Robert Louis Stevenson’s short novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has spawned many retellings of Dr. Jekyll’s tale, as well as variation on the theme. The Jekyll and Hyde conceit is one that lends itself to many different forms of literature, such as motion pictures and sequential art. Sometimes liberties are taken in reinterpretations of Mr. Hyde from the original text. This can be distinguished in two recent works, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a comic book miniseries by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, and Mary Reilly, a film by Stephen Frears.
        The appearance of Mr. Hyde has always tended towards the stereotypical hairy man. In fact, the transformation of Jekyll into Hyde in movies seem like werewolf transformations. This comes from the frequent mention of Hyde’s hands as being “of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair” (82). Although Hyde’s face is never described as hairy, it tends to be a logical assumption that if the hands are hairy, then the face may be as well. Jekyll’s own appearance is described by his lawyer, Utterson, as being a “smooth-faced man of fifty” (44) and Hyde, for all intents and purposes, is the opposite of Jekyll. The hairiness of Hyde is maintained in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Hyde is drawn as a dark brown man with coarse hair all over his arms and chest, whereas Jekyll is a smooth faced, pale and sickly man. Mary Reilly takes a divergent route. Jekyll is portrayed as a man with graying curly hair and a mustache and goatee, whereas Hyde is a clean shaven man with long and lank dark hair. In fact, as the movie progresses, Jekyll becomes hairier, due to his going about unshaven, but Hyde remains smooth-faced; and he has smooth, well manicured hands, a contradiction to the original book. The only character that looks like a stereotypical Hyde in the movie is Mary’s father, which goes to one of the themes the movie has; that of women in abusive relationships due to childhood experiences.
        The stature of Jekyll and Hyde in Stevenson’s original tale were two different things. Hyde was a “dwarfish” man, as described by Utterson (41) and other people. This was highlighted on several occasions where Hyde was wearing Jekyll’s clothing. Lanyon described Hyde as wearing “clothes... [that] were enormously too large for him in every measurement” (72), and when Hyde is found dead in Dr. Jekyll’s cabinet, “[h]e was dressed in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the doctor’s bigness” (66). Mary Reilly maintained this size disparity in some fashion. Since the parts of Jekyll and Hyde were both portrayed by the same man, John Malkovich, their sizes could not be too different. Instead, Malkovich had Hyde crouch over frequently, very likely an allusion to the Darwinian aspects of Jekyll’s transformation. One of the house staff described Hyde as being “stooped” and walking with a strange gait. Alan Moore’s miniseries has a different take. Hyde is an enormous, ape-like man that towers over other people. He is a very muscular, barrel chested figure. In fact, when Captain Nemo offers Jekyll a revolver, the doctor declines and says “he’s too big to need one” and adds cryptically, “do you know, I was once taller than he was?” (6: 8,3).
        The reason for the disparity in Jekyll and Hyde’s stature is theorized by Stevenson as a matter of exercise. “The evil side” of Jekyll’s nature, “was less robust and less developed than the good” (79). Jekyll later noticed that since Hyde “had lately been much exercised and nourished” and it seemed that his body “had grown in stature” (83). Nevertheless, Hyde remained smaller than Jekyll in the novel. In the movie Mary Reilly, Hyde’s frequent excursions showed changes. Hyde walked much less jerkily as he had in his earlier appearances, and he did not stoop as much. He even said to Mary Reilly, “I am stronger now,” after she found him sleeping in Jekyll’s bed. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen takes this concept much further. The story takes place in 1898, 12 years after Jekyll’s supposed suicide. In those years, Hyde continued to live, becoming the dominant being. Jekyll’s cryptic statement regarding his previous height to Hyde’s height places this story within a logical continuity. The only contradiction in the story is from the cover of issue 2, which shows a small illustration of Hyde trampling a little girl, with a caption saying “Edward Hyde- 1886.” Obviously, this comes from chapter one of Stevenson’s novel, but Hyde is portrayed as a large hulking man in a tuxedo. This contradiction can probably be explained away a means to maintain continuity in Hyde’s appearance between the interior story and the cover.
        The moral question of the case of Jekyll and Hyde is addressed in all three different texts. As mentioned earlier, Stevenson described Hyde as the “evil side” of Dr. Jekyll, and he acknowledged it as thus for during a time when he resisted drinking the transformation potion, he put all his energies and money into charities, calling it “my penitence” (86) for the deeds Hyde performed. In the movie, Jekyll tells Mary that his problem with Hyde was that it was a “fracture of my soul.” The theme is addressed more explicitly when Mary confronts Hyde, asking him, “Is evil stronger than good?” after Hyde had gained dominance over Jekyll. Hyde tells her, in their first meeting, that he was not in favor of control, flying in the face of Victorian morality. The Hyde in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is no different. The representative of British Intelligence, Campion Bond, tells the others, “Oh, Dr. Henry Jekyll is a highly moral individual, to be sure. Mr. Edward Hyde, on the other hand, is very different,” and explains that Jekyll “devised a potion that would release his darker self... Edward Hyde...” (2: 21, 1 and 5). Later, Hyde is angry at Mina Murray (formerly Mrs. Harker) for ordering him around like “a dog”, but Mina counters, “Dogs, sir, have more self-control!” (4: 16, 4).
        The transformation of Jekyll into Hyde and vice versa tends to be a major story element in all versions of the Jekyll and Hyde tale. The first transformation of Jekyll and Hyde is not described until late in the story, and it is seen only by one person, Jekyll himself notwithstanding. This is because the actual connection between Jekyll and Hyde is kept vague. Near the end of the novel, Lanyon is the one who witnesses the transformation of Hyde into Jekyll. The Jekyll to Hyde transformation is never shown. Mary Reilly takes the same route. The viewer does not see the actual transformation until the very end of the movie when Mary Reilly witnesses Hyde’s transformation back to Jekyll. All other transformation scenes are heard, not seen. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also hews towards the same route. The other characters are not aware of Jekyll’s secret at first when they attempt to recruit him. Mina witnesses Jekyll’s transformation off the page and is unable to describe it to Allan Quatermain except as: “Something happened” (1: 23, 6). As the story progresses, Jekyll’s transformation into Hyde is shown on different occasions. He is never shown transforming back into Jekyll with the exception of one scene in issue 3 where Jekyll nearly transforms into Hyde but is able to maintain control. For all texts, Jekyll’s transformation unleased something.
        The means of the transformation varies between the three texts. The original text describes Jekyll as mixing and drinking various potions; one to change into Hyde, and the other to transform back to Jekyll. Mary Reilly shows Hyde injecting himself with a potion, referred to as the “antidote,” to transform back to Jekyll. The use of a syringe is most likely is an allusion to drugs and their addictive nature. Early in the movie, there is a discussion between Mary and Jekyll regarding her father’s alcoholism. “The drink turned him into a different man,” Mary said of her father. However, in Alan Moore’s miniseries, the transformation is unaided by chemicals. Mina and the others are told that since his faked suicide, “Jekyll’s metabolism’s altered. He no longer needs the potion to become Hyde. Any stress will do it” (2: 21, 4). Jekyll is shown taking tranquilizer pills from time to time, as a means of keeping his alter ego under restraint.
        The actual transformation itself varies depending on artistic interpretations. In the case of stage and filmed entertainment, it depends on technology also. In the novel, Lanyon describes the transformation, in which Hyde’s “features seemed to melt and alter” while his expression was possibly that of shock and pain (75). Mary Reilly, made in 1996, utilized the latest special effect tool, computer generated imagery, to produce an unique visualization of the transformation. Hyde stumbles around as if in pain, and his body distends. A small head and torso with arms, infant-like in appearance, pushes out of Hyde’s bare chest then melts back into his body. The image evoked is that of a grotesque set of siamese twins, in which one replaces the other. This is almost an echo of what Stevenson wrote, “that insurgent horror was knit to him [Jekyll] closer than a wife...; lay caged in his flesh, where he... felt it struggle to be born” (89). In the comic book miniseries, Jekyll’s transformation is more straightforward; that of a growing and morphing from Jekyll’s size and features to Hyde’s own face and body.
        The Darwinian aspects of Hyde are addressed in all three texts. The “dwarfish” appearance of Hyde is described as “troglodytic,” meaning like a neanderthal, an early human species. The sense that every person gets of Hyde is that he had a “deformity” without actually seeming non-human (41). This, along with the hairy appearance and uncivilized nature of Hyde evokes the sense of physical regression. As mentioned earlier, Mary Reilly’s Hyde was stooped over, something possibly meant to emulate the posture of gorillas and chimpanzees. In two scenes, Hyde moves not unlike an animal, first crouching on a dissecting table while Mary hid underneath, and then hanging over the laboratory exit with the severed head of a madam. In a particular scene with Mary, Hyde seems to exhibit a heightened sense of smell, reading Mary’s emotions from her scent. Also, Darwin is directly referenced in the movie. In an early scene, Mary dusts a desk in Jekyll’s study and sees a book laid open. She picks it up and sees that it is one of Darwin’s books. The Darwinism inherent in Alan Moore’s Hyde is not easy to miss. Not only is Hyde large and ape-like, with a large blunt nose and sharp teeth, his feet are very similar to those of a primate. When he is laid on a gurney with bare feet, the reader can see Hyde’s feet have almost opposable thumbs (2: 7, 2). Hyde also displays non-human senses as well, in addition to his superhuman strength. In issue 4, Hyde and Griffin, aka the Invisible Man, are teamed together. One panel is drawn from Hyde’s point of view, and the reader can see his vision is unlike a human’s. It appears that Hyde can see in an infrared or heat spectrum, and interestingly enough, it allows him to see Griffin (4: 11, 4). Later on, Hyde complains of the smell near a tunnel. “It stinks of chinamen and the river!” he says, even though Griffin can’t smell anything which seems to indicate a more sensitive, animalistic sense of smell (4: 12, 4). This last Hyde poses an interesting question. Given all the advantages Hyde has over Jekyll: better vision, smell, and strength, combined with cunning (Hyde withholds the fact that he can see Griffin), is Hyde an example of de-evolution, or evolution? Might he even be an example of ‘lateral’ evolution, a different species of human?
        The Hydes of Mary Reilly and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen come from Stevenson’s Hyde, but their creators have layered their own interpretations on Jekyll’s alter ego. The appearances, transformations, and evolutionary aspects of the two Hydes sometimes concur, and sometimes diverge from the original Hyde and from each other. All portrayals of the three Hydes also have other features that can be found to contrast with each other, while other features are in common. Robert Louis Stevenson, in writing The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde touched upon an universal theme that many others would return to in the years after Stevenson’s novel was published.

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