A little about Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)

This article accompanies our most recent episode on The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island. 

ou can listen to our podcast on libsyn

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Robert Louis Stevenson was quite a character, he had bronchial trouble all his life but that didn’t stop him from travelling the world and having adventures. He was born in Edinburgh in 1850 and died in Samoa, over 15,000 kms away in 1894 at the age of 44. I found conflicting accounts surrounding his death, but regardless of the circumstances surrounding his demise, the commonly cited manner of death was a cerebral hemorrhage.

His story The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was an immense success prompting people to guess at his inspiration for such an unprecedented tale. These days the story and its mechanics are so much a part of the collective consciousness that to think of it as unique and innovative seems strange. But in 1886, a time in which science was a consent source of curiousity and disquiet a tale of science giving license to acts of depravity and animalistic instinct the idea was not only timely, it was also inspiring, opening the door to many tales of its kind. It is a tale of a scientist splitting his personality in two so that he could effectively compartmentalise and quarantine those uncouth and problematic urges so that they could still be expressed, but without impacting on his status as a well-respected doctor.

The fear of the evil potential of humanity, even the seemingly good and honest doctor, is represented in Hyde. Hyde is the ID, the animal. He operates for his own gratification so that Henry Jekyll can operate according to his superego.

I don’t know Fruedian psychology that well so if I have used that wrong feel free to let me know.

Jekyll

This week Morgan read the 1886 novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and Brent watched the 2007 tv series Jekyll.

You can listen to our podcast on libsyn

Download as an mp3 here

Add The Frankenpod to your podcast app here 

The book is the story of a doctor and his terrible secret.

The tv show is also about a doctor and his terrible secret except with shiny buttons, guns and Johnson from peep show.

I don’t feel like writing a blog post this week so enjoy these Johnson and Mitchell and Webb gifs

The Post Christmas Disappointment – Muppets vs. Dickens – A Christmas Carol

You know how we said we’d be better organised for season 2? Well that may only be marginally true. The Christmas Special that we had in the works for over a month turned into somewhat of a Christmas Disappointment .

Still keen to listen? Really? Okay well here are the links.

Direct Download MP3 here

Listen on Libsyn here

Add us to your podcast app here

So for the heck of it let’s divide the episode into five staves just like Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, In Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.

Stave 1

In which we deal with Facebook and Get Grimm, we read a lovely review from Courtney of the Cult of Domesticity and play everything is gothic, unless it’s not, then it’s something else. We also introduce the gothic texts of the episode A Muppet Christmas Carol (1990) and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843).

Stave 2

In which Morgan gives a narrative summary of the events of the book and movie (for once they were pretty faithful to the plot of the source material, even if they do include Muppets).

Stave 3

Being a discussion of gothic elements… and Harry Potter. These elements include the tyrant, the curse, the haunting and the gothic city. Then a promo for Electric Monks.

Stave 4

In which Brent gets muppety, both hosts read movie names from IMDB (riveting) and Morgan is disappointed in Michael Caine.

Stave 5

We hear from the Lady Pod squad and we rate the stories out of 5 ice skating penguins. Three penguins a pop. In case you care.

 

The podcast mentioned include

Rabbit Holes Podcast

Whatshername

Get Grimm

The Cult of Domesticity

Electric Monks Podcast

Nihilist Podcast Network

Vocal Fries Podcast

and don’t forget to subscribe to Morgan’s new podcast The Hoopy Froods Podcast which is fan exploration of the works of Douglas Adams

 

The Woman in Black vs. Spider the Wonderdog

‘I ran as I have never run before, heedless of my own safety, desperate to go to the aid of the brave, bright little creature who had given me such consolation and cheer in that desolate spot’

– The Woman in Black, Susan Hill

This episode is on Susan Hill’s ‘The Woman in Black’ and the 2012 Hammer Horror flick ‘The Woman in Black’

You can listen on libsyn here

You can download here

and you can add us to your podcast app by searching for The Frankenpod

And hit subscribe… we’d appreciate it

Our promo this week is from the Fataliteas podcast

The Woman in Black is a story In which our hero, Spider the floofy dog, detects a problem… there is also some guy named Arthur Kipps who does a bunch of stuff. But the real story is about one floofy little dog who’s the bravest girl in the whole darn story.

The Woman in Black is a ghost story that centres around the haunting of a house by a creepy, skeletal woman in black. A young solicitor Arthur Kipps gets sent to a creepy place a la Jonathan harker in Dracula. Kipps is sent to settle the affairs of Alice Drablow, a reclusive elderly lady who lives in a creepy house called Eel Marsh which is only accessable at low tide. Once the tide is in you are stuck there with the creepy shadows, ominous noises and scary wildlife. At the nearest town, Crithin Gifford, everyone is sending Kipps some serious don’t-go-to-Eel-Marsh-vibes.

A spectre haunts Eel Marsh, a spectre that lures children to their deaths. There is a lot of child death in this episode. We try not to be too graphic, but if you’ve seen the movie you know that the graphic deaths are a huge part of the story. Not so much in the book. It is an atmospheric gothic horror that Susan Hill crafts drawing from classic horror stories. You can really feel the influence of the Brontës and Henry James in this book.

Apart from the graphic/atmospheric horror another key difference between the book and the movie is the biographical timeline of Mr Kipps. Whether he is a young enthusiastic solicitor looking to make a name for himself, or a greiving widower barely hanging on to his job as a solicitor for the sake of his young child, the Woman in Black has her sights set on Arthur Kipps and she wants revenge