| “ | Which is the real man, the beast or the angel? | ” |
| — Jekyll to Victor | ||
Dr. Henry Jekyll is a scientist in league with Dr. Victor Frankenstein to pursue the path taken by Frankenstein in overcoming death and counter the dangerous alliance formed by Lily with Dorian Gray.[1]
Appearance and Personality[]
Henry Jekyll is a young man of Indian descent, with a tall and slender body type and clothing suitable for the wealthy medical profession. Because of the color of his skin, he was made the subject of slurs and insults during his childhood, his University years and his medical practice. These incidents have often led him to have murderous thoughts, until he allegedly found a cure to hold off his "inner beast". He nonetheless harbors considerable contempt for those who discriminate against him. Outwardly, he appears calm and reasonably pleasant, but demonstrates a strong sense of determination. He cares about his friend, Victor, having sympathy for his struggles, but also chastising him for his relapse into drug abuse. He also grows impatient with Victor for showing - on occasion - the same condescending attitude as others regarding his ethnic background. Despite this tension, both respect each other's abilities in their chosen professions.
History[]
Dr. Henry Jekyll is an old classmate of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and practices his medicine in London at Bethlam Royal Hospital, which specializes very fittingly in mental illnesses. He teams up with Frankenstein to help him with his experiments, searching a way to redeem Lily or, as a last resort, destroy her[2]. Before showing his colleague the result of his experiments in treating and change people wrathful personalities, Dr Jekyll confided to his friend that he hates his own father for having caused his mother's death by abandoning her with an illegitimate child.[3]
Skills and Abilities[]
- Chemistry: Jekyll is a brilliant chemist. Victor Frankenstein acknowledged he was the best chemist that he had ever known. Through his studies he developed a serum, one that could cause a complete personality (and, to a lesser extent, physiological) change in human beings, transforming a dangerously insane man to a state of apparent sanity and lucidity; he had, however, only managed to make the serum last a few hours.
- Psychology: Jekyll has an advanced knowledge and training into the human psyche, especially in the area of insanity.
Appearances[]
- Season 3
- S3, Ep1: The Day Tennyson Died
- S3, Ep2: Predators Far and Near
- S3, Ep3: Good and Evil Braided Be
- S3, Ep5: This World Is Our Hell
- S3, Ep6: No Beast So Fierce
- S3, Ep7: Ebb Tide
- S3, Ep8: Perpetual Night
- S3, Ep9: The Blessed Dark
Memorable Quotes[]
Henry Jekyll (to Victor Frankenstein): I am your true friend. Then, now, and always.
Victor Frankenstein: You remember late at night in our room, over the hookah, listing the names of all the boys who had insulted you? The recitation of your potential victims. Your nightly prayers. That anger inside you, all that rage. Have you lost it?
Henry Jekyll: I have learned to control it. That is the essence of my work now. The neurologic chemical reactions of the brain. Taming the beast within.
Victor Frankenstein: You were the most brilliant chemist I ever knew.
Henry Jekyll: Don't flatter me. I know what I am. And you're right to acknowledge it. But I know you better than you think, old man.
Henry Jekyll (to Victor Frankenstein): And you wonder why I wait for that man [Jekyll's father] to die. It's not for the money or the title. It's for the justice of the thing. Of that duality that makes us who we are, he is wholly evil. We are all two things in a way, are we not? Deep in the marrow. Angel and Devil. Light and dark. The pull between the two is the active verb which energizes our lives. Or so I've come to believe, anyway. Thus my current work.
Henry Jekyll (to Victor Frankenstein): In the end, we must be that thing the world demands of us. We must take the lust and the avarice and the ambition and bury them. All the alien, ugly things! All the things we really are! The other one! The other man! We cannot allow him!
Gallery[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- The character's name is from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. However, the character in the book is not of mixed race.