1028 stevenson, Robert Louis
Shelley’s franKenStein (1818), Stevenson’s tale
warns of the potential dangers of science when it
is used for unnatural ends and becomes divorced
from morality. Jekyll is driven by his desires to the
point where his good instincts are eclipsed by the
bad elements of his character; as a result, innocent
people are killed, and Jekyll commits suicide. It is
important to note that the transforming potion is
only the agent of Jekyll’s destruction: As he admits,
it is “neither diabolical nor divine.” Science itself is
neither good nor evil, Stevenson suggests: Every-
thing depends on how and why it is used.
Jekyll uses science for selfish ends. As a doc-
tor, he dutifully attends to “the relief of sorrow and
suffering” in others, but he is more concerned with
finding ways of satisfying his own desires while
maintaining a respectable public persona. Personal
ambition plays a part: Although he risks death by
taking the “transforming draught,” “the temptation
of a discovery so singular and profound” proves too
much. The liberty he experiences as Hyde delights
him, and almost inevitably, he becomes addicted
to the drug. Eventually, however, the changes into
Hyde become involuntary, and he has to take heavy
doses in order to “wear the countenance of Jekyll.”
Initially, science seems to offer Jekyll unbridled free-
dom, but he ends his life as a prisoner of his darker
half. His decline from well-respected physician to
hunted animal, and his journey through addiction
to death, describes a process of reverse evolution.
Science, in this case, does not represent progression,
but regression.
The other man of science in the story is Hastie
Lanyon. Stevenson uses him as a foil for Jekyll, to
highlight the latter’s “scientific heresies.” Once close
friends, the doctors have drifted apart due to Jekyll’s
interest in the “fanciful” side of science. Lanyon
refers to Jekyll’s experiments as “unscientific balder-
dash” and thinks his old friend is “wrong in mind.”
Jekyll, for his part, thinks Lanyon is a “hide-bound
pedant”—that is, a man who is “bound to the most
narrow and material views,” and who too easily
dismisses “the virtue of transcendental medicine.”
These opposite poles, the rational and the irrational,
meet when Jekyll calls on Lanyon’s help after invol-
untarily turning into Hyde. Lanyon does as Jekyll
asks, collecting the drug from the latter’s laboratory
and admitting Hyde. Hyde concocts the potion
in Lanyon’s presence and promises that if Lanyon
decides to witness what follows, “a new province
of knowledge and new avenues to fame and power
shall be laid open” to him. Given the disgust that
Lanyon expresses about the nature of Jekyll’s stud-
ies, we would expect him to decline the offer, but he
accepts. His decision is costly: The shock of seeing
Hyde change into Jekyll unhinges his mind and
hastens his death. In this way, Stevenson shows the
limitations of scientific reason when it comes face to
face with the negative potential of science.
Although Stevenson’s story concerns a doctor, it
contains little scientific detail. The descriptions of
Jekyll’s experiments and the chemicals he uses are
vague: Reference is made to “crystalline salt” and
“blood-red liquor,” but this is as much as we learn.
There is a simple explanation for this: Stevenson
was a storyteller, not a scientist, and he is primar-
ily concerned with motivations and consequences.
Cleverly, however, he has Jekyll account for the
absence of scientific detail on these grounds: Jekyll
says that he does “not enter deeply into th[e] scien-
tific branch of [his] confession” for “two good rea-
sons”: because his discoveries were incomplete, and
because the burden of moral responsibility which he
was able to temporarily cast off in the guise of Hyde
is ultimately impossible to remove; any attempt to
do so will only lead to “more awful pressure” being
exerted. By omitting scientific details, then, Jekyll
sounds a warning: He does not want anyone to fol-
low in his footsteps.
P. B. GrantSTEvENSoN, robErT LouiS
Treasure Island (1883)
Treasure Island was Robert Louis Stevenson’s first
book to gain popular acclaim. Serialized in Young
Folks in 1881–82, it was printed in book form in
1883 and went on to instant success in Britain and
abroad. The many film and television adaptations
of Treasure Island attest to its enduring status as
a classic, and the vision of pirates that it presents
has become archetypal. An adventure tale at heart,
Treasure Island was written for Stevenson’s step-
son, Lloyd Osbourne, and was inspired by a map