Hardcore Literature - Episode 88 "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (Robert Louis Stevenson) Host: Benjamin McEvoy Date: December 7, 2025

Main Theme & Purpose

Benjamin McEvoy delivers a rich, literary deep-dive into The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, situating Stevenson’s novella within the broader canon of Gothic fiction and interrogating its enduring power. Using layered historical context, literary comparisons, and philosophical exploration, McEvoy asks: Why does the terror of Stevenson’s tale still grip us, and what does it say about the nature of good and evil within all of us? The episode both unpacks the narrative’s structure and themes and offers a meditation on human psychology, addiction, moral struggle, and the darkness at the core of civilization.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Enduring Terror of Jekyll and Hyde

• Opening Reflection (00:05)

  • McEvoy frames the novella as a response to humanity’s “deepest concern,” quoting:
    “Man is not truly one, but truly two.”
  • The central terror is the monster within—the line separating good and evil runs through every human heart (referencing Solzhenitsyn).
  • Compares Stevenson’s novella to “a furious shot out of hell,” alongside Frankenstein and Dracula as the triumvirate of influential horror.
  • Notes the story’s origin during a cocaine-fueled burst, drafts burned by Stevenson’s wife, and subsequent rewrite as a “white-hot flash of demonic reinspiration.”

• Historical Resonance (03:30)

  • Draws connections to real Edinburgh crimes, notably the murderer Eugene Chantrell.
  • Discusses stage adaptations being pulled following the Jack the Ripper murders; even suggesting the actor playing Hyde was considered a suspect.

  "What is it about this particular work that resonated so powerfully...? It's the idea that the monster is man. The monster is within us, which means the monster is us." [04:45]

2. Why Jekyll and Hyde Remains Fresh

• Cultural Saturation and First Reading (09:00)

  • Acknowledges that the twist is common knowledge today, embedded in culture.
  • Despite this, rereading yields “a feverish sense of terror… that leads to wisdom,” and the book’s prose remains crisp and evocative, recreating “foggy, dirty London.”

  “Regardless of whether we know the big reveal, we still, or at least I still, feel a feverish sense of terror throughout. And I feel the kind of fear that ultimately leads to wisdom.” [09:45]

3. Story and Character Foundations

• Introduction of Mr. Utterson (11:00)

  • Dissects the protagonist’s name for biblical and symbolic resonance:
    “Gabriel John Utterson” — 'Gabriel' the guardian angel, 'John' the Gospelist, and 'Utterson' as the son of the 'uttered' or unutterable.
  • The first philosophical inquiry:
    “To what extent are we responsible for the deeds of others?” [13:30]

• The Door and Dichotomy (15:00)

  • The door as symbol: entry to the hidden, public vs. private self, the very definition of scandal.
  • Recalls Enfield’s story of Hyde’s first “hellish” act — trampling a child in the night, and the city’s transformation from deserted to crowded with scandal.

  “[Hyde] wasn’t like a man, it was like some damned juggernaut.” [17:00]

4. Gothic Preoccupations: Class, Crime, and the Uncanny

• Notes persistent anxiety with class in Gothic literature, linking Hyde’s crimes and Jack the Ripper to the public’s fear that evil could come from social “respectability.”
• Points to the Gothic’s roots in societal trauma (e.g., the French Revolution).
• Introduction of Hyde:
  • “He must be deformed somewhere. He gives a strong feeling of deformity.”
  • The uncanny as a disturbing feeling of “lingering evil,” discussed via ETA Hoffmann’s “The Sandman” and the origins of “the uncanny valley” concept. [24:00]
• Distinguishing terror and horror, citing Ann Radcliffe:
  • Horror: direct experience of the awful event
  • Terror: the foreboding, psychological expectation (“Terror is the more sublime and elevated feeling.”) [27:00]
  • Stephen King’s “three rungs”: terror, horror, gross-out.

5. Victorian Science, Scientists and Duality

• Analyses Dr. Jekyll’s will, the meaning of “will” — both legal legacy and personal desire.

  • “Do we have free will? Or is an internal force loaded against us?” [32:00]

• Discusses split personalities, madness/disgrace, and visits to London’s “citadel of medicine,” evoking Dickens’ Bleak House for its labyrinthine, fog-bound city-as-psyche metaphor.

  • The Gothic city as a metaphor for the unconscious – foreshadowing Freud.

  “Navigating this smoggy, foggy realm, this locale, is like a metaphor for searching one’s psyche.” [37:00]

• Mad Science in Gothic Literature (40:00)

  • Contextualizes Jekyll among a pantheon of “mad scientists”: Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, Dr. Raymond, Van Helsing, and Seward.
  • Returns to the “forbidden knowledge” motif—Promethean angst, from Goethe’s Faust and Icarus, to the Tree of Knowledge.

6. Victorian Medicine, Addiction, and Social Anxieties

• Details the era’s narcotics (opium, cocaine), public perception of surgeons as “sawbones,” and literary depictions of opium dens.
• Scientific and philosophical breakthroughs (Schopenhauer, Darwin) and the rise of psychology, hypnotism, and occult fascinations.
  • “Post-Darwinian anxiety is everywhere in the late 19th century.” [49:00]

7. Names, Symbolism, and Detective Tradition

• Analyzes etymology and symbolism in character names:

  • Hyde: “to hide, to conceal” — animal skin/disguise, Hyde Park’s history.
  • Jekyll: “I kill,” from Breton, highlighting the embedded violence.
  • Hyde/Seek as a nod to childhood games and to the literary tradition of detective fiction, tracing lineage from Poe’s Dupin, Dickens’ Bucket, Wilkie Collins, to the upcoming Sherlock Holmes.

  “If he be Mr. Hyde, I shall be Mr. Seek.” [52:00]

8. Plot Progression and Gothic Tension

• Narrates Utterson’s detective-like progression through foggy London, encountering Hyde’s “troglodytic” evil presence.
  • “He had a murderous look of loathing and disgust and fear… the radiance of a foul soul transpiring through and transfiguring its clay content again.” [61:00]
• Hyde linked to Jekyll by house access, hints at “black secrets,” and “ghosts of old sin.”
• Successive crimes: Hyde’s brutal murder of Sir Danvers Carew (“with ape-like fury... bones were audibly shattered” [71:00]), police investigation through symbolic artifacts (the cane, sealed envelopes), and Hyde’s growing elusiveness.

9. Doubling, Splitting, and Identity

• Observes Soho’s reputation for hidden vice and covert lives, with literary links to Dorian Gray, Wilde, and the prevalence of doubles and doppelgängers as metaphors for suppressed selves.
• Recurring motif: “He had a haunting sense of unexpressed deformity.” [81:00]
  • Mirrors Victorian (and still-present) stigmas around physical deformity, as well as the “mirror of self-recognition.”

10. Climax and Confessions

• Scene-by-scene breakdown of the final revelations:

  • Utterson and Poole break into Jekyll’s lab; find the contorted body of Hyde dressed in oversized clothes, surrounded by the paraphernalia of failed chemistry.
  • The “cheval glass” (a mirror): confronting the “involuntary horror” of the self in the glass. [98:00]
  • Discovery of Jekyll’s confession and Lanyon’s narrative letter — the layered, Russian-doll structure as a narrative metaphor for the layered psyche.

  “What do they intuit about this situation? … Why is it looking in the mirror brings about involuntary horror? What do you see in the glass? You see yourself.” [99:15]

11. Metamorphosis, Addiction, and the Human Condition

• Jekyll’s confession: his obsession with duality isn’t a transformation into evil, but a revelation of a hidden self already within.

  • The drug as means to split and unleash evil, and eventually, as in addiction, becoming necessary to return to “normal.” The more he takes, the more Hyde dominates.
  • "Anyone who's ever struggled with addiction sees this story as a mirror. We find our signature all over it." [112:30]
  • Hyde’s violence as both a thrill and path to self-destruction.

• Triad of Selves (per Nabokov) (115:00):

  • Not simply Jekyll (good) and Hyde (evil); Jekyll is a blend, Hyde is pure evil, and there’s a third detached witness self observing the struggle.
  • Integration with Freudian psychology:
    • Jekyll: The Ego
    • Hyde: The Id
    • Superego: The outer narrator/conscience

12. Ending, Ambiguity, and Moral Judgment

• Jekyll’s last act—a blend of defeat and possible grace. Did Jekyll will Hyde’s suicide or did Hyde act to save or to escape?

  • The story’s ambiguity is vital; it refuses to resolve good and evil in easy terms.
  • The real danger is denial of our own capacity for evil.

  “It is the denial of the basest, most beastly part of our humanity that damns us, damns society. … Not being able to see that the split between good and evil runs right through us, right through every human heart—that’s exactly the sort of blindness that leads to atrocities.” [120:00]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the True Horror

  “It comes down, in my opinion, to how fully and perceptively Stevenson put his finger on what truly terrifies us at the bottom of the great horror stories: the monster is us.” [04:50]

• On the Uncanny

  “He gives a strong feeling of deformity. ... Stevenson, in this story, is really working up what we call the uncanny, which is a real hallmark of the Gothic.” [21:00]

• On Addiction and Splitting

  “This sounds like the language of drug addicts and alcoholics: I can be rid of him when I like. Oh, I can quit whenever I like. … This is also the language of toxic relationships.” [68:00]

• On Narrative Layers

  “We’ve got these layers upon layers, like Russian dolls... a great narrative figuration of showing what’s really going on with Jekyll and Hyde.” [101:30]

• On Denial and Evil

  “That rejection is the most terrifying thing at all—not being able to see that the split between good and evil runs right through us. That’s the blindness that leads to atrocities and crimes being continually perpetuated.” [120:00]

• On Hope and Humanity

  “Yes, there’s evil within us… but there’s good too. And whenever I finish a reread of this story around the Halloween season, I find myself confronted with the question: how will I ensure it is the good that is within me that shines forth?” [121:00]

Important Timestamps

• 00:05 – Introduction: Relevance, Stevenson’s life, cultural and historical background
• 13:30 – Responsibility for others’ deeds, Cain reference, social morality
• 17:00 – Enfield’s recounting of Hyde’s trampling of the girl; symbolism of the door & scandal
• 21:00 – Uncanny as Gothic technique; reference to Hoffmann, Freud, uncanny valley
• 27:00 – Radcliffe’s Terror vs. Horror; Stephen King’s classification
• 32:00 – Free will, Jekyll’s will, fate vs. agency in literature
• 37:00 – London and the city as a metaphor for the psyche; Dickensian & Freudian overlaps
• 40:00 – The “mad scientist” motif in Gothic fiction, ambition, forbidden knowledge
• 49:00 – Victorian anxieties: addiction, scientific progress, Darwin, psychology
• 52:00 – Names and their meanings; the tradition of literary detectives
• 61:00 – First meeting with Hyde, uncanny evil, Satanic imagery
• 71:00 – The Carew murder: horror overtakes terror
• 81:00 – Hyde’s enigmatic appearance; societal attitudes to deformity
• 98:00 – Breaking into the lab; the horror of self-recognition in the mirror
• 101:30 – Letter/diary structure; layers as narrative and psychic structure
• 112:30 – Addiction, identity, and personal resonance for readers
• 115:00 – Not two, but three selves; psychological analysis
• 120:00 – The danger of denial; ending on the need for personal moral vigilance and compassion

Conclusion

Benjamin McEvoy’s analysis transforms The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from a familiar “twist” narrative into an endlessly fertile mediation on evil, addiction, morality, and identity. Breaking down plot, structure, literary context, and historical anxieties, he ties together Victorian fears of modernity, psychological fragmentation, and the eternal conflict within each human’s heart. The episode concludes by urging listeners to acknowledge their own complexities—seeing both good and evil within as key to resisting true monstrosity.

For Further Exploration

• ETA Hoffmann’s “The Sandman,” Ann Radcliffe’s “Mysteries of Udolpho,” Dickens’ Bleak House
• Frankenstein, Dracula, Wilde’s Dorian Gray
• Connections to Freud, Darwin, and the legacy of the Gothic in modern psychology and literature

“Happy reading, everybody—and beware what may be lurking outside your door.” [122:00]