffat and other filmmakers have imbued him with on screen. Other characters find Hyde utterly repellent; he\u2019s as dangerous as a rabid sewer rat, and the only person in the whole of London he seems capable of seducing is Dr. Jekyll.<\/p>\n

Hyde\u2019s characterization makes perfect sense from a metaphoric standpoint. Hyde is small because the evil in Dr. Jekyll is initially just a small part of his personality, and he\u2019s young because the exploration of wickedness that he represents is a new experience to the handsome, upstanding doctor.<\/p>\n

So, the metaphor is solid, and it\u2019s intuitive, and Hyde is certainly a memorable and durable character, even if he\u2019s been considerably glamorized over the years. But he represents a trope that I find distasteful as a reader and a writer: the use of physical deformity and ugliness to signify evil and moral turpitude. That particular trope is both creakingly ancient and presents a toxic mix of ableism and victim-blaming (if you\u2019ve been disfigured, it means you must have done something bad to deserve it.)<\/p>\n

I deal with the nature of evil quite a lot in my own work, and I\u2019m trying to be mindful to not inadvertently use that trope, at least not when it comes to human characters. After all, the idea that we could somehow recognize the rapists and murderers among us because they have misshapen features is a comforting lie. The people who\u2019ve done the most harm to the rest of humanity have often had great hair and the brightest smiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde\u00a0has been adapted for movies, television and comics so many times that many people who haven’t read […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[92,119,9],"class_list":["post-1765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-characterization","tag-gothic","tag-horror"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/jekyll_main.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qT6f-st","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1912,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/welcome-to-lovecraft\/","url_meta":{"origin":1765,"position":0},"title":"Welcome to Lovecraft","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"April 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome to Lovecraft, the first volume in Joe Hill\u2019s\u00a0Locke & Key\u00a0graphic novel series, focuses on siblings Bode, Tyler, and Kinsey Locke relocating from California to the Keyhouse on the fictional island of Lovecraft, Massachusetts after Tyler\u2019s classmate Sam Lesser murders their father. The murdered Mr. Locke was a high school\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/locke-key-1-FI.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/locke-key-1-FI.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/locke-key-1-FI.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/locke-key-1-FI.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1721,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-shadow-over-innsmouth\/","url_meta":{"origin":1765,"position":1},"title":"The Shadow Over Innsmouth","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"February 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Shadow Over Innsmouth\u00a0is a classic horror novella by H.P. Lovecraft. 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Snyder","date":"January 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cThe Minister\u2019s Black Veil\u201d is an allegorical story in which the parson of a small New England town, Reverend Hooper, abruptly starts wearing a black veil. The townsfolk are all tremendously disturbed by the sight of his veil; his fianc\u00e9e breaks off their engagement after he refuses to remove or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/blackveil.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":667,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/rubber-mask-theater\/","url_meta":{"origin":1765,"position":3},"title":"Rubber mask theater","author":"Lucy A. 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