Summary:
A full summary of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde capsulates the entire novel in several paragraphs.
Saman Shooshani
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The story begins with the description of Mr. Utterson, a friend and lawyer of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Lanyon. Mr. Utterson is described to be lean, cold, and long, but it is also stated that he is somewhat loveable and friendly. In the next scene he is walking with his kin Mr. Enfield and Enfield describes to him an incidence where a short ugly man ran over a girl in the street. Enfield states that he gets a hold of the man and tells him that he will ruin his entire life. The man ends up paying off Enfield and the detective with a check for one hundred pounds. Even thought the check was signed by a very prestigious man it passed in the bank and the incident was forgotten. A dilemma of this story was that the short man went into a very strange house which had a grey door and no windows. When Utterson asked for the name of the man Enfield hesitated to give it to him but Utterson harassed Enfield until he told him that the name of the man was Hyde. This information caught Utterson off guard because he had that name before. He rushes home and finds out that the will of his good friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, is left to a Mr. Edward Hyde. Utterson goes to Mr. Lanyon (a fellow friend of both Utterson and Jekyll) and asks him what he thinks of the will but Lanyon has no information to offer and states that he no longer sees Jekyll. Utterson then decides to camp out at the peculiar house with the grey door. He then sees Hyde and approaches him. He realizes how truly ugly Hyde is and finds out that the house is really a laboratory attached to the back of Dr. Jekyll's house. Hyde willingly gives Utterson the address to his house and then Utterson ventures into Jekyll's house to ask him about the strange man. Jekyll tells him that he has nothing to worry about and Hyde is a good person.
A full year passes the name of Mr. Hyde starts to fade away. The people who work for Jekyll had all met Hyde and were adapted to seeing his face around the house. Then one night in December comes by and one of the maids in the house whiteness Hyde killing a man. The maid faints and when she wakes up she finds a dead man without Hyde. She calls the police and they come to take the man out and Mr. Utterson is called to scene to identify the dead man. Utterson identifies the man as Sir Danvers Carew one of his clients. Carew was old and was also part of the parliament glorifying the killing and making Hyde a wanted murderer. As soon as possible Utterson goes to Mr. Hyde's house to find nothing but a huge mess. Utterson goes back to Jekyll and Jekyll tells him that he no longer sees Hyde and won't ever get near him again. Jekyll gives Utterson a letter that Hyde had written for him right before he had ran away and tells Utterson to do with it what he will. Utterson goes to the clerk in his house to ask for advice and the clerk immediately realizes a striking resemblance with the writing on the letter and an invitation Jekyll had written for Utterson. This incidence heightens the anticipation of the story and strikes pump of adrenaline in the readers.
For the following months Jekyll invites his friends over many times and has a changed personality. He has dinner with his friends a few times a week and starts to enjoy life. One day Utterson goes to see Jekyll and is turned down by his butler, Poodle. Utterson comes back many more times over a series of weeks but is always turned down. Utterson goes back to Lanyon who seems to be extremely sick. Lanyon tells Utterson that he is about to die and has a letter for Utterson that he should not open until Jekyll is dead or missing. Utterson attentively listens and that was the last time he saw Lanyon. A few weeks later Utterson is visited by Poodle, Jekyll's butler. Poodle is very concerned and tells Utterson that Jekyll has locked himself into his cabinet for the past few weeks. Utterson and Poodle go to the cabinet where Jekyll is staying and they realize that it is not really Jekyll that is hiding in the cabinet. Poodle gets an axe and breaks down the door to find Hyde dead on the floor and no sign of Jekyll. While looking around Utterson finds a letter to his name, written by Jekyll. Utterson goes home and first reads Lanyon's letter. The letter states that Lanyon died because he saw Mr. Hyde drink a magic potion and turn into Jekyll. Utterson then opens Jekyll's letter and starts to read. The letter consists of all the things that Jekyll had gone through for the past few years. It states that Jekyll had found a concoction which allowed him to morph into another person, a conscience free monster. Jekyll explains that he would seldom take the potion and sometimes it would not work so he would have to take double doses to get the desired results. Jekyll states one incident that he went to sleep as Henry Jekyll and in the morning he was morphed into Edward Hyde without taking the potion. Then he discusses that he was starting to lose control of how the potion affected him and would start to morph much more without taking the potion. He recalls the incident with Lanyon and states that he was never to see Lanyon again after the incident. Finally he states that he started to run low on the main ingredient in the potion so he was stuck in the body of Hyde so he locked himself in the cabinet. He finishes the letter by stating that he will either be tried for murder as Hyde or kill himself, but nevertheless, the life of Dr. Henry Jekyll is over.
This is the complete article, containing 1,027 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
