How to write the best Jekyll and Hyde essay

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is seen and recounted through the eyes of Gabriel John Utterson, a London lawyer.

The book begins with John Utterson, the lawyer, talking to another friend about an incident his friend had witnessed. Edward Hyde had run over a girl in the street and went to the family to offer them recompense for her death. He took a cheque to the family that had been signed by Dr. Jekyll. Utterson is most concerned because recently Dr. Jekyll changed his will in favour of Mr. Hyde, leaving him everything.

Utterson, naturally enough thinks that Jekyll and Hyde are two separate people. He thinks that his friend, Dr. Jekyll, is being blackmailed by the evil Mr. Hyde. He asks Dr. Jekyll about his relationship with Hyde, but Dr. Jekyll basically tells him to mind his own business. Utterson can’t do that and continues to investigate what is happening between the two men.

A year after the death of the girl, another strange thing occurs. Mr Hyde assaults and kills a man with his cane. The police approached Utterson because he knew the murdered man. Utterson takes the police to Mr. Hyde’s home and they find the cane (the murder weapon). It had been a gift from Utterson to Dr. Jekyll. Once again Utterson asks Dr. Jekyll about Mr. Hyde as obviously the police wanted to know his whereabouts. Dr. Jekyll insists that he doesn’t know and can’t help, as Mr Hyde has run away. The doctor produces a goodbye note signed by Mr Hyde, but this arouses Utterson’s suspicions because the handwriting is very similar to that of his friend, Jekyll.

After that, Utterson saw an improvement in his friend’s behaviour, but it was short-lived. Then one of Utterson’s friends dies, but before he does so he gives the lawyer a letter. He told Utterson that he should open it only if Dr. Jekyll disappears or dies.

Dr. Jekyll’s behaviour becomes increasingly strange until he locks himself in his laboratory. Dr. Jekyll’s butler and Utterson finally break down the door, because they hear a voice inside the laboratory that did not sound like Jekyll’s. They discover Mr Hyde, who is wearing Dr. Jekyll’s clothes. He had committed suicide and there was a note beside his body, which Utterson takes home with him.

The first letter, written by his friend, informs Utterson that Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde are, in fact one and the same. It explains that Dr. Jekyll had invented a potion or serum, that changed him into Mr. Hyde.

The second letter explains why Dr. Jekyll concocted and drank the potion. He had wanted to separate his good and bad sides. In the beginning, drinking it had the power to change Hyde back into Dr. Jekyll, wo thought that he could control the changes. However, eventually he changed from the good doctor to the evil Mr. Hyde without drinking the potion. He could no longer control when he changed.

He attempted to stop the changes, but nothing he tried worked. He knew that sooner or later the evil Mr. Hyde would completely take over and his good side would be obliterated. He would have to live the rest of his life as Mr. Hyde. Finally, when he managed to change into Dr. Jekyll, he wrote the letter to Utterson and committed suicide, because he was disgusted by his violent acts.

• When you write a synopsis of a book, you should write in the present tense. Even when you have finished reading the book, it still exists, so don’t use the past tense.
• This particular Jekyll and Hyde essay is rather like a book review. You can therefore give the title of the book, the name of the author, the publisher, and the edition of the book you read. It is especially important and useful to give the publication date of the edition you read. This is important as you need to include page references in your essay.
• You should use several quotes from the book, so you need to specify the precise page they come from.
• Be careful when you copy quotes. Make sure they are exact and that they fit logically into the essay.
• This essay differs from a book review in an important way. in a book review you never reveal the ending. After all, the purpose of a review is to encourage people to buy the book.
• You must read the whole book to write a review or essay. Don’t just skim and scan for pertinent information. You need to find good quotations to use in the essay.
• Write your essay in a logical sequence. The reader wants to be taken from the beginning to the end of the book in a synopsis. Don’t jump about haphazardly.
• Discuss the plot, characters, scenes and analyse how the author dealt with them. If you were t write a review of the book, you would end with a recommendation as to whether or not it would be worth reading, or not.
• If you don’t think that the book is very good, despite it having stood the test of time, say so and give valid reasons why you hold your opinion.
• Discuss the themes the author presents in the book. Remember that these are not about the plot, of the book, but, in this case, the themes of friendship, loyalty and madness, and to a certain extent, death and suicide.
• Remember to write a topic sentence for each paragraph. The sentence should help you to concentrate on what you should include in each of the paragraphs.
• Begin your essay with a sentence that grabs the reader’s attention. This is the ‘hook’ or bait, that lures the reader into your essay. You could start with a rhetorical question, for example.
• Finish the first paragraph with your thesis statement.
• Avoid clichés. Readers are averse to hackneyed phrases. Try to be original.
• Find out from your tutor just how personal you can make your essay. Don’t forget that you should revise and edit your essay. Your first draft can always be improved upon.
• Ask your tutor, fellow-student, or educated friend to read your essay and make helpful, constructive comments. Also ask them to check the spelling and grammar, as you don’t always spot your own mistakes.

Dr. Jekyll is not schizophrenic. People with schizophrenia do not physically change into someone else.

According to H. J. Eysenck's Encyclopaedia of Psychology, it was Emil Kraepelin (1856 – 1926), a German psychiatrist, who founded modern scientific psychiatry. He thought that people with psychiatric problems had genetic and/or biological problems. He studied under different German neuroanatomists and also under Wilhelm Wundt, the renowned experimental psychologist. He was the person who first presented a classification of mental illnesses. He distinguished between manic-depressive psychosis and schizophrenia, then called dementia praecox. He believed that manic-depressive problems and depression could be treated but believed that schizophrenia could not be. It was 1887 when he first separated schizophrenia from other types of psychosis. However, schizophrenia was known long before the late 19th century.

In ancient times people thought of mental illness as a punishment meted out by God, or by the gods, if we consider the cases of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Egyptian Ebers papyrus, which dates back to 1550 BC, describes an illness that is very like schizophrenia, so it has been plaguing us humans for millennia.

In the Old Testament of the bible, in the Book of Samuel, we read that King Saul was ‘mad’ because he neglected his religious duties and observances. God was angry and punished him with madness. David’s harp-playing could soothe the troubled king which leads us to believe that the ancients believed that ‘madness,’ or psychotic illnesses could be treated.

It was Hippocrates (460-377 BC), considered to be the Father of Medicine, who believed that psychosis or madness, was caused by the four bodily humours (consisting of black and yellow bile, along with phlegm and blood) becoming unbalanced. He theorised that these humours affected the body, mind and our emotions. He believed that cures could be affected by blood-letting, purgatives, and special diets. Although we may scoff at his ideas today, at least they were more forward thinking than a belief that mental illness was God’s punishment for wrongdoing.

Socrates (470-399 BC), didn’t see madness as a curse in contrast to other philosophers and doctors. Rather he saw it as a blessing, or a gift from the gods. The Romans Asclepiades, and the Cicero had opposing views to Socrates, they believed that ‘black bile’ was not the problem. They thought that it was the negative emotions such as fear, grief and rage were the causes of depression or melancholia. However, in the 2nd century AD, people and physicians, particularly Celsus (c. 25 BC – c. 50 AD), reverted to the belief that madness was indeed the punishment of the gods.

In Europe in the middle ages, it was religion that became central to the search for a cure for madness. There were asylums for the mentally ill, notably that of Bethlehem in London. Some monasteries became centres for the treatment of ‘lunatics’.

Of course, in the early years of the Renaissance, heretics and witches were burned at the stake and these may have been innocent people who were mentally disturbed.

Eventually beliefs began to change and there was more tolerance to the mentally ill. In the 18th century, the French doctor, Philippe Pinel (1745-1826) began advocating humane approaches for treating mental illnesses. His ‘Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation or Mania’ was a notable landmark.

Of course, it was the noted Viennese psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), who was mainly responsible for influencing the way psychiatry developed.

Now we have geneticists and brain imagery scanning, as well as effective medications to help those who suffer with mental illnesses. Of course, in Stevenson’s day psychiatry had not been developed.