Mr. Utterson in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde: Character Thursday (34)

This time I will not pick the main character from this Robert Louis Stevenson’s gothic story. Dr. Jekyll’s (or Mr. Hyde’s) personalities had been explained quite clearly in the story itself, left almost nothing to analyze. Instead, I will pick Mr. Utterson—the lawyer, one of Dr. Jekyll’s trusted friends. Mr. Utterson’s personalities were more intriguing, for me, than Dr. Jekyll’s; the first passage of the story was about him.

Mr. Utterson was pictured as a “cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse, backward in sentiment, and dreary; yet he is somehow loveable”. See a bit of contradiction here? Other than that, Mr. Utterson was austere with him self, strict to a humble and simple life style; yet he had an approved tolerance for others in their misdeeds. These, I guess, were human’s typical dual side in their personality, the kind and the evil, the good and the bad. As we realize our bad side, we try hard to suppress it by pushing on healthy habits. That was a good practice, but sometimes…under certain circumstances (good taste wine in the case of Mr. Utterson), we loosen our strict discipline and let us wonder a bit on our wild side.

Mr. Utterson & Mr. Hyde

It’s interesting what Mr. Utterson has said about himself, “I incline to Cain’s heresy… I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.” As if Stevenson put the opening situation for the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde here. It indeed one of human’s weaknesses (from the beginning with Adam & Eve), to see our limits in the battle between good and bad. We know that if we nurture our bad side, the bad side will take over our life control. The question is, to which point we could let our selves until we cross that line of our bad side?  We like to play on this, just like what Mr. Utterson did, although he perhaps didn’t play on himself but on others (by ‘letting his brother go to the devil in his own way).

An interesting character of Mr. Utterson, and fortunately, he never got too far from the limit, until the end of the story.

That is my Character Thursday of this week, an analysis of book character of my choice, who is yours?... Just put your post URL in the linky below. Do you like to join us in discussing characters from books you read? See the details of Character Thursday first.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

[Conclusion in English is at the bottom of this post]

Ketika sedang berjalan-jalan di malam yang suram di London, seorang pengacara bernama Mr. Utterson bersama temannya menemukan sebuah bangunan tak terurus yang hanya memiliki sebuah pintu. Pintu itu menerbitkan kembali memori tentang sesosok pria kejam bernama Edward Hyde, yang bahkan keberadaannya saja membuat kita merasakan suasana yang amat jahat. Dan memori itu, bersama fakta bahwa Hyde menulis cek atas nama seorang terpandang yang bukan dirinya, membawa kita kepada sebuah surat wasiat yang terkunci rapat di ruang kerja Mr. Utterson. Surat wasiat aneh milik sahabatnya, seorang pria terhormat dan ilmuwan terpandang bernama Dr. Henry Jekyll.

Setelah kejadian itu, berturut-turut Edward Hyde melakukan tindakan kejam berdarah dingin, sementara di pihak lain keanehan demi keanehan terjadi pada Dr. Jekyll. Sang dokter—yang telah menulis surat wasiat bahwa Mr. Hyde, teman yang dipercayanya dan memiliki kunci untuk masuk ke rumahnya, akan mewarisi semua hartanya bila meninggal—sakit dan tak mau tampil di depan umum selama beberapa lama. Hingga akhirnya Mr. Utterson menerima surat wasiat dari Dokter Lanyon, yang bertiga bersama Dr. Jekyll bersahabat erat selama bertahun-tahun. Di suratnya, Dokter Lanyon melampirkan surat lain dari Dr. Jekyll yang hanya boleh dibuka jika pada suatu hari kelak sang dokter menghilang.

Misteri makin mengental, dan puncaknya adalah ketika kepala rumah tangga Dr. Jekyll mengajak Mr. Utterson ke rumah Dr. Jekyll, karena ada kejadian-kejadian yang sangat aneh dan menggetarkan syaraf seluruh isi rumah sang dokter. Apakah yang akan ditemukan Mr. Utterson di sana? Benarkah sahabatnya itu sedang dalam kesulitan? Dan apakah sebenarnya isi surat Dr. Jekyll yang hanya boleh dibuka ketika dirinya sudah menghilang?

Buku ini, meski hanya 128 halaman, menyajikan kisah yang sederhana namun disajikan dengan gaya gothic Victoria-nya yang cantik oleh Robert Louis Stevenson. Kupikir, hampir semua pembaca telah mengetahui paling tidak gambaran umum tentang kaitan Dr. Jekyll dan Mr. Hyde. Stevenson telah mampu menghadirkan nuansa gothic yang suram sejak awal kisah. Meski kita sudah mengetahui misteri yang ada, toh Stevenson mampu membawa ketegangan di pertengahan hingga akhir kisah ini.

Secara keseluruhan karya Stevenson ini mampu menghiburku yang memang menyukai gaya Victoria, namun tetap aku kurang mengerti mengapa Stevenson harus membuka kisah ini dengan berpanjang lebar menjelaskan tentang Mr. Utterson dan sepupu jauhnya, yang amat berbeda dalam kepribadian dan nampak tidak nyaman dalam kebersamaan mereka, namun toh tetap mempertahankan kebiasaan berjalan-jalan bersama di hari Minggu. Kalau toh itu hanya untuk membawa kita untuk berkenalan dengan fenomena Mr. Hyde, mengapa harus se-detail itu? Toh setelah itu si sepupu jauh tak pernah berperan dalam kisah ini, kecuali dalam menjelaskan kisahnya menyaksikan kejahatan Mr. Hyde.

Aku menduga, mungkin Stevenson sengaja menonjolkan adanya dua sisi yang berbeda dari sebuah entitas. Sebut saja kepribadian Mr. Utterson sendiri. Di awal kisah diungkapkan bahwa di satu sisi ia adalah orang yang dingin, kaku , pemalu, membosankan. Namun di sisi lain ia orang yang menyenangkan dalam pergaulan terutama ketika ia telah meneguk sejumlah anggur dalam acara-acara santai. Mr. Utterson ‘keras’ terhadap diri sendiri, tak menyentuh minuman keras dan tak mau terlibat dalam gemerlap duniawi. Namun di sisi lain ia cukup toleransi terhadap sisi liar orang lain, bahkan kadang ia tidak mengecam keliaran orang lain dan malah mendorong mereka melakukannya. Sebuah paradoks, bukan?

Tampaknya Stevenson dari awal sudah mengingatkan kita bahwa dalam diri manusia selalu ada dua sisi yang berbeda ini, sisi terang dan gelap, sisi baik dan jahat. Dr. Jekyll sebenarnya tak jauh berbeda dari kita semua (terwakili oleh Mr. Utterson). Hanya saja ia lebih berani untuk bermain sebagai ‘Tuhan’, mencoba memisahkan kedua sisi itu dan melihat sisi mana yang lebih dominan. Dari percobaannya itu, kita dapat belajar bahwa, sisi manapun yang kita ‘beri makan’ akan mendominasi diri kita. Tinggal kita sendirilah yang harus memilih, sisi mana yang kita biarkan mendominasi hidup kita, karena pilihan itulah yang akan menentukan masa depan dan tujuan hidup kita.

Empat bintang untuk Robert Louis Stevenson!

Judul: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Penulis: Robert Louis Stevenson

Penerbit: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama

Penerjemah: Julanda Tantani

Terbit: Mei 2011

Tebal: 128 hlm

Conclusion:

As you might have been familiar with the overall story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I won’t bother to write about the story at all. I’m just curious about how Stevenson opened this story. He wrote quite thoroughly about Mr. Utterson and his relative—with whom he used to spend Sundays by walking around the city. Both of them seemed did not enjoy one another’s company, but they kept enjoying their excursions anyway. I kept asking myself, what Stevenson wanted to show us; that people tend to create certain habits—that they think as good habits—to control our wilder sides?

Stevenson also wrote about two different sides of Mr. Utterson’s personalities. He was a cold, shy, and boring lawyer who kept himself from classy drinks and amusements. Here I assume Mr. Utterson was a man who tried hard to live a straight and humble life. But on certain circumstances—in casual parties under the overflowing of his favorite wine, for instance—he would permit himself to let his gaiety spring among his friends. On these occasions he could tolerate wild sides of people, envied them for having fun so freely, and sometimes persuade them to nurture their wildness.

I think Stevenson wanted to emphasize the two sides of kind and evil, good and bad in human’s souls; that we are all (like Mr. Utterson) have it in our soul—not only in Dr. Jekyll’s case. We all have a slight of ‘Mr. Hyde’ in our souls; what made us different are our choices. Dr. Jekyll—in his arrogance—chose to nurture the evil in his soul, because he experienced the freedom in the wildness of Mr. Hyde’s world. At one point Dr. Jekyll could stop his experiment and perhaps he could live the rest of his life in peace, but—just like Adam and Eve—he could not resist the temptation to be ‘God’. He chose to continue the terrible experiment until he could not control it anymore.

In the end, we must always realize that we have both kind and evil in us. And it’s up to us to choose which side we will let dominate ourselves, by nurturing it. Once we chose the wrong one, that could be the end of our lives, just like Dr. Jekyll.

What a wonderful story about good and evil, the everlasting search in human’s lives. But apart from that, I also loved the Victorian gothic atmosphere throughout the story with which Stevenson had enveloped it. It was dark but beautiful.

Four stars for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.