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PARTISAN REVIEW
figure endowed with a certa in amount o f human pa thos among
gro tesque, heartless cha rac ters, figures o f fun o r fi gures o f ho rror, asses
pa rading as zebras, or hybrids between ra bbits and ra ts. In "The
Ca rrick" the human quality o f the centra l fi gure is o f a different type
from Grego r in Kafka's sto ry, but this human pa the tic qua lity is
present in both . In "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. H yde" there is n o such human
pa thos, no throb in the throa t o f the sto ry, none o f tha t intona tion of
"'I canno t ge t out, I cannot ge t out,' sa id the starling" (so heartrending
in Sterne's fantasy
A Sentim en tal Journey).
True, Stevenson devotes
many pages to the horror o f Jekyll 's plight, but the thing, after all, is
only a superb Punch-and-Judy show. The beauty o f Kafka's and
Gogol's priva te nightmares is tha t their centra l human cha racters
belong to the same priva te fan tas tic world as the inhuman characters
a round them , but the centra l one tries to ge t out o f tha t world , to cast
o ff the mask, to tra nscend the cloak or the carapace. Bu t in Stevenson 's
story there is none o f tha t unity a nd none o f tha t contras t. The
U ttersons, a nd Poo les, and Enfields a re meant to be commonp lace
everyday cha rac ters; ac tua lly they a re charac ters derived from Dickens,
and thus they con stitute phantasms tha t do not quite belong to
Stevenson 's own artistic rea lity, just as Stevenson 's fog comes from a
Dickensia n studio to enve lop a conventional London . I sugges t, in fact,
tha t J ekyll 's magic drug is mo re rea l than Uuerson 's life. The fa ntas tic
J ekyll-and-Hyde theme, on the o ther hand, is supposed to be in
contrast to this conventiona l London, but it is reall y the difference
between a Go thic medieva l theme and a Dickensian one.
It
is not the
same kind o f difference as tha t be tween an a bsurd wo rld and pa theti–
call y absurd Bashmachkin , o r be tween an absurd world and tragically
absurd Gregor.
T he J ekyll-and-Hyde theme does no t quite form a unity with its
se lling because its fantasy is o f a d ifferent type from the fa ntasy of the
selling . T here is rea lly no thing es pec ia lly pa thetic o r tragic about
J ekyll. We enj oy every de ta il o f the marve ll o us juggling, of the
bea utiful trick, but there is no a rtistic emo tiona l th rob involved, and
whether it is Jekyll or Hyde who ge ts the upper ha nd remain s of
supreme indifference to the good reader. I am spea king o f ra ther nice
distinction s, a nd it is difficult to put them in simple fo rm . When a
certa in clear-thinking but somewha t superficia l French philosopher
as ked the pro found but obscure German philosopher H egel to sta te his
views in a concise form, Hege l answered him ha rshly, "These things
can be discu ssed neither concisely nor in French ." We shall ignore the
ques tion whether Hegel was right or no t, and still try to p ut in to a