Duality in the extreme

Robert Louis Stevenson, born in Edinburgh on 13th november 1850 as Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, is probably most known for his novell Treasure Island, but he also wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The inspiration for this story is rumored to be from a character in a dream Stevenson once had. There are more than 120 adaptions of this story brought to the movie screen, showing the popularity of this story.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has as theme duality, which Stevenson pulls into the extreme. Everyone has some duality in himself. Put someone in a situation that person likes and you see a 'good' person, put the same person in a situation the person doesn't like and you might see a completely different person.

The first part of the story might put you in wonder; wondering what is happening, because this part is seen from other peoples perspectives than Dr. Jekyll. In the second part of the book, things are explained by two letters. One the letter of the best friend of Dr. Jekyll, and the second a personal letter from Dr. Jekyll.

When there are so many adaptations for a story you'd expect the story to be bigger, but my e-book version (taken from gutenberg.org) was just 80 pages. If you set yourself to it, you might read it in one to one and a half hours. Now that I've read multiple 'oldies' like this, I must conclude that I sometimes find the perspective the writer choose, to be weird. I can't be more specific than that, other than stating it is probably the reason none of the stories really click. Also the older style of English has something to do with that. Having experienced this particular story in other ways, to put the story in perspective, still made this a worhwhile read for me.