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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson

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What other biblical allusions are in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, aside from the Cain reference?

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Beyond the Cain reference, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde includes biblical allusions such as Mr. Hyde being compared to Satan, highlighting his evil nature. Dr. Jekyll refers to the "captives of Philippi" from Acts, symbolizing liberation through transformation. Another allusion is to the "Babylonian finger on the wall" from Daniel, indicating impending doom, foreshadowing Jekyll's demise as he anticipates judgment and punishment.

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In the first chapter, Mr. Enfield describes Mr. Hyde to Mr. Utterson, telling the story of when Hyde trampled a little girl in the street and felt no remorse or concern for her whatsoever. Only when Enfield told Hyde that the crowd would raise a scandal and make him infamous did Hyde begin to show any sort of emotion. Enfield says that Hyde stood there "with a kind of black, sneering coolness—frightened too, I could see that—but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan." With this allusion, Enfield aligns Hyde with the devil, implying that he is incredibly evil and corrupt. Utterson later alludes to the devil, in chapter two, when he thinks that "if ever [he] read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of [Mr. Hyde]."

Later, in Dr. Jekyll's own written explanation of what has transpired, he writes,

The drug had no discriminating action;...

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it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prison-house of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth.

This allusion references a story from Acts: the apostle Paul exorcises a demon from the body of a slave woman, but he and Silas are locked up when her masters grow angry that she is unable to continue to tell fortunes for money. God sends an earthquake to Philippi, and the doors to the cells fall open so that the evangelists can escape.

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In Chapter 10 of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde utters the Biblical allusion "...like the Babylonian finger on the wall, to be spelling out the letters of my judgment...." This is an allusion to The Book of Daniel (Chapter 5) in the Jewish Tanakh, also know as the Christian Old Testament, in which Belshazzar, King of Babylon, is warned of his imminent (rapidly upcoming) death and the victory of Persia over Babylon. Belshazzar was slain that very night.

Daniel 5 tells that Belshazzar was banqueting at a great feast when suddenly a hand appeared that wrote a mysterious message on the wall in an unknown language or code. In English, the message literally meant, "numbered, numbered, weighed, divided." Daniel, a Jewish exile living in captivity in Babylon, was sent for and interpreted the message sent to Belshazzar from the Jewish God. The words meant, "Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting."

When Jekyll spoke about this, it was in his letter to Dr. Lanyon, which was being read by Mr. Utterson after Lanyon's death and following Jekyll's disappearance. In the letter, Jekyll had just explained how the duality of personages, Jekyll and Hyde, had reached the crisis in which Jekyll went to sleep safe and secure in his own identity and awoke in the identity of Hyde--a spontaneous transformation without the inducement of the drug. Jekyll used the allusion to point out that he foresaw his impending utter doom. Stevenson used it as foreshadowing to foretell of Jekyll's ultimate death.

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