The Realities of Robert Louis Stevenson...
Romanticism Gives Way to Reality...
The Victorian Era has often been classified as a time defined by conservative moral values and prim behavior, a peek into their literature reveals that Victorians were anything but prim and proper. Peel back the veneer of Victorian society and you will find a society that was deeply afraid of a rapidly changing economy and the social shifts that came with it. The Industrial Revolution that had begun in the 1760s had reached its peak by 1840 and brought with it crowded cities leading to rising disease and crime rates.
This is the world that Prince Albert and Queen Victoria sought to change as they began championing social reforms such as the Vaccination Act and lending their voices to the causes of poverty, poor housing, and malnutrition among the working class. Gone were the days of the romanticized and picturesque English countryside in literature. Charles Dickens made sure of that with the publication of Oliver Twist in 1838. With its themes of poverty, social forces, and city versus country living, Oliver Twist took a hard look at the world that was emerging from the previous Georgian period, and Dickens decided that he didn’t like what he saw.
Darkness, Death, and Duality...
If you lived during the beginning of the Victorian era (1820-1914) there would be no escaping the works of Dickens. From the moment he published his work The Pickwick Papers in 1836 until the day he died in 1870, Charles Dickens dominated the literary landscape. One of the many authors he inspired in his lifetime was Robert Louis Stevenson. Most people know Stevenson for his short novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Unless you are a Stevenson aficionado though you probably have not heard of two of his other great works: The Body-Snatcher and The Suicide Club. When read together though, these three works capture the zeitgeist of the waning years of the Victorian Period with absolute perfection.
Murder Most Foul…
Stevenson’s ability to capture the spirit of his age in his work stems from the fact that he brought so many of the things he experienced in his life to his work. He also took inspiration from the everyday occurrences he found in the papers and brought his own critique of his culture with him to his writing desk. A good deal of this can be seen using a biological lens to examine the work he did in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Suicide Club, and The Body-Snatcher. All three of these works also reflect the fact that the Victorian Era did not just introduce mankind to a plethora of new technology. Indeed, there were also major advancements in sociology, psychology, and medicine during this period, and these are what the reader encounters as they unpack Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Suicide Club, and The Body-Snatcher.
The cost of advancement in the fields of sociology, psychology, and medicine during the Victorian Era came at a cost though, and often that debt was paid for with the lives of the patients at the local asylums, as you discovered if you read my blog post regarding the work of Henry James. The cost for human advancement was not just paid for by the mental patients though. The desire to advance human knowledge of anatomy and physiology also brought out the worst impulse in some as the passage of laws actually encouraged murder most foul.
The Price of Human Life…
To understand how murder became part of medical advancement in Victorian England you must step back about thirty years before Stevenson was born. This is when the Judgement of Death Act of 1823 was passed. This Act made it possible for judges to offer lesser punishments for many of the 200 crimes that had carried with them a mandatory death sentence. Prior to the passage of this act though, the bodies of dead criminals had provided a steady stream of fresh corpses to the medical community. Once the act took effect the number of readily available corpses for medical study dropped dramatically alongside the drop in death sentences. This meant that a dead body could fetch a great price for anyone willing to forgo their scruples in order to provide the much-needed “raw materials” for medical research. Enter the Burke and Hare murders that occurred in Edinburgh in 1828 and the inspiration for one of Stevenson’s most interesting and gruesome works.
Murder For Hire…
Between 1827-1828, Irish-born Burke and Hare are believed to have murdered at least 16 people and to have provided their bodies to one Dr. Robert Knox at Edinburgh University. Looking at Stevenson’s characters in The Body-Snatcher you see the obvious resemblance. For instance, the two body salesmen who arrive late at the door of Fettes with the corpse of one Jane Galbraith have grumbling Irish voices like that of Burke and Hare. The doctor that Fettes and Macfarlane study under is known only as Mr. K—which could be a not-so-subtle pseudonym for Dr. Knox as well.
It is quite possible that there is a connection between Stevenson’s 1884 work in The Body-Snatcher and the later work The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde as well. I say this as I consider the character of Mr. Gray who seems to hold something over Macfarlane’s head. Gray is also later featured at the end of the short story in a very Washington Irving-like fashion. It is entirely possible then that Stevenson’s 1884 work could have been, to some degree, an inspiration for Wilde’s 1890 work just as Dickens seems to have inspired the works that Stevenson produced in the latter part of the Victorian Era.
Resurrection Men…
Stevenson’s work in The Body-Snatcher is obviously inspired by the Burke and Hare murders, and why not. Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850, so the murders would have been part of his hometown lore. His work in The Body-Snatcher also reflects his fear of death and/or the possibility of an afterlife, even as Stevenson had declared himself to be an atheist. This can be seen in how Stevenson portrays his character Fettes in The Body Snatcher. This would explain the disgust, yet quiet acceptance, that the protagonists Fettes seems to have for his duties as a young medical student. Both of these things seem noticeably absent in the much older version of Fettes who we meet at the beginning of the narrative. The older Fettes is an alcoholic shell of a man who only seems to be resurrected from his slow death when Macfarlane makes an appearance. Incidentally, “Resurrection Men” was also the name given to body-snatchers who would steal corpses from graveyards in order to turn a profit by selling them to medical schools during the Victorian period.
Plastic Smiles…
If Stevenson feared death he had every right to since he had been haunted by it since childhood. It is believed by many that Stevenson had suffered from hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (Osler-Rendu-Weber Syndrome). Such a diagnosis would explain why he constantly coughed up blood and had chronic respiratory complications from a very early age. This chronic illness could also explain why almost all of Stevenson’s works eventually circle back to darkness, death, and duality. Being constantly sick and bedridden would have given Stevenson a great deal of time to contemplate the meaning of life and the possibility that there may not be anything after his life light was extinguished. Such a constant state of inner turmoil might be why Stevenson suffered from melancholy on occasion and even contemplated suicide a few times. None of this would have been visible to anyone who knew him publicly though. In fact, all public accounts of his nature paint him as a jovial man who had a lust for life and adventure.
It is true that Stevenson sought out adventure and traveled extensively, even with his bad health. Some of the places he visited are also reported to have helped alleviate some of his symptoms. Anyone who has ever suffered from depression knows that the deeper the sorrow the better the plastic smile is though. This duality of Stevenson’s nature can be seen in his 1878 work The Suicide Club.
The Prince and the Young American…
The Suicide Club centers around the adventures and misadventures of a young prince from Bohemia. Prince Florizel of Bohemia, and his most trusted man Colonel Geraldine, find themselves drawn into dealings of a most peculiar club courtesy of Florizel’s need to chase adventure. This club promises the sweet release of death for those who have backed themselves into a corner in life all while saving them from the eternal damnation that would have been theirs to suffer if they had ended their own lives. Eternal damnation for the act of suicide is most definitely something that Stevenson would have feared given his upbringing under Thomas Stevenson who was a Scottish Calvinist.
While Stevenson had professed to be an atheist in 1873, the events of 1876 through 1878 are sure to have made him question things just a bit. These are the years he spent pining for and courting the married American woman Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne. When you consider the fact that Stevenson was in love with someone he could not have and couple it with chronic illness and disapproving parents you can see why suicide frequently occupied Stevenson’s mind during the period he was writing The Suicide Club. In 1878 Fanny returned to America without Stevenson, which must have been a huge emotional blow as well. Further complicating Stevenson’s mental illness was the fact that his parents refused to fund his journey to follow her so he saved for three years before he could. During this time The Suicide Club was published.
Looking at The Suicide Club through the Biographical lens, it is possible to see how the Prince might represent Stevenson. If this is the case then the young American with the body in the Saratoga trunk might be Fanny who drug his dead heart with her when she left. The young body in the trunk could also represent the deadweight of Fanny’s first husband who needed to be disposed of before the young American could be free to spend her life with Stevenson.
No Rest For the Wicked…
The Body-Snatcher and The Suicide Club there are threaded together with the theme of the duality of man. We see this duality in the character of Fettes in The Body-Snatcher who is both young and old in places in the narrative. Fettes is also active and passive and good and evil, and both dead inside and resurrected. The Suicide Club also presents this duality in the prince who is both a victim and a victor, suicidal and a savior, and as reckless as he is cautious depending on the point in the story.
Stevenson himself also seems to have mastered duality as his public face presented as jovial and adventurous while his private life was tortured by unfulfilled love, depression, and judgmental parents. This personal turmoil gave Stevenson a keen awareness of the duality that exists in every person. Because of this, he seems to understand the duality of men with keen awareness. Stevenson also hits upon the ease with which a moral man can be corrupted with one simple quote from The Body-Snatcher which reads, “You can't begin and then stop. If you begin, you must keep on beginning: that's the truth. No rest for the wicked.” While the theme of duality is light and well-masked in both The Body-Snatcher and The Suicide Club this is not the case when dealing with Stevenson’s most famous work: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Dissecting Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde…
There are several ways of reading Stevenson’s 1886 work The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There is the typical view that Stevenson is addressing the dire nature of alcoholism or drug addiction. A lot of critics have also argued that the fight between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for control of one life is meant to symbolize the internal struggle that Dr. Jekyll is having regarding his own sexuality. The homosexual reading of this novella opens the possibility for an easter egg if you believe in the art reflecting the life of the artist. I say this with consideration of how Stevenson’s friendship with Henry James might have influenced the narrative. Indeed, Stevenson’s friendship and feelings towards James seem reflected in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde through the character of Henry Jekyll. Like James, Jekyll is not married, has no love affairs to note, and seems to make up for the lack of female companionship with the many male friends and acquaintances that he has. Many critics and scholars have thus inferred that James was a closeted gay man. As his close personal friend, this is something that Stevenson would most likely have known. Just food for thought.
Beloved City…
No matter where Stevenson traveled on this earth he always held a special place in his heart for his hometown of Edinburgh. Growing up there, he saw both sides of the city as well. It is quite possible then that Dr. Jekyll is meant to represent the clean and chaste side of Edinburgh while the nasty Mr. Hyde could be meant to symbolize its darker and more seedy side. After all, the happenings of Edinburgh were never far from Stevenson’s mind as The Body Snatchers bears out. Beyond just the Burke and Hare murders, Stevenson was privy to the details of another murder in Edinburgh by someone who he called an acquaintance and possible friend as well. In this instance, Eugene Marie Chantrelle murdered his wife for insurance money in 1878. Many critics have connected this murder to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because, by all accounts, Eugene Chantrelle seemed to be an upstanding citizen until he was found out for his wife’s murder. It is quite possible that this inspired Stevenson’s characters in his 1886 novella then. The events that surrounded the Burke and Hare murders and Eugene Chantarelle’s murderous actions definitely seem to have had Stevenson questioning the duality of man in general regardless.
Holding up a Mirror…
Given that Stevenson had seen two educated men in the form of Dr. Knox and Eugene Chantrelle eventually be revealed as having led double lives it is no wonder that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde concerns itself with the possibility of separating men from their acts. Can a man be a good man and still be a murderer? Can a man still be a good man and make immoral decisions from time to time? If these decisions are in the interest of the betterment of humanity on the whole, are the decisions immoral? These certainly seem to be questions that Stevenson is rising in his 1886 novella.
Stevenson also seems to do a bit of self-reflection through his characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde since he also has two faces in that he was often jovial and adventurous on the outside while seemingly suffering from one existential crisis after another under his well-mastered façade. Could Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde be Stevenson’s attempt to make sense of his own fractured psyche? Reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde it seems that in a lot of respects, Stevenson was holding up a mirror not just for society and his friends to gaze into, but for himself to reflect upon what he saw when the mirror was held up to his own face.
From Hell…
Although it seems that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have been dissected like a body-snatched Victorian corpse, there is another intriguing literary theory that sometimes surrounds this work. This is a theory that suggests that perhaps Stevenson foretold the coming of Jack the Ripper, or even inspired the killings with his works. This theory holds some weight since Stevenson was indeed inspired by the Burke and Hare murders and the murder committed by Eugene Chantarelle. It is quite possible then that Saucy Jack could have read Stevenson’s work and found it to be the perfect way to cover up his crimes. After all, many scholars agree that Jack the Ripper’s handwriting and diction reflect a duality of both an educated and uneducated hand. To understand what is meant by this you must look at the diction specifically used by both Stevenson and Jack the Ripper, specifically the use of the word hell.
In The Suicide Club, Stevenson makes mention of a gambling hell. For anyone who does not know, a gambling hell was a term for a gambling house during the Victorian era. This term seems to have its origins in the U.S., but it was used on both sides of the pond which is probably owing to the fact that Stevenson. Dickens and other Victorian authors often traversed the Atlantic. This also raises the possibility that the Ripper letter signed From Hell could be a double entendre meaning that the educated man who is committing the murders is gambling with the idea that he might not be found out if he covers his tracks through the use of duality. All of this is speculation, but it does offer up a wealth of possibilities for further research and writing on the topic.
Inspiration and the Inspired…
Just as Dickens clearly inspired Henry James, it seems as though life inspired Robert Louis Stevenson. Many believe that this is also the case for Oscar Wilde. That is a topic for another day though so I will leave it to a later discussion on Wilde’s work in The Picture of Dorian Gray that I am currently working on. Until then, Grace Slick and I would love it if you came to visit us on Instagram. You can do that by clicking any of the pictures in this blog. You can also read many of the selections I have discussed in this post for free online by clicking the associated links on each of the titles. Until then, go read something and seek joy!
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