Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the movies the little boy and young girl see with their parents on the boardwalk. Doctorow writes, “They saw Around the World in 80 Days. Clouds floated through the theatre. They saw Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (261). The book by Robert Louis Stevenson tells the story of a man who struggles with his duplicitous identity. “It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date . . . I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements,” explains Henry Jekyll (62). Jekyll conveys in his explanation that he struggled with his duplicitous persona, similar to how Tateh struggles to reconcile with his troubled past while living his new, happier life. The movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde debuted in 1920 with the tagline, “The world’s greatest actor in a tremendous story of man at his best and worst!” The movie focused on the man at his best (when he was Dr. Jekyll) and worst moments (Mr. Hyde). This relates to Tateh’s situation because he finally has a well-paying, stable job. Yet he found that job while fleeing from his past life. It is interesting that Doctorow chose to insert the movie as a metaphor in the text because it subtly highlights the concept that each of the characters in Ragtime undergoes a transformation in the book much like Dr. Jekyll. Historically speaking, the Roaring Twenties was an era marked by a transformative culture like “flappers” and new types of music and Doctorow’s reference to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde only emphasizes the revolutionized culture.

By Danielle Dalton

Photo can be found at: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2455149568/tt0011130

Sources:

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)." Internet Movie Database. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2011. SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Web. 3 May 2011.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 1886. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003. Print.