Transforming the Transformation

When reading The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde I was most intrigued towards the end of the book on how Jekyll was able to transform without the potion. It was as if this outward creation of himself had started to take over. Jekyll no longer had control, even with the potion to "right" himself again. Hyde became the more powerful of the two, and thus went awry.

Comparing the book to the show Jekyll, I found parallels between the two. The part I so enjoyed in the novel, changing into Hyde without any control, was exactly how Dr. Jackman would "change". In the first episode Dr. Jackman is able to track and tell when exactly he will be changing into his other half. But when provoked by people in the episode, Jackman spontaneously combusts into the sinister man he so hates. His control seems less and less by the end of the episode. If just a threat or mockery sends him into "Hyde", it seems more and more likely that Hyde is gaining control over Jackman. While the book slowly shows Jekyll losing control, the show escalates this transformation and within the first episode Jackman is losing control and wreaking havoc. This grabbed my attention even more so, especially having the background knowledge of the original story to compare it to.

The clip of Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde gave a different adaptation of the transformation. Although the background story varied from the book, Dr. Jekyll still needs the potion to be able to change. What was interesting about the change was that Dr. Jekyll turned into a woman, which is most definitely put a different spin on the original story. Dr. Jekyll was changing so that he could perhaps live longer so that he could do more good things for society, but the irony of it, was that turning him into a woman, made him a monster. Through gender associations, the man being strong and mighty capable of being angry and the woman being meek and compassionate (a caretaker), it was ironic to me to find that the roles were switched within this rendition. Dr. Jekyll was the kind-hearted man who wanted to find a way to stay alive longer to do more good, through his efforts found a potion that could change his gender making him live longer. But instead of becoming what we would think to be a compassionate woman, he became a sinister female version of himself.

These different adaptations of the story of Jekyll and Hyde, allowed me to observe the transformations of each and see the creativity between each. The idea of this evil other half becomes even more intriguing when the person has no control over becoming this person.

Krista Stites