The Real Monster in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is Toxic Masculinity
A spooky season true crime/crime fiction crossover
cw: sexual and domestic violence
As it is officially spooky season, it’s time to really lean into horror when it comes to my film selections.1 Last week, I saw Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the 1931 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of the same from 1888. I’ve taught the novella several times, but I was still surprised at just how upsetting this movie was.
According to Professor Wikipedia, Stevenson’s story has been adapted over 123 times, and that’s just counting the films.2 The first cinematic adaptation came out in 1908 and the most recent premiered just three years ago. The version I watched starred Frederic Marsh in the titular role(s), for which he won the Oscar that year. After establishing Dr. Jekyll3 as a preeminent scientist with a girlfriend whose father won’t let them marry, and a somewhat Freudian theory about an evilness we all harbor within us, the transformations start. And so do the disturbing scenes.
In the grand sci-fi tradition of scientists experimenting on themselves, Jekyll imbibes a potion that looks like the trendiest cocktail in Brooklyn, and, in a feat of special effects the specifics of which were not revealed until after the director’s death, becomes Hyde before our eyes. And wow is it racist. Marsh’s skin is darkened and nose flattened, making the argument that evil has a racialized phenotype.4 Not great! But what is equally distressing is how Jekyll’s evil self manifests itself behaviorally.
In the novella, Hyde’s outbursts of violence are promiscuous and indiscriminate. He tramples a child and beats a man to death. In the film, his malevolence has one particular target: a working class performer named Ivy Pierson. Ivy, who had attempted to seduce Jekyll after he saved her from a beating, is kidnapped and imprisoned by Hyde, where she is the victim of physical and (strongly implied) sexual violence.5 When she begs Jekyll for help, she shows him whip marks on her back. It’s horrifying.
After Jekyll learns he no longer has control over the transformations, he, as Hyde, strangles Ivy to death. The film, more so than the novella, argues that evil in men is defined by and enacted directly upon women’s bodies. And it turns out there’s a precedent for that interpretation in the history of this story’s composition.
Fortuitously, though ‘tis the season, CrimeReads published a true-crime connection to J&H last week that posits Stevenson was inspired by a case involving an acquaintance who murdered his wife. Eugène Chantrelle, an upstanding teacher and all-around “good dad,” was arrested and convicted (and hanged) for poisoning his wife. The history of their relationship suggests that this crime was not an unexpected and shocking deviation of behavior in Chantrelle, but rather the culmination of a history of misogyny. The thirty-two-year-old married Elizabeth Dyer, his student, when she was fifteen and already pregnant with their first child, and, according to numerous accounts, subjected her to physical and verbal abuse throughout their nine-year relationship. Apparently the only “potion” Chantrelle required to bring forth his evil side was access to a vulnerable young girl.
I don’t often think of horror films from the thirties as being traditionally scary, but this one legitimately upset and stuck with me.
Bonus Content! For a scientifically informed and biographically grounded take on this story, along with a smart overview of the Victorian obsession with monstrosity, give this ‘stack from the reliably excellent Crime & Psychology a read:
Drop your favorites in the comments!
There have also been stage, radio, video game, and graphic novel versions. This text definitely counts as a story we can’t stop retelling.
The surname is pronounced Jee-cull throughout—anyone know why that might be?
This choice, though, makes one of the retellings I recently watched of the story, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde even more compelling. In that film, the Black protagonist resembles a white man when he transforms, making a powerful argument about institutionalized and internalized racism.
Hyde also attacks Jekyll’s fiancée, tearing her clothing.
Hello,
Thank you for this wonderful analysis and pointing out the alleged physicality of evil. It could be interesting to look at the many adaptations of this play and see the extent to which they deviate from the original specially in how they portray the transformation (is it connected to physical changes and are these changes similar to those in the book/concurrent thinking), and to explore how Hyde commits violence.
These changes may help understand the views of those people making those adaptations.
Wonderful column!
This reminded me: I should show you the Movie Maniacs action figure that was made for this era (likely riffing more on the 1908 version) of Jekyll and Hyde. It's pretty freaky, too. Also, reading this made me even more creeped out by the now defunct theme restaurant Jekyll and Hyde, which was kitschy and cute and, now, an uncomfortable juxtaposition against the rapey vibes of the movie. Yikes.