Lo strano caso del cane ucciso a mezzanotte – Ludovica Giangregorio 2°f
10 Settembre 2013
LA RIFORMA PROTESTANTE – Enrico VIII e la divisione della Chiesa
11 Settembre 2013THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
Chapter 1
Mr Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance: rare smiles, scanty and backward in sentiment, but attached with a strong bond to his affections, that are outcomes of the growth of time. Austere with himself, indeed his only amusement is the Sunday stroll with the cousin Mr Enfield or any small talk with his friend Dr Jakyll. But it happens that one morning, the two relatives chance upon a really singular house: no windows, no decorations, grey, surrounded by tramps, discoloured. The vision of the hovel, and particularly of the massive door, reminds Enfield a particular and terrifying episode: he was walking in that bystreet in a busy quarter of London, when he saw a lean, short man with a sort of hidden deformation and a hellish look, trampling calmly over a young girl’s body and left her screaming on the ground. As the other witnesses, Enfield could only be shocked, amazed in front of such a awful scene. So they make a bargain never to refer to this again, never to pronounce the name of Hyde, the hellish man.
Chapter 2
Mr Utterson turns bake home, still troubled by his cousin’s narrative. In his business room and began to the contents of a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr Jekyll’s Will. He is just astonished as he unearths that his old friend Jakyll wants all his possessions ape to pass into the hand of his “friend and benefactor Edward Hyde” , but in the case of “disappearance or unexplained absence for a long period of time” , this benefactor should step into Jekyll shoes free from burden or obligations without further delay. Consequently, Utterson decides to require explanations from Jakyll himself, but the friend is slippery and elusive about his questions and always finds the way to divert the argument. Dissatisfied, Utterson decides to investigate on the matter and meets his other dear friend Dr Lanyon. Unfortunately, neither he can unravel the mystery of Hyde, so the desire of investigate and understand grows for Mr Utterson, but he never could suppose to meet him. But it is so, just in front of the massive door in the bystreet. A strange, quick meeting which let Utterson a feeling of disquietude and suggestion. Then, with Poole, the butler of the friend Jakyll, certify the suspecting missing coincidence of the great friend Jakyll and Hyde: they are never together even if Hyde is the person who will inherit all Jakyll’s property.
Chapter 3
It arrives unexpectedly an invite for a dinner at Jekyll’s house, a calm and friendly gathering of old friends. Utterson, Lanyon and Jekyll. The curiosity to understand the situation incites Utterson to ask Jekyll about Hyde, and for the first time Utterson seems more confident, more open to explanations and even to fine humour, but the insistence of the lawyer makes him grow pale and rough. Finally, Jakyll drops definitively the matter with making Utterson promise him to help Hyde for his sake, when he is no longer there. Utterson promised unwillingly.
Chapter 4
In the month of October 18, London is startled by a crime of singular ferocity. It is a full moon evening when Sir Danvers Carew by Mr Hyde. It happens in front of the eyes of a incredulous maid who knows him and who, after that she sees the abominable scene, falls to the ground in a faint. As she regains consciousness, she tells what she has sawn to the police, who finds upon the victim only a stamped envelope which bears the name and the address of Mr Utterson. The lawyer, after that he recognise the victim, the lawyer was informed about the murderer, and as he is informed he was Hyde, he proposes a Scotland Yard policeman to follow him, who would led him to Hyde’s house. But, as they tap on the door, there isn’t Mr Hyde opening it. There is a silvery-haired old woman who announces them that Hyde isn’t at home. They can see it with their own eyes when they get in and patrol the house.
Chapter 5
Mr Utterson is welcomed polity by Poole in Dr Jakyll’s house, both troubled and nervous. In front of the provocation of the friend, Jakyll promises and swears to God he will never set his eyes on Hyde again. He would never see him another time and reassures Utterson that he will never more be heard of. Then Jekyll shows a letter signed by Hyde, revealing him his intention to give it to the police, and thrusting in the wisdom and judge of his friend. Then Utterson wends to Mr Guest’s house, his head clerk, asking him to study Hyde’s calligraphy, then the clerk himself asks Utterson to le him confront this odd handwriting with Dr Jakykll’s one, which he remembers vaguely. In this way he found a rather singular resemblance between the two calligraphies. That night, under the clothes of Utterson’s bed, a though oppress him: “Henry Jekyll forge for a murderer!”
Chapter 6
Time run on, but Mr Hyde seems to be totally disappeared, missing in the nowhere, in spite of there is a reward on his head. This improves the temperature and the state of Dr Jakyll who seems cheer up because of his absence. The three friend now can test again the days when the trio were inseparable friends. But suddenly the doctor falls into a serious depression, as he doesn’t want to see anyone: he stays penned in his room without any human contact, neither with his friends. Mr Lanyon is ill too, as Utterson and him suppose Jekyll is, and is conscious that the time which remains in his life is few. And it goes in this way. After the death of the friend, the lawyer receives a letter from Lanyon himself, which contained a second letter with the recommendation to not open it until the death of Dr Jakyll. Even the message makes Utterson suspicious, he decides to trust on the friend and stores the envelope in his safe.
Chapter 7
During an usual Sunday walk with his cousin Mr Enfield, Utterson gets across the door in the bystreet for another time; and while the two men converse about the disappearance of Hyde, they find themselves under Jakyll’s window, and himself looking with an infinite sadness of mien outside, the look lost in the vague. He refuses Utterson’s offering to go finally out of his room and, as he was reassuring himself, he verifies that it will not last long from all his sufferance ends, then he closes the window and cuts off the relations.
Chapter 8
Poole, Jekyll’s butler, rushes into Utterson house afraid and in trouble. He begins to tell the lawyer that the matter is the suspicious behaviour of Dr Jakyll, and Utterson agrees. He never wants to have his face seen, as he tries to hide his identity, for these reasons Poole suspects that Jekyll could have been murdered someway. Additionally, Poole is really often asked to take him a mysterious medicine, probably a drug, and he is always asked to change it because of its impurity inefficacy. They decides to go immediately to the doctor, so they get out in the darkness of the night. As Utterson gets in, the maids broke into hysterical wimpering, as a result of a nervous collapse. Poole tries to announce a faked visit from Utterson, but the doctor refuses the friend and the incitement to open his cabinet door. They immediately notice the unusual timbre of voice, as he wasn’t Jakyll, and in the same way, the butler shows Utterson a paper on which he used to write the orders: an unrecognizable calligraphy. Then Poole starts to tell the doctor about all the suspicious, inexplicable, foolish, demented behaviour of Jakyll. After that, the two men decides to get into the room, but Jekyll understands their intentions and implores the doctor to have mercy and do not get in; but Utterson recognise the voice: Hyde’s one, and with Poole demolishes the door. Right in the midst there lays the body of a man sorely contorted, he is Edward Hyde, dressed with Jakyll’s clothes: they have gone too late, wheter to save or punish, because he has committed suicide. There doctor finds, among glasses with some strange chemical substances on and a mess like anyone has battled there, a letter from Jekyll for his friend Utterson saying him to read Mr Lanyon’s narrative if he would like to find the truth of this story. So Utterson returned to his office and read the two narratives in which this mystery is now be explained.
Chapter 9
The first was a letter from Dr Jekyll to Mr Lanyon, in which the doctor asks him, in the name of their old friend, to trust on him because of the strictly importance of his help which would have cost Jekyll life or death. Then, he begins to list what he should have done: first, sneak in his own chemical laboratory, forcing the door of the cabinet, and steal an entire drawer with all the contents inside. Then, at midnight, he should be alone in his consulting room, admitting into his house a man who will present himself in his name and placing in his hands the drawer. Because of this matter is of a capital importance, Jekyll is conscious of a probably failure from the post office, in the case of a delay, he writes that it would be too late, and he would die. For this reason, Lanyon decides to trust on him because he won’t betray the faith of a friend, going over the feeling of a suspicious matter. So he respects all the points explained in the letter. Finally, the man arrives, who Lanyon later found out that he was Edward Hyde, and rushes into the house with a hellish impatience. As he has in the hands the contained of the drawer, he drinks a liquid in a test tube. Immediately, his face becomes black and the features seemed to melt and alter, finally, in front of Lanyon’s eyes, there stands Henry Jekyll, as a man restored from death.
Chapter 10
Jakyll resumes his story telling he has found out a particular substance, a drug, which has allowed him to divide in two his personality; two different features corresponded to each personality as he was Henry Jakyll when his positive personality was active, he is Edward Hyde when the negative personality is on. At first this drug made Jakyll feel comfortable, more free because he can separate his natures, and the worst finally could surface. Hyde was shorter than Jekyll, because there was few wickedness in him, but it was enough to commit terrible crimes like the murder of the young girl, the children of Mr Davers Carew, of which Enfield was witness. The effects of the drugs became uncontrollable and it happened to be transformed in Hyde without consent. These by-products and the silent of his secret slowly deteriorated the integrity of Jakyll’s soul, and out him on the way of perdition and madness. Even during the night he couldn’t stay calm because he could have been transformed even without have taken the drug. His negative nature wanted to get out always, but he had to fight to spare other crimes, on the other hand Hyde used Jakyll’s body to escape from the police. For the reason that he lost the control of his double natures, he was forced to stay at home, closed in his chemical room, truncating all the contacts with the life out of his room, including his friends Utterson and Lanyon. When Utterson and Poole got in the room, he committed suicide after have confessed all his crimes.
