Thursday, November 14, 2019
Comparing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mary Reilly, and Dr. Jekyl
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mary Reilly, and Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde    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 variations 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 sm... ...er 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.            Return to Writing Stuff   WORKS CITED       Mary Reilly. Dir. Stephen Frears. Perf. Julia Roberts and John Malkovich.      Columbia/TriStar, 1996.       Moore, Alan, and Kevin O'Neill. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,      Vol. One. [reprints 1-6 and Bumper Compendiums] 2nd Print. La      Jolla, California: America's Best Comics, 2000.       Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.       Ed. Martin A. Danahay. Orchard Park: Broadview Literary Texts, 2000.  Â
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