Post any reactions to and questions about your reading of the excerpt of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde here.
What do you like about the text? What do you dislike? What’s confusing or strange? How does the form influence the text? How about the language? What do you think of the characters? What are some themes you see so far? Work though your ideas in the comments.
English 2323-020 
I have never read “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” before this class but I am familiar with the story. I always found the story intricate and confusing, and honestly reading this text made it more so. I did not like how the text is written, it can be long-winded and require concentration to get through. I did like the mystery of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that Mr. Utterson determinedly investigates.
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What I liked about Jekyll and Hyde is how in the end you learn that a potion is what Jekyll used to go between his alter ego. What I disliked about the story was how simple, but confusing the story was. I could understand what was happening but at the same time, it was too intricate to completely grasp the narrative. Overall, I found the form of the paper to be the reason why the text was so confusing and hard to understand. What is strange is how the characters can’t see how obvious it is that Mr.Hyde is actually Dr.Jekyll. The characters are alright, nothing noteworthy to praise or complain about. Some themes I saw while reading was suffering, confusion, and mystery.
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My favorite thing about this story, are the characters. Jekyll and Hyde are all very distinct and unique and fit well into the concept of the story. Jekyll and Hyde is basically a mystery story that gives you clues and ideas until you eventually figure out who the killer is. Similar to the TV show Scooby-doo, but when I say I really like the characters, I am talking about how he makes them look and how he uses their relationships to distract the reader from finding out who the killer is. He created them to fit their role and he did a very good job.
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I thought that the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was confusing because a lot of the language used isn’t how we talk today. I had a hard time keeping track of the story at times like who was speaking and what the point of view was. But, there was something that I did like about this story as I’ve read it so far and that is that it is more like a mystery instead of the fantasy like things we’ve read up until now. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the story to see if people find out that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person.
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I thought reading “The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde” was very interesting but also complex. The story is confusing because of the language but the plot itself is really good. I enjoy reading mystery novels so this story was interesting to me overall. I enjoyed how the story gives you clues who the bad guy was and us (the readers) having to put the pieces together. I loved the twist that Dr.Jekyll and Hyde were actually the same person. I feel like this story has a lot to do with different personas and alter egos in a way.
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Dr. Jekyll discovers a way to expunge a portion of his psyche along with an alteration of his physical traits to reflect what is left of his persona. Hyde’s young age is possibly linked to the portion of Jekyll that remains after his transformation- if you reduced Jekyll’s age to reflect how much of his personality is lost when he becomes Hyde, he would likely be about the age Hyde is noted to be.
Jekyll and Hyde seems something of a commentary on human nature. Humans are inherently complex, if you strip that complexity away, they would hardly be recognizable as human. Hyde is seen by others as something disturbing and wrong, he chills those who see his form, it is stated that this is because of how incredibly evil he is. The story
itself touches on these points directly to some degree. Another theme in the same sort of situation is the idea that science is as dangerous as it is useful; science is what propagates the problems in this story. Jekyll, in making a breakthrough, destroys himself completely, spawning another much more dubious person and setting the story we see in motion.
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Just like Isabelle, I had never read “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” but I was familiar with the story. At first, it took me a while to read the first three pages but after that it was smooth sailing. I liked that as you read further you kinda felt like you were submerged into the text. It was easier to understand and I enjoyed that very much. I sometimes had to re-read sentences to understand what really was going on which was a bit annoying. I didn’t really find anything confusing or strange, I thought that the story and the narration were pretty straight forward. The language of the text was easy to grasp but there were some words that I had to look at the footnotes to understand. I think that the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde complement each other’s personality is amazing. They are two different men but yet they are one person. The theme that I see in this text is that people have a second personality, a darker personality perhaps. There is always a side that we don’t show others.
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I like the story because even though most people know how the story goes, it is still a crime mystery type story. I was familiar with the story prior to reading it because it is a notable story in pop culture, however, I did not think it would be told in a perspective that wasn’t Dr. Jekyll’s. I always expected it to be his perspective of how things went down, along with Mr. Hyde’s. The language was a little confusing but that is just because I can’t keep my brain focused.
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I liked the text because I was interested in reading the original text, or the closest thing to it, as apart from watching the play to see as to how they compare. I enjoyed that it was setup with ease and didn’t seem to rush anything out for the reader, even in the play performance it is somewhat difficult to have things flow so easy because there is a shortened amount of time they have to perform the story. The language is different from what one is used to but I have read lot’s of fantasy fiction books and been exposed to a variety of media that is full of odd language, I tend to catch on quick with some of them. I do enjoy that we are learning/unraveling the mystery of the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because it is the type of suspense that keeps you wanting and ready for more, even if you know how it all ends anyway!
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