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Classical Stuff You Should Know
281: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
01:09:24
If he'll be Mr. Hyde, I'll be Mr. Seek
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- [00:11]
A
Hi, and welcome to Classical stuff, you should know. A podcast about classical education, old books, old ideas, you know, stuff like that.
- [00:22]
B
Oh, my gosh.
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C
Clearly out of practice.
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A
And we're thrilled.
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C
That's about par for the course.
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A
We are clearly unprofessionals.
- [00:29]
B
Yeah, sure.
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A
We're amateurs in the sense that we are, say, unprofessional. We are lovers of the good. We are lovers as amateurs, which is what amateur means. My name is Graham Donaldson, and I am joined with my fellow lovers. Wait, no, no, no, sir.
- [00:47]
B
No, sir. Nope, nope, nope.
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A
Rejected lovers of literature.
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B
Thank you.
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A
We got A.J.
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C
Hanneberg.
- [00:53]
B
This is terrible. Absolutely not. This is unbelievable. Happy three months, Savann. Sabbatical.
- [00:59]
A
We talked about this.
- [01:01]
C
Let's do we want to do. We did a longer recap for our Patreon listeners. We want to do a quick recap what happened.
- [01:07]
A
We traveled and couldn't make the schedules work.
- [01:09]
B
Now we're back.
- [01:09]
A
And now we're back.
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B
Here we are. Yeah, we're a little bit of Norway.
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C
A little bit of Cotswolds, a little bit of Oklahoma, a little bit of Washington.
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B
But even during the break, we were messaging on Patreon.
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A
If you are a Patreon supporter, you still had touch points with us. But we have not done an episode in a while. But now we're back as the fall is coming, and you can tell because it's gone from 100 degrees to 97 degrees in Texas.
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B
It felt great this morning. Right. It was overcast. I think it was in the.
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A
But as fall is in the air, our ships are pointed towards productivity. And we are back with episodes in hand at Hannenberg to talk about the sort of duplicitous nature of the podcast where some of us, sometimes we are hard working, industrious podcast producers, and other times that we are libertines. Wow. Going off into the countryside and doing nothing but taking trips with our. Taking trips with our wives, like the libertines of old.
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B
Interesting.
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A
For our anniversary is AJ Hanneberg.
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C
He's.
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A
We're gonna be talking about, I think, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which I'm excited for because I've never read it.
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C
Yeah, it's great. And so first, let's start with a quiz show. I'm gonna be making these questions up on the pot on the spot because I'm not prepared for this.
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B
It really is. We're so back. Yeah.
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C
Okay, so let me get your points up here. Graham and Thomas.
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B
Cool.
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C
Question number one. Is Dr. Jekyll or is Mr. Hyde larger or Smaller or equal to the size of Dr. Jekyll?
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B
Larger.
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C
Smaller point. Donaldson.
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B
Okay, okay, interesting.
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A
Dr. Jekyll's the Evil one, right?
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B
Wait.
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C
Nope.
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B
The other way.
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C
That's the. That's your next question. Is Dr. Jekyll.
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B
Dr. Jekyll's the normal one or the good. He's the good one, not the good one, but he's like the original guy.
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A
I think Dr. Jekyll's evil.
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B
Stop. Cool. Great job. Thanks for the freebie. Yeah.
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C
No way.
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B
I did not deserve that one.
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C
What is the name of the main character of the book?
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B
Dr. Dr. Jekyll.
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C
Wrong. Both of you. You both lose your points.
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A
You're both a genuine ludicrous McGee.
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B
Ludacris.
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C
Ludacris McGee. Maybe this would be easier. What is the profession of the main character whose name is Mr. Utterson.
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B
Mr. Utterson. He works with cows. I don't know. What's he.
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C
Utterson. Nice. Nice. Thomas. Great one.
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A
A philologist.
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C
A lawyer. He is a lawyer. You both are terrible at this. That's kind of close.
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B
Negative one. Okay, this is great.
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C
See, is. There is. Okay. Can you name at least one crime that Mr. Hyde perpetrates?
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A
Fraud.
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B
He steals some things.
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C
Both Mrs. Wanna try again?
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A
Murder.
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B
He jaywalks.
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C
I actually don't think he jaywalks. Come on. He does murder, though.
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A
That's a point for murders. Everyone murders.
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B
Unbelievable.
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A
What? Murder.
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C
Okay, I think we'll leave Graham with the win here. Good job, Graham.
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B
Proud of you.
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A
Well, appreciate it.
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C
I was. I read this book. It's really short. It's only about 100 pages, so hopefully we can get a full. Full episode out of it. But it's. It is a eminently worthy read. Robert Louis Stevenson is not always my favorite author. He is a little bit verbose and breaks some of the rules of style that I love and. But this book is great. It's a great little romp. Like I said, it's only 100 pages. There's not a whole lot of running around. It's just straight to the story.
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A
Who else does Stevenson write? Is he Robinson?
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C
Treasure Island.
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A
Treasure Island. That's it.
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B
Yeah.
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C
He did Treasure island and did Kidnapped.
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A
Ah, yeah. Those are like the classic boyhood books.
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C
So he's great. Definitely worth the read. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of background on his life and then we'll talk through the story and then we'll approach some of the big questions of the story. So a little bit about the man himself. So he was born in 1850 and he died at the ripe old age of 44, he was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a lighthouse engineer and his wife. He had four names when he was born. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson, which is awesome.
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B
Wow.
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C
At 18, he changed the spelling of Lew Lewis, which used to be L E W I S to L O U I S, and then dropped the Balfour in 73.
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A
Fancy.
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C
He spent most of his holidays in his maternal grandpa's house. His. His mom came from Gentry, and so his maternal granddad was a preacher. He was in the church and he's like. So we both loved giving sermons, but neither of us really liked to hear them. So he thinks he had a pretty like that. Granddad had a lot of influence on him. There was a family tendency towards chest and breathing issues, which he inherited. They used to say he had. What's that one disease that they give to everybody?
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A
Consumption.
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C
Not consumption. Tuberculosis. That's the one they thought he had tuberculosis. Same thing.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Okay.
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A
I think so. I think tuberculosis and consumption are the same thing now.
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C
They think it may have been bronchiectasis, which is an enlargement of parts of the lungs, or sarcoidosis, which is lung lumps. Both his parents were Presbyterians. He was an only child. He was weird looking and eccentric. And so he had a hard time fitting in at school, especially because he was sick all the time. Um, I would give you his entire school history, but it's like he spent six weeks at this school and then went home to be like, taught by tutors. And then he spent, I think the longest stint is his high school, which I think is maybe three years. And from 13 until university, so maybe five years. He went to Robert Thomason's private school. Other than that, he was taught largely by private tutors. He went to the University of Edinburgh to study engineering. His whole family was lighthouse engineers. And he was expected to kind of go into the family business. He had no enthusiasm for engineering. He did not like it. He avoided lectures. He spent his time instead with his debate club and doing drama. So not a great indication that he will end up in lighthouses. He told his dad after a. Like, he used to travel in the summers and go and check out lighthouses and do engineering and stuff. And then. Which he loved. He loved to travel. It gave him some great material for writing. And he had written stories a ton when he was a kid. He was just a prolific storyteller. He eventually told his dad, after lots of traveling, he's like, I intend to be a writer. And his dad was like, fine. He was just Sort of resigned to it. He kind of got the picture that this was not the job for his son. But they encouraged him to go into the law as security, which he did. He eventually became a bit of a bohemian. He started wearing long hair and velveteen jackets and almost never coming to dinner in the appropriate dinnerware. So he was a little bit of a rascal. He used to visit cheap pubs and brothels. He eventually rejected Christianity and called himself an atheist at 22 years old. A little while later, his dad found the LJR Club constitution with Rob as a member, which began, disregard everything our parents have taught us.
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B
Oh, my gosh. This is, like, teenage stuff. Oh, yeah.
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C
It was tough for his dad to find. And he eventually questioned his son and the kids, like, I'm not going to live a lie. And then, like, just crushed his poor dad in his mom's heart. And he knew it. And he sent a letter to his friend, and he's like, well, I've made angry the only two people that really give a crap about me. So he felt really bad about that. And then, like, five years later, he was already finding his way back to the faith. He's like, I believe in a God. I believe in, like, the basic tenets of Christianity. Like, he's sort of.
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A
This is like your standard Presbyterian story arc, right? Like, this is.
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C
Yeah, there's not. I wouldn't say that. Like, yeah, it's pretty standard. Like, I'm not gonna do this forever. And then he just kind of makes the faith his own. And eventually, like, he will write prayers in his old age. So apparently he found his way back to the church. He was. He did a lot of moving around. He became active in London literary life, made some writer friends, one of the. One of whom was in an infirmary, I'm sure for when he was sick. Named William Ernest Henley, who was a talkative poet with a wooden leg and probably became the source for Long John Silver.
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B
Wow.
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C
It's kind of fun. He was sent to the French Riviera to recuperate after another bout of sickness. And when he came back, he would go back to France repeatedly. He passed the bar at 24, so did become an able lawyer, but I don't think he ever really practiced much. At 28, after meeting her on a canoe trip, he went to America to join a woman. Fanny, or Fanny Faye. Oh, Fanny Vandegrift Osborne and her children. She had two kids. He ended up sick in California after his trip because. Just constant. They were married in 1880. She was 40. And he was 29. She was a divorcee. They went back and forth from Scotland to the continent. He became friends with Henry James at 34. He did lots of travels in 1888, from San Francisco, all around the islands. He became king or friend of King Kalakuao. Ka. Kauao. Kala.
- [10:06]
B
Nope. Nailed it.
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C
Kaua. Kalakaua. In Hawaii. He spent some time in Tahiti, New Zealand and Samoa. And Samoa is the one where he had the biggest influence. He became pretty political in Samoa. He saw the way that the Brits were treating people in the colonies, and same with the US and he encouraged them. He said, you guys have to occupy your own islands. Like, you have to build roads, start picking the fruit and selling it, and actually take possession of your country, because if you don't, they will. He wrote prolifically, I guess, against. Against the actions of Britain and the US. He wrote 700,000 words while in Samoa. They loved him. His death came on 3rd December, 1894, when he was talking to his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine, and he suddenly exclaims, what's that? And then asked his wife, does my face look strange? And collapsed. Some sources have stated that he was instead attempting to make mayonnaise when he collapsed. He died within a few hours at the age of 44, possibly as a result of a brain hemorrhage. According to research published in 2000, Stevenson might have suffered from a hereditary hemorrhagic talon. A word. I can't pronounce it. Yep. Anyway. Have you ever made mayonnaise? No, I've not made mayonnaise.
- [11:19]
A
It's a lot of oil. A lot of oil. And it's raw eggs.
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B
Yeah.
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A
If you kind of think about it, it's like. It's kind of, you know, it's kind of gross. But I love mayonnaise.
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B
Mayonnaise is good.
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C
I like mayonnaise on a sandwich. I don't like it on much else. Although there are some salads that have mayonnaise as a base that I'm into.
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A
The Dutch of mastered mayonnaise, they have this special mayonnaise called Zonts mayonnaise.
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C
What's Zaan's mayonnaise?
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A
I have no idea. It's just delicious. It comes in a tube.
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B
Okay.
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A
I have it in my fridge.
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C
How is it different than normal?
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A
It's thicker.
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C
Okay.
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A
And it's more vinegary. I don't know how to describe it.
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C
Weird.
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A
It's really nice.
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B
I'm interested.
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C
Okay.
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B
Yeah. Let's try it out.
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C
The Samoans, when He died, insisted on standing watch around his body through the night. And then carried him on their shoulders and buried him on Mount Vea, overlooking the sea. And then wrote an epitaph on his tomb. On his tomb under the wide and starry sky. Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die. And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you gave Grave, you grave for me. Here he lies where he longed to be. Home is the sailor home from sea, and the hunter home from. From the hill, which is awfully nice. And then also had Ruth, 1 16, 17 on the other side. Whither thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodgest I will lodge. And thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried.
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A
Cool.
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C
So, traveled a lot. Bit of a rascal in his younger years. Very sickly most of the time. It's shocking how many, like, after doing this so many times for so many authors, how many of them have had respiratory ailments, you know what I mean? Like they live sickly lives and so they're just inside a lot. Maybe that lends itself to a literary disposition position.
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A
Aldous Huxley, Robert Lord Stevenson.
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B
You know, they have to find something to do while they're recovering. Is that what you think it is?
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C
Means they're inside a lot.
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B
Yeah.
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C
They have to sit down, can't run around, can't get out there and do stuff.
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B
Have you mentioned his great. He has a great mustache. Have you mentioned that?
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C
Does he have a great mustache?
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B
Yeah, just looking. Looking him up right now.
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C
He has like long kind of length hair.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Real long face, too.
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C
Yeah, he's a long, long looking guy.
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B
Yep.
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C
Okay, let's jump into the book. The book is told primarily through the view of Mr. Utterson, the lawyer, the.
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B
Main character who Graham and I both identified earlier in the quiz show.
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C
Yes.
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B
Yeah. Good.
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C
I mean, instantly you guys are talking about. Yeah, that's right. So as I was reading, I definitely imagined him as Magby. So I'm gonna read his description and like jump past the bad bits. Cause that's not what I imagined. But there.
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B
Aj, Come on.
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C
There are some things in there that I was like, oh, this sounds eminently like Magby. And.
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B
Okay, give me those.
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A
Good humored and sour.
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C
It doesn't say exactly that, but it's really close. Basically that.
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B
Yeah, thanks, A.J.
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C
Okay. It does go really well. And then throughout the story, you'll realize, okay, Mr. Utterson is like an imminently awesome guy. He really is. Okay. Mr. Utterson, the lawyer, was a man of a rugged countenance. That was never lighted by a smile.
- [14:03]
B
There it is. Thanks. Appreciate that.
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C
That's obviously not true. Cold, scanty, and embarrassed in discourse. All right, ignore all of that. Ignore this one too. Backward in sentiment. Forget that. Lean, long, dusty, dreary. Forget most of that. And yet somehow lovable.
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B
Okay, okay.
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C
At friendly meetings and when the wine was to his taste. Something imminently human beaconed from his eye. And that felt like Magby.
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B
That I need a drink to be friendly.
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A
No, you dream to be human.
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C
Like at any friendly meeting. Like there's just something like eminently human. That comes from a good Magby. Something indeed, which again, we're in a.
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B
Rough spot right now.
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C
We're in a rough spot. It does get better.
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B
Keep going with this.
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C
Something indeed. Which never found its way into his talk.
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B
Thank you. Thank you. This is spot on, actually.
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A
But.
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C
Which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after dinner face. But more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself. Drank gin when he was alone to mortify his taste for vintages. And though he enjoyed the theater, had not crossed the door of one for some 20 years. Which we were just talking about how you haven't seen a movie in three years.
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B
Yeah.
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C
But he hadn't approved tolerance for others sometimes wondering, almost with envy. At the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds. And in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. I incline to Cain's heresy, he used to say quaintly. I let my brother go to the devil in his own way. In this character. It was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance. And the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. And such as these. As long as they came about his chambers. He never marked a shade of change in his demeanor. So he's always kind to all these guys.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Let's see. No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson. For he was undemonstrative at the best. And even his friendship seemed to be founded in a similar Catholicism or catholicity of good nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle. Ready made from the hands of opportunity. And that was the lawyer's way. So. And his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time. They implied no aptness in the object. So you. He would. Utterson loves people just because they are around. And not you don't even have to be Worthy. He just will give his love to you. And it even talks later about how some people, after the party is done, all the friends go home. They love to have him there. Because just the company of this, like, sturdy, affable, friendly man was what they wanted. Which I, like, spoke very much. I was like, that sounds like Magby. Right?
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B
We're having a tough. Yeah. Anyway, I was gonna say there's a.
- [16:38]
C
Lot to all of the. Like, he's dreary and never smiles and stuff, which is obviously false. The stuff about him being, like, steady and kind. And the kind of guy, like, after dinner that you can like, just sit and sort of, like, drink some wine with and have a good time. That sounded like Magby. And his, like, character and the strength of him will be borne out through the novel.
- [16:55]
B
So does he meet Jekyll or.
- [16:57]
C
Like, he knows Jekyll. They're old friends from school. So let's go through the tale.
- [17:02]
B
Yeah.
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C
The tale starts with our friend Utterson taking a walk with his good friend Enfield, who has very little part to play. To play in this tale. He just. He's primarily a walker. So they walk, and they're going down this little lane that has a nice little market. And at one point, there's a building that has a big, broad face of nothing. And it opens into a little courtyard. And there's some houses and stuff that used to be eminent and nice, but aren't really nice anymore. And he says, I've got a weird story about that door. Once I was walking around here, and I saw a young man trample a child. Like, they were just walking around a corner, and the child walks in his way. He just walks straight over the kid like it's nothing and continues on his way. And people are horrified, and they chase the man down and they haul him back. And the kid is obviously terrified. They think she might be injured. She ends up being okay. The family's angry. And this guy eventually says, like, you gotta let me go. And they want to get the police involved. And so he's like, all right, I'll pay. I'll pay for the kids, like, medical bills. And then £100 on top or whatever. So he drags them to this door in this building and comes out with a check from a different man.
- [18:06]
B
Oh, that's weird.
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C
And they're like, this doesn't seem legit. He's like, I promise it'll work. I'll even go with you to the bank. So he goes with them to the bank. The bank cashes it. And Then the man disappears through the door. Okay, and so this is Jekyll, right? This is Hyde.
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B
Oh, sure, sure. Getting money from Jekyll, right?
- [18:22]
C
Yeah, yeah. So he goes in and then comes out with a check from Jekyll and then leaves. And the lawyer recognizes this name because he is friends with Jekyll. In fact, he is the lawyer who drew up Jekyll's will. Jekyll's will is also very strange because in the will it says, in case of my disappearance or death, all of my money shall go directly to Mr. Hyde. And Mr. Hyde sh. Can basically assume my life where I left off. My clothes, my things, everything else. Everyone should give him the do that they give me, and that is the end of it. He is rightfully kind of horrified about this. So he goes and he visits another friend of theirs, both Jekyll's and Utterson's, named Lanyon. Lanyon does not know this Hyde character. He's like, I don't know him. I haven't even had intercourse with any sort of contact with Jekyll in a while. All of his weird science was freaking me out. And he got a little too flighty for my fancy. So he's like, I'm not. I don't want any part to do with it. So Utterson is like, I gotta figure this out. This sounds, like, really weird and sketchy. It sounds like Hyde has some sort of blackmail against Jekyll, my friend, right? If his will is going directly to him, he can walk in and get money. Like, he must know of something Jekyll has done. And he's holding it over his head. I've got to figure this out. So by the door, and he, like. He's like, if he's gonna be Mr. Hyde, I will be Mr. I'll be Mr. Find or Search or something like that. So he sits there and he waits and he waits for this Mr. Hyde. And he finds him. He hears him coming up and he stops him. And for a while, Hyde kind of hides his face. It's really weird. And he's like, would you look at me? And eventually, Hyde looks up and Utterson is wigged out. This guy, for some reason, just makes his skin crawl. And there's nothing definite in his face. There's no, like, weird disgust. So all the. All the weird pop culture stuff about Hyde being this. He's basically a cartoon version of the Hulk, right? He's really hairy. He throws stuff. He's got crazy strength. He's huge, right? Yeah, he's super massive. Not at all just a regular guy, kind of knuckley. He has some extra hair, but he's just. He just makes your skin crawl. And you don't know why. He just looks like a regular gentleman. So Hyde is described and Jekyll is not at home. So Let me describe Mr. Hyde on page 18. 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. All these were points against him. But not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust of loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. There must be something else, said the perplexed gentleman. There is something more. If I could find a name for it, God bless me. This man seems hardly human. Something troglodytic, shall we say? Or can it be the old story of Dr. Fell, which I'm not quite sure what that's. That's a reference to? Or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through and transfigures its clay continent? The last, I think, for, oh, my Poor old Harry Jekyll. If ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend. So he goes around to try to see if Jekyll is at home because he recognizes this building is, like, nearby, almost attached to Jekyll's house. So he goes, and he's like, hey, is Jekyll home? And the staff is like, nope, haven't seen him in a little while. Not home. Gotta go somewhere else. Eventually he goes back and does have a visit with Jekyll. And he says, I don't know what's going on. We gotta change your will. We gotta solve this business that you're involved in, whatever it is. And Jekyll said if you knew everything, you wouldn't worry about the will. And to put your mind at ease, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde at any moment I choose, right? I can be rid of him. So it's okay. Like I am in no dire distress. Utterston still suspects the blackmail. A little while later, maybe a couple of months, there is a horrible murder in town. The witness was a woman who, with great benevolence toward the city, she said she felt like never a greater love for humankind in general was sitting at her window looking outside when she saw this wonderful little Old man who was walking around just at nighttime. And he walks up to this stranger and seems to be asking directions or something. The stranger flips out, snaps, and beats the man to death with his cane, which is pretty large and sturdy. And then, like, stomps upon his bones. And she can, like, hear them cracking. It's a horrifying murder. And then the man flees. And then the cops come up. They find out he's an mp, he is in politics. He's a pretty important person.
- [23:15]
A
The old man.
- [23:16]
C
Yeah, the old man. The old man's important. The stick is left at the scene. Half of the stick, because it breaks in half. Utterson gets involved because there's a card in the old man's pocket that is addressed to him. This man was his client named Mr. Carew. And so he goes and he sees that the stick that's at the scene, he knows exactly who it belongs to because he gave it to Mr. Jekyll himself. So he knows who that belongs to. And he can't help but suspect it's Mr. Hyde. And he's like, I think I can take it to the place. Well, he learned Mr. Hyde's address when he originally stopped him at that, like, building. He said, where, you know, where are you from? And Hyde says, I live in this other place. So he took the police and he leads them to Hyde's place. But it has been ransacked. It is empty. There's nobody there. And the. The cook is like, I don't know. I hadn't seen him for like, two months before he showed up yesterday. So I don't know who knows when.
- [24:09]
B
He'S going to be back.
- [24:10]
C
So they are kind of. They know that they're not going to find him there. So of course Utterson is afraid. He's afraid for Mr. Jekyll. He doesn't know what's going to happen. Since Mr. Hyde has clearly committed a murder, he goes and visits Jekyll. And Jekyll says, it's okay. I am in no worse the situation. I actually received this letter from Hyde. And he hands him a letter that says, like, I have a sure way of escape. I am sorry for all the undue stress I've caused you. And we have, like, repaid our debts. Basically, we've cut off contact. I'm leaving. I. I have a way to escape. And so he is rid of Mr. Hyde, apparently. And this puts Utterson to, like, a happy position. He feels good about his friend Jekyll. Well, he goes home and has a friend who's hilariously named Mr. Guest.
- [24:59]
B
It's good.
- [25:00]
C
Yeah. So he has Mr. Guest over for dinner. Who's. Who's one of his clerks. And they're sitting and drinking wine. And Mr. Guest is an expert in handwriting. And so says, hey, can I see your little note? So he looks at it, and he's like, hey, do you have anything from Jekyll?
- [25:11]
B
Yeah.
- [25:11]
C
And he looks at Jekyll's handwriting. And it's exactly the same. Except Hyde's is sloped.
- [25:16]
B
Different.
- [25:17]
C
It's sloped, like, another direction. So he says, that's awfully sketchy. Seems like it's written by the same person. And so it's. They're just in a weird situation. And then, like, after Hyde leaves, they have two months of normalcy from Jekyll. He comes out of his, like, weird seclusion. He starts hosting dinner parties again. He has Lanyon over, the guy who said, basically, I'm done with him. I haven't seen him in forever. They were, like, school buddies again. His face, like. He starts to fill out again. His face is good. He's, like, doing good around town. Being the doctor that he's supposed to be. Because he is a medical doctor. And he's just. He's like the old Jekyll. It's great. Well, that stops abruptly once when Mr. Utterson comes by his house. He is rebuffed. He is not at home. He will not see anybody. And that continues to happen two or three more times. Eventually, he's like, well, if I'm not gonna see him, I'm obviously gonna go visit Lanyon. And he goes and visit Lanyon. And Lanyon looks like he is on death's door. Lanyon is not okay. He is clearly in a bad way. He's like, what is happening with you? He's. And he kind of asks about what's going on with Jekyll. And Lanyon says, I have had a clean, clean break with Jekyll. I will see the man no more. I would like to speak no more of it. I think I'm gonna die soon here. And then, basically, they pass their time. And when Mr. Utterson gets home, he finds a letter from Mr. Lanyon. He opens it up, and inside the little packet is another sealed packet. That says. Only to be opened upon the. The mysterious disappearance of, like, Jekyll.
- [26:51]
B
Really?
- [26:51]
C
Right. So if Jekyll goes away, you can actually read this. And not to be messed with. Otherwise, Utterson is obviously curious, right?
- [26:59]
B
Yes.
- [27:00]
C
But being the Magby that he is, he respects the man's wishes. I was going to ask and puts it into his safe. And this is why I'm like, okay, you'd wait.
- [27:07]
B
That's what he says. Yeah, gotta do the right thing.
- [27:09]
C
Yeah, gotta do the right thing. So he puts it into the safe along with the will, which he has not changed from Jekyll.
- [27:14]
B
Right.
- [27:15]
C
And he's just worried for his friend.
- [27:16]
B
Yeah.
- [27:18]
C
So on another just random outing with his buddy Enfield. Right. The walker, the guy who told him the story in the first place, they chance by this building, which is actually a surgical theater that Jekyll owns. The lower floor is the surgical theater, and the upper floor is sort of a cabinet, like a living space where all kinds of. There's drawers and all kinds of things. And they. They kind of catch Mr. Jekyll's face and his. His voice. And so they chat with him a bit through the window. And then at the last moment, they sort of catch his face and it looks fully despairing, full of terror. He is. He is looking bad. Like real, real bad. And both men are struck to the heart with how bad Jekyll looks. And he basically shuts the window and discourse over. And he's just worried for his buddy. So Utterson continues on. And then Poole, Jekyll's house master, his butler, visits and says something is deeply wrong. Like, I usually know my master, but something is up. He is not. Like, he's not staying in his house. He has been in the cabinet over the surgical theater for a very long time. We don't really see him. He has me running all these errands for all kinds of chemicals all over London. I'm worried something's happened. He doesn't seem like himself. Will you please come over? So he comes over, they grab an axe, and he's like, we're gonna go chat with him. So they kind of chat through the door, and what they hear is not Hyde's voice or not Jekyll's voice. They hear Hyde's voice.
- [28:37]
B
Right?
- [28:37]
C
Right. Basically pleading like, hey, leave me alone.
- [28:41]
A
It's fine.
- [28:42]
C
Everything's cool. And so they go back, and at this point, Utterson believes, and so does Poole, Hyde has done something to Jekyll. He has come back, he has killed Jekyll and supplanted him. And now we have to go and capture this murderer who is now living over this cabinet. So grabs the axe, they go up, they bust down the door, and when they break through, any guesses?
- [29:04]
B
Jekyll is there on the ground, asleep.
- [29:07]
C
They find a dead hide.
- [29:08]
B
Oh, okay.
- [29:10]
C
So suicide is what it looks like. Well, they're convinced that Jekyll's body must be somewhere nearby. So they start searching. There is no body. The only other exit is kind of boarded up and blocked off. The key that he would use to get out has been broken and is lying on the floor and has rusted. So clearly Hyde has not broken in recently. So between the time that Jekyll sort of shut him up self up in there, as far as they know, Hyde has never gotten in. But Jekyll is nowhere to be found. So as they sort of look around, what they find are a couple of papers. And then he begins to read these two papers. So there's. There's a couple of them. So I'm going to read you a chunk from one of them. So this is the first paper. My dear utterson, when this shall fall into your hands, I shall have disappeared. Under what circumstances I have not the penetration to foresee. But my instinct and all the circumstances of my nameless situation tell me that the end is. Is sure and must be early. Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to place in your hands. And if you care to hear more, turn to the confession of your unworthy and unhappy friend, Henry Jekyll. So he goes home, he pulls out that packet that's in his safe and he reads it. And what Lanyon describes is that one night he's sitting there and he gets a letter from Jekyll in Jekyll's hand that says, I want you to do the. Go to the cabinet, the place above the surgical theater. Grab a certain drawer and bring it back here as fast as you can. And I will come to you at midnight. And if you can't do it till tomorrow, that's fine. I'll come midnight the next day too. Or someone will come at midnight, and you must admit them, even though it might not be me. So of course Hyde shows up. And Hyde is looking like, in a bad way. And he says, you can Lanyon stay and learn something amazing from which there is no return. Or you can, like, leave the room and keep your sanity. And Lanyon's like, well, I've come this far, I might as well see it. So Jekyll mixes, or Hyde mixes a little potion, downs it and boom. Like, there we have Jekyll in the flesh. This is what breaks Lanyon. This is why he was almost going, like, gonna die. And why he said, I have no more interaction with Jekyll as a man. The next little packet is from Jekyll himself. And it tells his real story. So I'm going to give a little bit of the background here, Dr. Lanyon's narrative. And then we have. Let's see, where's Hydes? Okay. Henry Jekyll's full statement of the case. I was born in the year 18. Something to a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts. Inclined by nature to industry. Fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellow men. And thus, as might have been supposed. With every guarantee of an honorable and distinguished future. And indeed, the worst of my faults. Was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition. Such as had made the happiness of many. But such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire. To carry my head high. And wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public. So he was happy and goofy, like maybe us three. And. But wanted to have this. Like.
- [32:19]
A
He wanted to come across as, like, serious and grave. And, like, sophisticated.
- [32:23]
B
Exactly.
- [32:24]
C
Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures. And that when I reached years of reflection. And began to look around me. And take stock of my progress and position in the world. I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even emblazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of. But from the high views that I had set before me. I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations. Than any particular degradation in my faults that made me what I was. And with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men. Severed in me those provinces of good and ill. Which divide and compound man's dual nature. So he's already more separated, good and evil, than most of us. Right. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately. On that hard law of life. Which lies at the root of religion. And is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite. Both sides of me were in dead earnest. I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame. Than when I labored in the eye of day at the furtherance of knowledge and the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies. Which led wholly towards the mystic and the transcendental. Reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day and from both sides of my intelligence. The moral and the intellectual. I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth. By whose partial Discovery. I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck. The man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines. And I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a more polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side and in my own person that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man. I saw that of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both. And from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure as a beloved daydream on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable. The unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin. And the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upright path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous sticks were bound thus together. That in the agonized womb of consciousness these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How then were they dissociated? So he eventually, of course, scientifically finds a way. And he finds that what it does is sort of separate and rarefy your spirit from your body. And it can. Like he said, though if I had been in a different state of mind, if I had been thinking more noble thoughts when I actually went into this project, when I took that first, like, sip of the drop, the draft that I made, I could have come out an angel. But because my evil side was so eager for a little bit of light of day, what came out was Hyde. And so he began leading a duplicitous life, which, unfortunately, was not Jekyll and An angel that was made purely of good. It became Jekyll and Hyde that was made purely of bad. So he actually kind of loved it. He said I could, like I put on Hyde, I can go do whatever I want to with no worry of any of that ever coming and imputing the name of Jekyll. It was a perfect situation. And Hyde, when he first became him, was overjoyed. And even to see his own, like, weirdly hideous face, which by the way, causes revulsion because he alone of humankind was only purely evil. Every intent, everything was set towards personal pleasure, hatred, all of that stuff. He was debauched fully. And that's why everyone was like whenever they saw him. So he, he lives this life for a little while and he finds that, well, the next thing that happens is he tramples that child and he's like, well, that went bad. I can't have that coming back to me because Hyde keeps running back to my place. So he let that fake house and then put Hyde's name on it so that he could have a different place to go to and then got a housekeeper that was not exactly the most upright of people in the first place, right? Happy to receive a paycheck for doing nothing and, you know, that sort of stuff. Well, he found over time that Hyde was getting stronger and bigger. The reason Hyde was small when he came out and a little bit younger was because that side of him, that bad nature was less developed, was less used, and was just not, you know, spent less time in the daytime, so it was smaller. But as he let it have free reign, Hyde was getting bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger. And then one day he like went to sleep and woke up the next morning as Hyde, when he hadn't, he hadn't taken any chemicals. And he was like, well, this is bad. So he had to double the dose to get himself back to normal. And then as far as I know, it didn't. No longer was. It didn't happen again for a little while. But Hyde was getting stronger and stronger and it was harder and harder to return to Jekyll, sometimes having to triple the dose to undo all of that Jekyll ness or all that hydness and come back to himself. So he's like, okay, look, I'm at the place where it's getting harder to come back to myself. I'm probably going to have to choose between Hyde and my normal life. So he's like, well, I was a good man. I chose Jekyll. But just like, you know, any good drunk or anybody that's an addict, I had the will but not the spirit or discipline to actually carry it out. So on one day of temptation, he finally let Hyde come back. And Hyde came out raging because he'd been locked up for so long. And that was the night of the Murder, right? So Hyde goes crazy, kills a guy, and then comes back. And Jekyll's like, well, now I can't let Hyde out ever again because he's a wanted murderer. So I'm done with him forever. I will never be hide again. He basically swears it. And that's the time when. Remember I told you there was a time when Jekyll came out in the sun and he was getting better and he was inviting friends over again? This was that time. But he's just like any man. At one point, he was tempted. He was just sitting in a park, and he was like, thinking lascivious thoughts. And all of a sudden he looked down and his hands were hairy and knuckly, and they were hides again. And he's like, oh, no, I cannot be caught outside like this. This is terrible. And that was when he involved Lanyon. Right. He. He basically took himself to a hotel, trying not to kill anybody in the middle of it. And he would randomly, like a woman would offer him flowers, and he'd punch her in the face. He's just a bad dude. So he gets himself into a hotel, tries to stay out of sight, writes a letter to Lanyon to go and get the supplies from his house, and then goes to Lanyon's place, turns himself back into Jekyll. And then those two are not friends anymore, right?
- [39:38]
B
Right.
- [39:39]
C
So he goes home. And then the next morning, after becoming Jekyll again, he's Hyde. And so he goes and he takes more stuff. And then six hours, six hours after that, he's Hyde again. And so he has to keep on taking the salts. The problem is, so he has these salts, he's got these things that he has to mix to get himself back to Jekyll. And that's why he started sending his butler off for all of these different chemicals, saying they were impure is because the fir he had first bought in bulk, this big, huge jar of the salt that he needed, comes to find out that the original stuff he bought was impure. And he doesn't know what the impurity is. And so if he goes and he can't buy from the same place, they keep on sending him pure stuff. The other places all send him pure stuff. And so he cannot recreate the thing that can turn him back into Jekyll. So he is running out. He is going to, at some point, be Hyde forever. So he's locked himself up in his cabinet. He's trying to keep himself as Jekyll. Anytime he falls asleep or gets drowsy he wakes up as Hyde and he knows that Hyde is in bad news. Hyde knows he can't go out in the daytime because he's a wanted murderer and he fears death. And he. And so he kind of pities Hyde and the two hate each other. And so he'll read a book of divinity, fall asleep, wake up as Hyde, and then Hyde will write all of these, like horrible obscene heresies all over the book of divinity, play jokes on him, play pranks. And it's just this dual hatred between these two people. And then he. He knows he's going to run out of salt, so he writes this long thing to Mr. Utterson, basically explaining everything that's happened, and then breaks down the door. He's become Hyde and Hyde kills himself. And that is sort of the end of it. Thoughts, observations.
- [41:23]
A
I mean, there's lots there. You know, this is a book that's coming out in the middle of the heyday of psychology. Right. The idea we. We talk about this with the rest calling the cough episode the sort of split personality. These two people inside you that people who go crazy are people that have secret hidden double lives or have. That they. Yeah, that. That they allow sort of.
- [41:53]
C
They.
- [41:53]
A
They cultivate a dark side of themselves and think that they can keep it and have it and not have any of the bad consequences. And of course, you know, you always have the bad consequences. You. You can't. You can't keep a little. You can't cultivate a little bit of evil and not expect it to metastasize and grow into. Into something. Something quite evil. No, it's good.
- [42:18]
B
It's early on in the. Yeah. That. On that idea. Early on, Jekyll is excited about this. Right. That you have these two different personalities.
- [42:25]
C
Yeah. This is great.
- [42:26]
B
You have no consequence. Because the view off the start is that the problem is the. What comes back to you. It's like the judgment of people or that some. Yeah. They're going to come back and like, that's what's wrong with doing those things. But it's actually the corruption of Jekyll is the problem. Right. It's the loss of him as a person over time and then kind of giving way into Hyde.
- [42:46]
A
Yeah, you sort of, you know, a hundred years before this book, you have this idea of the, like Rousseau, this Rousseau in Savage idea of like the only reason why we call something bad is because society has deemed it bad. But if you completely had total freedom, you could do all these what society calls depraved things. But in reality it's just the things that you want to do. And that is what it truly means to sort of be free and happy. And then it's society that shackles you.
- [43:13]
B
Right.
- [43:14]
A
Which is a bad idea. I mean, we do. Like, Rousseau is an idiot. And then. And then. So, you know, this is. This is a. All right, well, let's. If you actually did have the freedom to completely lean into your evil natures, what is going to happen to you? And what you have is you have a. You are psychologically deformed. Right. Like, you begin to pray as a.
- [43:35]
C
Person, it subsumes you. Eventually his evil grows to the place where he is no longer himself. I mean, I want to say it's a straight allegory, but it's pretty dang close. It's.
- [43:43]
A
Yeah, I mean, you could definitely read it allegorical of an addiction. Read it allegorical of, like, somebody slowly going crazy. You could even easily port this into an offline life and an online life. Right. Like, you could be the evil, terrible troll on the Internet, saying terrible things and consuming and watching terrible things, and then you log off and you can be, like an upstanding citizen in the world. But slowly the thing, the Mr. Hyde, it grows. It grows.
- [44:09]
C
Yeah. And then you cannot be your normal self anymore.
- [44:13]
A
Or you need greater and greater doses of whatever. Whatever gets you back to your quote unquote, normal self. And that's got diminishing returns on it.
- [44:22]
B
Yeah, but that's still you. Like, that online Persona is still who you are. And you can't really go.
- [44:27]
C
Yeah, it's just growing.
- [44:28]
A
So what is that? What is that? Like that. That little adage like, man's got two wolves inside of him and whatever one you feed. Right, like, is the one that grows.
- [44:37]
B
Something like that.
- [44:37]
C
Yeah.
- [44:37]
B
That happens here. Why does Hyde kill himself at the end?
- [44:40]
A
Yeah, that's a good question.
- [44:41]
B
Because doesn't Hyde get what he wants by taking over? Basically, yeah.
- [44:45]
C
But he can't leave. And if he's caught, he's going to jail, and he doesn't want that. I think commits suicide. It's kind of vague about what actually happens. It seems to be like the very moment that Jekyll turns at last into Hyde. Maybe he. Because I think he said he wasn't strong enough for suicide. I can't. It's. It's a little thing with, like, the.
- [45:04]
B
Locked door, broken key. Like, Jekyll did that. Like, Jekyll basically locked Hyde in that room. Both of them.
- [45:10]
C
Well, I think they just knew that they couldn't get out. And I Mean like there were times when he was Hyde.
- [45:15]
B
Yeah.
- [45:16]
C
And Hyde knew that they couldn't leave either.
- [45:18]
B
Yeah. So I wondered Graham, if you had. Because this is also like the science side of it of like what does science actually get you? Like is it supposed to get. I know Frankenstein's like 80 years before this. So they're not really contemporaneous but like you know, like whatever scientific mechanism should get us to a better world. But what it actually unlocks is this like evil inside of this man.
- [45:40]
A
Yeah. I mean you, it's the promise of you can have, you can have the sort of the, the. Not the fruit of virtue but you can have sort of like the fruit of, of the good human life without having to go through the, the work or the difficulty or the self denial that it takes to get it.
- [46:02]
B
Right.
- [46:03]
A
Right. So it's like it's the. You can have your cake and eat it too. The promise of science. Like I always go back to brave new World which is this like you know, technology offers you Christianity without tears. Right. Like it gives you heaven, it gives you pleasure, it gives you all the glories of the kingdom of God. But you don't have to do. You don't have to do the things to get there. You don't have to be penitent, you don't have to be virtuous, you don't have to be all these sorts of things. You can, you can get it through the manipulation of nature. The manipulation and in this case like the manipulation of yourself.
- [46:36]
C
But so here's the. Here's right where they find it. Just to try to clarify, right in the midst there lay the body of a man sorely contorted and still twitching. They drew near on tiptoe, turned it on its back and beheld the face of Edward Hyde. He was dressed in clothes are far too large for him. Clothes of the doctor's bigness. The cords of his face still moved with the semblance of life, but life was quite gone. And by the crushed file in the hand and the strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew that he was looking on the body of a self destroyer. And then at the end of the letter Jekyll talks about how I don't know when I will turn back into Hyde and then Jekyll will be dead forever. But as I finish this note I bring the life of that unhappy Jekyll or Henry Jekyll to an end. So he finishes his note, he becomes, he will become Hyde and. But I don't know if he was like trying to kill himself right at the moment that Hyde took over or if Hyde did that. My guess is it was Hyde fearing being captured because he knew people were coming through the door. Maybe.
- [47:29]
A
Or maybe it's just the stress of it all. He's taking weird salts.
- [47:32]
C
Mm.
- [47:33]
A
The bodily stress that it takes. Yeah. Just wears you down. Yeah. I'm sort of struck of like, like it's obviously a fantastical story, but it feels familiar to certain kinds of people. Right. Like we can probably in our lives have known somebody that has kind of had this two sided nature, two sided character. This, you know, like the hidden, A hidden world where you think you can have, you can have it all, but then it sort of, it gets out of, out of your control. Whether that's like a, an addiction thing or, or, or. Yeah, or trying to keep. Yeah, you're trying to keep an addiction or vices hidden. You know, I tell my students a lot when they talk, ask how they're, how do they like about cheating or about things in class. And I always say my little text catch life catchphrase is you might get away with it, but you never get away with getting away with it. And this is sort of again, that kind of story of a Frankenstein or of a Dorian Gray. It's very similar to Dorian Gray. Yeah. Which is like you can get a, you, you can get away with it in terms of your fellow man. Right. Like you may be able to pull, pull a fast one on society or on the cops or on whatever, but like you can, you will never get away with getting away with it. Like it will, it will eat you up inside. It's like, like a Macbeth, right? Like Macbeth gets away with the murder of all these ghosts. But then like nature itself revolves against, against Macbeth and like he can't sleep and he sees ghosts and you almost have this. Like, if mankind is not going to be able to bring justice to injustice, then like the natural world is going to do it. And, and the conscious, the man is built in such a way that his conscience is not going to let this, this person continue to exist because it needs to be destroyed or else it's good.
- [49:40]
C
You know, evil is its own consequence. Yeah, right. I think easily we separate. Like I do this deed and then the bad thing is the consequences that come from that deed. Well, an older understanding is like, no, you did the deed and that's, that's the consequence. It's, it is bad to be that. It's bad to have that in your life. So I Don't know. It is. Yeah. It's a very familiar tale. It shocked me how, like, considering how this story is depicted in current culture.
- [50:02]
A
Oh, for sure.
- [50:03]
B
Yeah.
- [50:03]
C
How much of it is not an adventure or monster tale?
- [50:05]
A
It's same problem. Problem with Frankenstein.
- [50:07]
C
Yeah, exactly. Frankenstein's like this big monster, and sometimes even a hero monster thing. It's not about that. Just like this isn't about, like, a science accident gone wrong where Mr. Hyde is like, this monster that we have to contain with policemen.
- [50:20]
A
He's the Incredible Hulk, right? That's what this is.
- [50:23]
C
Yeah. He's not the Hulk. He's like a smaller, Smaller, more disgusting version of the normal person.
- [50:29]
B
Is it a fun read? Did you enjoy reading it?
- [50:31]
C
Oh, it's a great read. Yeah. I honestly. I especially enjoyed imagining you as Mr. Utterson because Mr. Utterson is like. Now, you see, at the end, he's trustworthy. He goes out of his way for his friends. At the end, he's like, breaking down a door to get a murderer.
- [50:43]
B
Sign me up.
- [50:43]
C
He, like, he puts the. He faithfully executes a will. He puts the story in the safe when he could write out. Read it. He is inviting his friend. He's like, an eminently good influence on everyone around him.
- [50:55]
B
So which one of us is Hyde? Are we gonna. We're gonna capture.
- [50:58]
C
I didn't. I didn't want to venture into that one, but it's.
- [51:02]
A
It's one of those. Another example of those stories of an anxiety towards technology or an anxiety towards science which says we can. Science and technology. We can give you the thing that you want, man. And then there's this in. And then as you sort of sit and think about it, you're like, wait a minute. Maybe getting what. Maybe men getting what they want is not good for man. It's not good for them. And it's this. If we unthinkingly allow this, because what was his rationale and his reason why he wanted to do this in the first place? You kind of glossed over, but what was this? Like, I could separate myself into these two parts, and one part would be happy. Like, what was that? What was his rationale?
- [51:45]
C
It was just like neither of the. You know, I could do all of those things as Hyde, and then Jekyll could be himself with. No. Like, I wouldn't even feel those things because I wouldn't be the one doing them.
- [51:55]
A
It's almost like this catharsis, right? Like, if I can get all the evil out, then I can be really good, which is always good.
- [52:00]
C
And I can fully enjoy the evil. Like, I won't have the conscience nagging me when I'm doing evil things, and I also won't have evil things nagging me when I'm a good, good version.
- [52:08]
A
Yeah. So it's. Yeah, you're wanting. You're wanting to use technology to sort of smooth out the difficulty of living as a moral person, which is you have. You have a, you know, an appetitive life that is sometimes good and sometimes bad, but it needs to be calibrated by the rational life of saying, like, this is good for me or this is good for society. This is bad for me. This is bad for society. I need to use my willpower to push away this desire that I have, this animal desire that I have that is in fact bad. You know, like the, like, like trampling over a kid. I don't know. That's pretty, that's pretty terrible, know, isn't it?
- [52:48]
C
Like, it seems so pedestrian when you're like. Compared to some of the stuff we see in movies now, you're like, walking over a kid. But then, like, if you actually imagine that happening, someone just barreling over a child and stomping on it, like, that is messed up.
- [52:58]
A
But then there is also the dark desire and the human heart of wanting to be better than everybody and wanting to just sort of like, have that tyrannical, like, naked show of power. Right, Right. I've been listening to a podcast series on. On the Aztecs and basically describing their, their just how they.
- [53:27]
C
You.
- [53:28]
A
How the king use sort of random cruelty as a mechanism to sort of maintain power, maintain sort of rule. And it's pretty dark, Pretty dark, terrible stuff. And. But it's. There's something like when you have a deformed society or a deformed person, like at some point, yeah. You can let that, that, those that like, dark urge take over of like, I just want to be the lord over everybody else and like, trample a child. And so in a weird sense, that's almost like the perfect picture of this sort of like, hide, like, tyranny. Yeah. Of the. That nothing. You know. Anyway, it's nice that British society holds him. Holds him to account. Like, if this was a modern. If this was a modern book, they'd be like, that's messed up. And they like, take a video of them and then. Yeah, yeah. And then let's cancel this, man. But. But in the moment, people were cowards all. Anyway. It's. Yeah, it's.
- [54:34]
C
I thought it funny that the thing that popped out when he had the chance to be like. It could have been his good side.
- [54:39]
A
That comes out again. I don't understand that.
- [54:41]
C
So he can basically rarefy himself and remove like, become only one of those. If man is primarily two, he can be either good or bad.
- [54:50]
B
Yeah.
- [54:50]
C
Then this, this little file lets him become one of those things. And the thing that came out was his evil one. He said if he had. If his. If intentions had been more noble or if he was a better person, he would have come out an angel. And I was wondering if that was like a little nod towards original sin.
- [55:03]
A
I don't even know if that's true. I mean, like, so if the. If the angel comes out, then what is Jekyll then? Is he evil?
- [55:09]
C
So Jekyll is a. Is a hybrid. So the Jekyll and Hyde story isn't good and bad. It's bad and normal. Mr. Jekyll, who still has temptations and still wants to do bad things when he is Hyde, he is just stripped of all of his goodness. Like, he didn't end up having both. He ended up just getting the evil one and that was it. And it's funny to me that the science. He says my experiments tended toward the mystical and what was it? Mystical and like spiritual. And I was like, that isn't even a division of science anymore.
- [55:40]
A
Yeah, I guess that's always like the. It's the wizard in the tower's dream. Right. Is that you can actually use.
- [55:49]
B
The.
- [55:49]
A
Ring for good or you can use. You can use the. You can use the salts and you will get the angel come out. I suspect you never will. I don't think you get the angel.
- [56:03]
B
I don't think it sounds like he didn't expect that after the first time also.
- [56:06]
C
Oh, after the first time. I think it was like cemented.
- [56:09]
B
He enjoyed it. Like that's what he wanted.
- [56:11]
C
Yeah, I mean, he wanted to have free. When he did it, he was like, I want to be rid of the evil that I have. No, he was like, I want to entertain the evil that I have.
- [56:19]
B
So Jekyll is aware of what Hyde is doing?
- [56:22]
C
I think vaguely. Okay, yes. And I think it's. He's just kind of hidden in there because even when he wakes up as Hyde, he knows he's like, oh no, both are him. It's just him stripped of his conscience or. Or him like incorporated.
- [56:40]
A
Like you have these a lot, these stories or at least this motif pops up a lot in stories. And that is when you are given the anonymity you mankind sort of Devolves into something terrible. So like in Plato, the guy who finds the ring that turns it invisible, he doesn't go and like do nice deeds to people. No, he goes and like, like spies on naked women and stuff. And he like murders her husband.
- [57:02]
B
Right.
- [57:03]
A
Kills her husband. When you can turn yourself into Mr. Hyde and no one knows you're, you know, you are an anonymous person. You do terrible things. Yeah. And it also has a deforming effect on the user. Like, I just can't help but think about like people talk about, you know, we sort of have live in a mental health crisis or people. The depression rates are through the roof. And that is often, and I think rightly so, linked to technology use. And what does technology have with this? It has that, that ability to be anonymous, ability to set up an avatar, ability to not have to be accountable. And no wonder, like people who, who are like overly online end up getting into this like, personal deformation place. Like in the real world. They are, they, they are split and manic or deformed. I don't mean deformed like physically. I mean like they have these split personalities. The, the, the, the ways of interacting online do not. The ways that do not work in the ways that you interact in the real world. And there are just people that can't bridge that gap and then get like, you know, like agoraphobia or anxieties for being in crowds and all this kind of stuff. Like it's, it's bad.
- [58:33]
B
Yeah. That time online does not prepare you for, quote, unquote, real world or physical.
- [58:37]
A
World, but it can, but it promises you all of the pleasures without the consequences.
- [58:42]
B
Yeah.
- [58:43]
C
Have I, have I ever told you my favorite? I think I have my favorite. Would you rather it's, it's another thing about like the ring of invisibility. You know, how it turns you bad. So it came from a conversation I had with a girl when I was in college. We ended up spending like four hours talking about it. But here's, here's the. Would you rather, Would you rather get brand new socks every morning? And they can be any kind of socks. If you, if it's a, if it's a warm day, they could be a little bit chilly. If it's a cold day, they could be warmed, they could be fuzzy, they could be long, they could be like no show. Whatever you need that day are the socks that show up in your drawer.
- [59:16]
B
Okay.
- [59:16]
C
And if you want to keep them, they hang around. If you don't want to keep them, they'll dis. You never be, like, burdened by an overwhelming, like, influx.
- [59:23]
A
Socks. 365 pairs of socks at the end of the year.
- [59:26]
C
Yeah, exactly. They'll disappear if you don't want them. But if you're like, oh, I loved those socks. I want that specific pair because of a memory to hang around. They will. Okay, so best case scenario, four socks.
- [59:35]
B
Great.
- [59:35]
C
Or you're a shapeshifter, and you're a shapeshifter that can shape shift into literally anything. You can change your atoms at their molecular structure. You can become, like, older, younger. You can become a different material. The only caveat is that you have to know something about the thing you're changing into. So you want to be an airplane, you have to read a book about airplanes. But once you do it once, it's muscle memory, right? If you want to be a hawk, read a book about hawks. You want to be the moon, you got to read about planetary stuff just a little bit. But beyond that first step, you can do it again and again. You could. Like, if you have cancer, you could fix that in yourself. You could completely become a different person. So which would you choose?
- [60:13]
B
It has to be the shapeshifter. Right? But the point is that, what are you going to use it for?
- [60:20]
C
Like, yeah, I choose the socks. I still choose the socks. I chose it back then. Because basically, you're offering yourself limitless power. I could go and kill Jeff Bezos and become Jeff Bezos, right? If they want to be put in jail, I turn myself into a tank. I break out of jail.
- [60:38]
A
Running Amazon sounds like a lot of work.
- [60:40]
C
I just sell the stock and have all the money. Why do I have to run Amazon? I just become Jeff Bezos and then be eccentric. And no one can prove that I'm not because I am Jeff Bezos. I've turned into him. And once you've lived as a hawk, how can you ever relate to someone when they talk about their new iPhone? You're like, I've flown through the night on my own wings.
- [60:57]
A
But, yeah, it's choosing oblivion, right? Because you are no longer you. At some point, as soon as you change into so many things, like, who are you? What are you? How do you retain some sort of.
- [61:07]
C
Idea of sense of self or even humanity? Like, how do I talk to people? I'm like, I've been a planet. Your concerns mean nothing to me. And on top of that, how do you not fix the things that you are concerned about? Like you. You could be endlessly beautiful and never have to deal with ugliness again. You never have to deal with death unless you're somehow obliterated without you knowing it's coming. You don't have to deal with, like.
- [61:29]
A
Growing old, you know, being endlessly beautiful is a burden.
- [61:31]
B
You guys tell us all about it.
- [61:33]
A
Graham.
- [61:33]
C
I'm telling you, like, it's just you. It is a temptation to do things that would degrade you to the point where you can no longer be human and talk to the people you want to talk to. You can all the money you want. You can have all the power you want. You could kill anyone you want. You could.
- [61:48]
A
Versus a small daily minor pleasure that cannot send you.
- [61:52]
B
Wrong. Yeah.
- [61:54]
C
And you can even sell the socks. You want the socks? Sell. Sell a pair a day. Sure you have. You know, even if they're like solid gold socks. And that's what I was thinking.
- [62:02]
B
Yeah. Like, the socks are sounding pretty good.
- [62:04]
C
Now, but that's not gonna. Like, that might make you pretty wealthy, but it's not. Hopefully that won't fully corrupt you, but I don't see how you go into shape shifting and come out a better person.
- [62:16]
A
Yeah, it's kind of a bummer that, like, Ease is corrupting.
- [62:25]
B
Much better.
- [62:25]
C
The question wasn't like, would you rather have the socks or, like, hang out on a Jamaican island having all your needs met?
- [62:31]
A
No.
- [62:32]
C
You're offered power.
- [62:35]
A
That power is corrupting.
- [62:37]
B
Yeah. Do we have enough stories about people who are turning down, like, they turn down power? Like, Odysseus wants to go farm.
- [62:44]
C
Right. Or Solon.
- [62:45]
B
Yeah. That's O Doesn't want to be king. So, like, all that, like, if I.
- [62:50]
C
Trusted myself more, I would choose the shape shifting because what an experience. Like, what a life. That'd be amazing. But with that much power, I just don't trust myself.
- [62:59]
B
Yeah. Feel weird making the sock choice, though, given the choice between them. Right. Like, don't you feel like you always. The second you get sick, you'd be like, what. What was I thinking? Like, what are socks gonna do for me?
- [63:09]
C
But then I'd remind myself, like, I would probably end up a murderer. And, like, maybe not me. Like, I don't want to murder people. I think more likely I would end up flying around as a hawk for a really long time. And then, like, check out the, like, bottom of the sea. But then, like, I have to watch my family die and my loved ones, and then I, like, I can learn everything. And then I'm just, like, I get bored. And then I'd probably end up flying through space looking for something new. Because I just got bored of the things that were happening on the planet after, you know, many, many, many lifetimes of not being able to connect with anyone anymore. I don't know. That seems like not a great end either. It's tough. But socks, they're.
- [63:48]
B
The socks are great. Yeah. That's the real takeaway about this.
- [63:50]
A
Do you have any. Any big, like, life Lesson takeaways from Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde?
- [63:56]
C
I mean, I think what we've already talked about, like, we're just about out of time here anyway. But I. I don't think I have anything that is more revolutionary than. Yeah. Being anonymous and being able to, like, fully indulge your bad side. It's not gonna stay small, it's gonna get bigger. It reminds me of that Father Brown part where he's talking to a jewel thief. Anyway, you guys read Father Brown? Yes. It's great. He's talking to that famous French jewel thief who's like a rascal and the women love him and he steals these things and he. Father Brown goes out there and he says, look, right now everyone loves you. You can maintain a level of good, but you cannot maintain a level of bad. You will get worse and worse and worse where people no longer love you, they don't want to be with you. You will be corrupted beyond what you are now, and you will no longer be dashing and fun and good company. You will be horrible. And he converts the guy to Christianity right there. It reminds me of that. Right. You cannot maintain a level of bad. You either, like, you're going to be moving in one direction with it. Either you're trying to root it out of your life or it's going to be taking its hold.
- [64:56]
A
It reminds me of. Well, what's that, like, psychedelic mushroom that is in vogue that people are taking to try to, like, make their lives better? Asha Waggy or whatever it's called.
- [65:06]
C
Ayahuasca.
- [65:07]
A
Yeah, that.
- [65:08]
C
That's in vogue right now.
- [65:09]
A
Yeah, like, you got tech bros going down to the jungle and going on like, crazy trips and coming back and, like, selling all their stock and like, be surfing. But. But there's all. But there's also stories of people who are like, I'm going to go. And this is like, I'm in a rough place in my life and I feel like my life is going well. I'm going to go and take this, like, spiritual trip to the jungle. And they go and they take this mushroom and when they come out of it, they are crazy. Like, they never change. And what it does is. It is chemically, it has done something and they've basically like one shot themselves and their life is over.
- [65:45]
C
That happens with acid too. You can go fully schizophrenic after.
- [65:48]
A
So there's. There's this, like, you know, there's this. It's something sort of similar. It's like, I've got this. This technological. It's literally I'm gonna have this drug, this potion that I drink and is going to bring me into this, like, higher level of humanity where I can sort of like this transhumanism. I can sort of transcend the difficulty of the human life. And his life is over with it. When as soon as he does it, like you. You got this one shot. You don't get to save scum. Like, it's over, right? Like, you can't reload the game. And I don't think a lot of people think about that enough in life like, that there are decisions you can make that you cannot come back from. We have this, like, you can always come back sort of reinvent yourself story in our culture. But, like, there are things you can't come back from.
- [66:38]
B
And I don't know, are you thinking of something beyond the kind of chemical examples?
- [66:42]
A
I mean, I'm even thinking of the, like, drunk driving and you kill somebody. There's. There's always those sorts of stories. But I think, like, I do wonder about. About, like, the technological uses on children. And like, there's even. People are starting to get the stories coming out about, like, people's relationships in with. With chatbots and. And like developmental stages and all this kind of stuff. Like, we could actually get to the point where we've like, pretty much fried brain rotted an entire generation of kids that could be quite angry by the time they're like 35 and realizing my child, my life got this huge headwind against it because the generation before me did not care about safeguards. We cared about something else. I don't know. It's. It's crazy world.
- [67:34]
C
All right, we gotta stop there. We're over time.
- [67:36]
B
All right.
- [67:36]
A
It's almost a doomer talk.
- [67:39]
B
Thanks for ending on a positive note.
- [67:43]
C
You have one shot in our lives, I think.
- [67:45]
A
Oh, so this has been another cheerful episode of Classical Stuff. You should know.
- [67:50]
B
Welcome back.
- [67:50]
A
Graham Thomas, aj If you want to know. Hear more about this. We do in between episodes for our Patreon subscribers, so. And we also do Patreon episodes. We do monthly amas some. And as AJ and I are giving more talks abroad or at different institutions. Often they make their way to the Patreon page and for a while we had an Oracle that gave sage advice. But no one really.
- [68:21]
C
Hasn'T happened.
- [68:21]
B
Oh, is there just one post people are supposed to go to? Yeah, we might need to like.
- [68:24]
A
Oh no, I mean I did like a monthly post or the Oracle did a month.
- [68:27]
C
Do you still do that?
- [68:28]
A
I could anyway the Oracle. If the Oracle wants. If you want the Oracle back, hit us up in chat on the old Patreon and we'll bring the Oracle back. Otherwise you can email us at the guys at classic classical stuff.net or you can find us on Twitter @clss. I don't know where you can find us on Twitter. Plus cool school stuff.
- [68:48]
C
Google it, man.
- [68:48]
A
Yeah, just Google it.
- [68:49]
C
Yeah, spend more time on the Internet.
- [68:52]
A
And we love you, but put your phones down and go outside, have some.
- [68:56]
C
Touch a little grass.
- [68:57]
A
Yeah, just, you know, go for a walk. Just don't care what the world thinks.
- [69:02]
B
Bye bye Sam.