Jekyll and Hyde #4

Author’s Note: What drives the curiosity of mankind is a bold topic, one of which few people can really understand. What fuels a man’s curiosity is inscrutable. Everyone has had a curious feeling that has driven them to do something, but what really is that feeling? In Jekyll and Hyde, what drove Utterson to investigate Hyde? Why did Jekyll experiment and transfigure into an evil beast? The reason why humans are curious might always be baffling, but for all we know, it lives in everyone and it definitely proved to be my inspiration for this response. I saw it as a major theme to Jekyll and Hyde and really enjoyed writing on it.

           The morbid curiosity expressed in Jekyll and Hyde proved to be one of the major themes to me. At some points, it seemed as if Mr. Utterson would risk life and limb to find out about the atrocious Hyde. Whether it was about the trampling or the—what seemed to be—fake check that Hyde wrote, Utterson was very persistent in his investigations. The effect of Utterson’s willingness to know was shown in the beginning of the book when Stevenson writes, “Hitherto it had touched him on the intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved” (48). Stevenson’s strong word choice of “enslaved” really has an effect on the reader. Utterson’s mind and imagination was not just stuck on the topic, it was enslaved. Obviously curiosity has something to do with parts of your mind, but Stevenson displayed curiosity like it went beyond the mind! Yes, this may seem baffling, but it is what I gathered from his work.

            Another example of the addictive curiosity demonstrated in this novella was in Jekyll’s incongruous experiment. Jekyll tried and tried again to create a potion that could change him into a totally different individual. Jekyll knew the dangers that could come of this; he even said, “I knew well that I risked death” (106). He risked his life for this experiment because he knew that if he didn’t try it, he would never know. He would never have had the slightest clue to what the potion might create, but unfortunately he did discover what the potion was capable of.  Curiosity got the best of Henry Jekyll.