Artifact 5: Potion

Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde depicts the relationship between the dual personalities of Dr. Jekyll and his evil personality of Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll creates a potion that allows him to turn into Mr. Hyde, and upon taking this potion he becomes addicted to the transcendental experience associated with the potion: “Dr. Jekyll’s initial experience, however, approaches ecstasy as if he were, indeed, discovering the Kingdom of God that lies within. The magic drug causes nausea and a grinding in the bones….” (Oates 604). Although following taking the potion, Jekyll becomes an evil spirited and murderous individual, he cannot help but crave the experience. With modern day addiction, whether it be to alcohol, drugs, food, sex, or many other, the personality of the addict tends to change for the worst, and yet they cannot escape the cycle of partaking in the addiction. There is an elements of attempting to get clean, but in Jekyll’s case, the addiction had already taken over. Like Jekyll and Hyde, the substance often becomes an internalized part of the individual and begins taking over the host or original person: “And it is here that a crucial concept of addiction remains, manifesting itself as a habitual practice that is caught in a struggle of individual will” (Comitini 116). Jekyll can originally control when he transformed into Hyde, but eventually Hyde takes over and Jekyll is not able to control him. Addiction was becoming a problem in Victorian culture, as medication was not very highly regulated: “Doctors in the late nineteenth century occupied a unique position, being among the few qualified professionals to prescribe and dispense opium and its alkaloids, as well as to experiment with forms of coca. … there was often little distinction between occasional, regular, or habitual use” (Comitini 116). Stevenson is commenting on the issues within Victorian culture during this time, through his depiction of Jekyll and Hyde: “To see Jekyll as Utterson’s double permits us to see how addiction functions as the inexplicable center of Victorian ideology” (Comitini 114).

The potion in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde represents addiction and the violence, and often suicidal like death that comes with addiction. It shows the decline of the individuals free will when dealing with substance abuse. The discontent that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde feel towards the end of the book comes from not being able to gain the original feeling that the potion provided and continuously trying to achieve the original high. As Hyde finally fully takes over Jekyll, they have no choice but to commit suicide to escape from destroying each other, the way addiction destroys the individual: “For Hyde, though hidden, will not remain so. And when Jekyll finally destroys him, he must destroy Jekyll too” (Oates 608). The potion is a work of art because it can lead to the most extreme emotions from pure bliss to suicide. It was the object that destroyed Jekyll and Hyde and it was also Dr. Jekyll’s most profound creation. The melancholic aspect of the potion is that it is so beautiful and euphoric, that it entices people in and then ends up destroying them.