Dr. Jekyle and Mr. Hyde

I think that J&H definitely served as a precursor to the detective-type books. As soon as Mr. Utterson heard the news of Mr. Hyde running into the little girl and paying with a check from Dr. Jekyll he began investigating Mr. Hyde. Mr. Utterson stayed out on the street watching the door where Mr. Hyde had been seen just to get a glimpse of him. When the letter Dr. Jekyll gave to Mr. Utterson, that was suppose to be from Mr. Hyde, he got Mr. guest to look at the handwriting in which was determined that it was the same as Dr. Jekyll just slanted the other way. Then at the end when Mr. Poole came and told Mr. Utterson about the strange person in the laboratory he busted down the door to see what was going on. Mr. Utterson would have eventually found out what happened by the letters written to him but his curiosity just couldn't wait and he had to figure it out. Mr. Utterson seemed as if he almost had terror about the thought of Dr. Jekyll giving all of his things to Mr. Hyde and he had to figure out a reasonable explanation as to why. Mr. Utterson couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that this ugly man would get all of Dr. Jekyll's inheritance and reasoned that it was because he was black mailing him. Thinking about the sublime I think Mr. Utterson saw Mr. Hyde as sublime, he thought he was grotesque but yet wanted to know everything about him and wanted to look him in the face. 

Stevenson used the laboratory of Dr. Jekyll for the kind of castle feeling i thought there was almost a feeling of terror about the laboratory. When the book talked about where Mr. Hyde lived it was "like a district of some city in a nightmare" (28), it was foggy and very dark and windy but when  it talked about Dr. Jekyll's house it was handsome and "wore a great air of wealth and comfort" (18). I think Stevenson drew the setting of the book from his home of Edinburgh where one side was old, dark and "the bad" side of town and the other was the new, bright and cheery side of town. I can see where Darwinism plays a role in the story where Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde this almost animal creature. It says to me like everybody still has an animal in them, people try to hide it but eventually it comes out. I think Stevenson believed in evolution and almost tried to say that it's impossible to be good just like Dr. Jekyll eventually couldn't go back to being himself. I don't see science as good in this book thought it seems evil because it turned Dr. Jekyll bad and he couldn't go back. Dr. Jekyll started out trying to find a potion to take away his bad side and eventually became worse than he was so in my opinion science was very bad for Dr. Jekyll.