Silent Homosexuality In Jekyll And Hyde

Look Behind the Façade In the opening number of the musical Jekyll & Hyde, the first lyric is: “There’s a face that we wear
In the cold light of day
It’s society’s mask
It’s society’s way
And the truth is/that it’s all a façade!” (Wildhorn).
In the novel, Dr. Jekyll goes through a lot to keep up the pretense that he is a normal, functioning member of British society. The façade he puts up is no different than the façade that any normal person puts up every day. Everyone has a secret. Everyone has something that would get them ridiculed and shunned by society for, whether it be a drug addiction, a secret lover, or homosexuality. This essay will discuss the skeleton Dr. Jekyll is harboring in his closet, and why he went above and beyond to

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” states that in the 1800s, “Homosexuals were produced as a new species to be studied, analyzed, catalogued, and ‘explained’” (22). Dr. Jekyll is an upstanding doctor with a kind heart. If he were to be found out, he would be ruined. Burdened with the expectations of a high society gentleman placed upon him, it is possible to assume Dr. Jekyll decided to separate himself into two beings to cope with his internal struggle of meeting the hegemony affecting his everyday life. Jekyll creates an alternate identity, named Edward Hyde, to be his scapegoat into a forbidden world. With Hyde, Jekyll feels happier to express this repressed nature he is forbidden from experiencing, claiming to find a “solution of the bonds of obligation” and “an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul” (Stevenson 57). He creates Hyde so he could experience the repressed feelings he has for wanting to cross the line into a forbidden zone. Homosexuality was deemed as “an incurable condition, which so heavily burdens its victims, socially, morally, and mentally” (Sanna 22). If Jekyll were to be found out as Hyde, he would have to take responsibility for his doppelganger’s activities, and then he would most likely be institutionalized and treated until his condition was cured. This is why, when Hyde tramples the little girl, he immediately pays the

Jekyll was a lower class citizen, like Mr. Hyde. Unlike Jekyll, Hyde has the sole privilege of being dismissed and unnoticed because he is of a lower class. According to Martin Danahay, author of “Dr. Jekyll’s Two Bodies”, Jekyll wears the body of Hyde “as if Mr. Hyde were a pair of pajamas that he would wear while sleeping in one location, but not the other” (23). Essentially, he could take a nap as Jekyll, wake up as Hyde, and spend the evening in opium den after opium den, experiencing different forbidden pleasures other than sodomy. Dr. Jekyll enjoys his new found freedom through Hyde at first, but soon grows weary of it when Mr. Hyde takes over whenever he wants. As Hyde grows into more power, he becomes reckless and starts leaving messes for Jekyll to clean up. More messes means a greater chance of being exposed, and having his gentlemanly reputation ruined. It makes sense as to why Dr. Jekyll kills himself and Hyde in the end. According to Sanna, Jekyll is “no longer able to revert to his good and distinguished aspect and personality” and commits suicide to avoid social condemnation (36). Jekyll kills himself because he can no longer control Hyde’s lust for wickedness, and he is tired of trying to keep up the appearance of someone he is not in a society where men having a need for certain pleasures is frowned upon. And, because Jekyll cannot control his need for these pleasures, he would rather die than be made a fool