Jekyll's Suicide

I had someone express some confusion about the suicide of Jekyll and Hyde, so I thought I would try to explain it. Key to understanding J & H is understanding that they are one and the same person--one dies then the other dies. On page 97, towards the end, Utterson finds Hyde dead, wearing clothes too large for him. Lying nearby is a crushed vial of "kernels" (cyanide poison). We assume that Hyde had enough control at that point to kill himself, thus killing Jekyll. The text reads: "Utterson knew that he was looking on the body of a self destroyer" (a suicide). Now, at this point, Utterson thinks this is only Hyde's dead body and on page 99, when he finds Jekyll's letter, he begins to believe Jekyll is still alive (2nd half of page). Jekyll's letter tells him to go and read Lanyon's letter (Lanyon had warned Jekyll that he had written a letter to Utterson to be opened when J or H died--(phrased this way because he knew that Utterson didn't know J & H were one person). Utterson reads Lanyon's letter that reveals J & H are the same person--remember he witnessed H turn into J? There is a 3rd enclosure found in the laboratory (see pg 100): (1) Jekyll's will, (2) the initial letter about Lanyon's letter, and (3,) the "confession" that makes up the last portion of the novel, page 107. So, Jekyll doesn't know fore sure how it will all end. When he writes, "as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end," he is in essence ending the "confession" or, perhaps, his biography. Many times during this era, biographies were called "Life of [blank]" Like Boswell's Life of Johnson.

Jekyll administers the poison, but perhaps he wondered if Hyde would overpower the psyche and stop it. Perhaps we could read, "Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself" as Hyde consenting to the suicide? Jekyll doesn't know what Hyde will do or how it will end. Perhaps he is making allowance that Hyde would prevent the suicide. These are avenues that leave the text open for speculation. Was Hyde a willing accomplice in the suicide?

I think what is confusing is that we are reading the events out of order. Even from the beginning, Hyde has already been created/released by Jekyll and hurt the girl, but then the narrative goes on to describe the horror done to the girl. The narration jumps around in time, confusing the reader. Even the sequence of reading the letters is confusing. This is a literary technique used by authors to get the reader so confused that he/she thus feels the confusion, essentially, that the characters are feeling in the text. It also makes the reader work at understanding the text, and thereby, forcing the reader deeper into the text in order to gain that "understanding." Very avant-garde for Stevenson's time.

Hope this helps. I think it is like one of those movies, each time you watch it, you see something you didn't see before.