# What was Dr. Jekyll's secret vice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 14, 2008, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877 "2008-06-14T00:30:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/1 "2008-06-14T00:30:51Z")
In [_The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Jekyll) Dr.,Jekyll invents his potion to give free but secret reign to his dark side. But its nature is carefully left unspecified: > [@](#): > > And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public. Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of me. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature. Whatever this secret, apparently mostly-harmless vice is, Hyde progresses to great and horrible crimes once let out of the bottle. (In the book, BTW, Hyde is **physically smaller** than Jekyll, as well as younger in appearance, on the assumption that this side of Jekyll’s character has heretofore been restrained in its development; I’ve never seen that portrayed in a film adaptation.) I wonder: Did Stevenson have some particular vice or set of vices in mind, which he veiled for Victorian readership and expected the reader to guess, hint-hint? Or did he mean it to be just some generical evil, a behavioral McGuffin like the contents of the briefcase in _Pulp Fiction?_ ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/2 "2008-06-14T01:18:50Z")
I haven’t read the book, but from your passage it looks as if the duplicitousness itself is the fault. He had a whimsical spontanious side of him that didn’t match up with how he wanted to present himself to other people. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/3 "2008-06-14T01:20:08Z")
I think he’s saying that all his vices were mostly harmless, and that someone with less of a developed moral sense or sense of shame wouldn’t even consider them vices at all. One of them was, like he said at the beginning of the quote…“certain impatient gaiety of disposition” ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/4 "2008-06-14T02:12:06Z")
Gay sex? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/5 "2008-06-14T03:45:41Z")
Compulsive heckling? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/6 "2008-06-14T03:49:58Z")
Unbridled enthusiasm? ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/7 "2008-06-14T06:36:56Z")
Rickrolling. (Serious answer: I always got the impression that if he was alive today, he’d be the kind of guy who spends all night in bars and picks up girls for one-night stands. Hardly a bad thing, but not really befitting the serious ‘pillar-of-the-community’ image he wanted to project.) ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/8 "2008-06-14T09:57:39Z")
So maybe he was like a 19th century Jimmy Swaggart? Makes sense in a way. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/9 "2008-06-14T13:18:26Z")
From what the OP describes, Jekyll was a total prig, who’s “vice” was having human feelings that contradicted his goal of being the perfect stick-up-the-ass Victorian. Not having read the novel, I couldn’t say what exactly he intended Hyde to _do_ once released. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/10 "2008-06-14T14:14:11Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] Gay sex? [/QUOTE] He is conspicuously unmarried. But, “Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of,” and you couldn’t say that of gay sex in 1886. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/11 "2008-06-14T16:09:41Z")
This novel is about deliberate repression, althugh it actually gets that somewhat wrong. In any event, Jekyll didn’t exactly want to release Hyde. He didn’t even know he was making Hyde. He was trying to get rid of his “lower self” in some fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/12 "2008-06-14T17:06:33Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] He is conspicuously unmarried. But, “Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of,” and you couldn’t say that of gay sex in 1886. [/QUOTE] I took a class on “classic horror” that made just this argument. Circle of unmarried bachelors, the fellow coming home at the beginning of the story (where was he coming from?) and such. I dunno if it was a very strong argument, but it was interesting. Granted, this was the same prof who said that Quincy Morris was in league with Dracula, so make of it what you will. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/13 "2008-06-14T17:09:37Z")
[QUOTE=Love Rhombus] I took a class on “classic horror” that made just this argument. Circle of unmarried bachelors, the fellow coming home at the beginning of the story (where was he coming from?) and such. I dunno if it was a very strong argument, but it was interesting. Granted, this was the same prof who said that Quincy Morris was in league with Dracula, so make of it what you will. [/QUOTE] Ah, sorry, it was not intended as a cryptic mention of gay sex. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/14 "2008-06-14T17:15:28Z")
[QUOTE=Love Rhombus] I took a class on “classic horror” that made just this argument. Circle of unmarried bachelors, the fellow coming home at the beginning of the story (where was he coming from?) and such. I dunno if it was a very strong argument, but it was interesting. Granted, this was the same prof who said that Quincy Morris was in league with Dracula, so make of it what you will. [/QUOTE] And what was his defense of the Morris-Dracula collusion? A PBS production did have a stuffy old Jekyll & a dashing young Hyde, but it didn’t make Hyde dwarfish. It also made Hyde a customer & abuser of prostitutes- male, female & child. Meanwhile the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels do indeed make Jekyll a repressed homosexual & Hyde a homicidal rapist, who explains that at first he was a dwarf but has now grown into a giant, even as he has almost totally taken over Jekyll. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/15 "2008-06-14T17:41:53Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed] And what was his defense of the Morris-Dracula collusion? A PBS production did have a stuffy old Jekyll & a dashing young Hyde, but it didn’t make Hyde dwarfish. It also made Hyde a customer & abuser of prostitutes- male, female & child. Meanwhile the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels do indeed make Jekyll a repressed homosexual & Hyde a homicidal rapist, who explains that at first he was a dwarf but has now grown into a giant, even as he has almost totally taken over Jekyll. [/QUOTE] Basically that Quincy had already met vampires, that he seemed to slip away when Dracula showed up (and never shot him when he could) and such like that; he was Drac’s Count Dooku if you will as opposed to Renfield’s Maul. Granted it’s been awhile, and I’m sure there was more to it. That edition had some very interesting footnotes too; I wish I knew what it was so I could buy a fresh copy. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/16 "2008-06-14T18:04:14Z")
[QUOTE=Love Rhombus] Basically that Quincy had already met vampires, that he seemed to slip away when Dracula showed up (and never shot him when he could) and such like that; he was Drac’s Count Dooku if you will as opposed to Renfield’s Maul. Granted it’s been awhile, and I’m sure there was more to it. That edition had some very interesting footnotes too; I wish I knew what it was so I could buy a fresh copy. [/QUOTE] Was it an illustrated annotated edition? Leonard Wolf has done a couple of versions, and Raymond McNally & Radu Florescu also did one. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/17 "2008-06-14T18:21:51Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed] Was it an illustrated annotated edition? Leonard Wolf has done a couple of versions, and Raymond McNally & Radu Florescu also did one. [/QUOTE] I think I’d remember a cool name like Radu. I want to say it was illustrated also. I wonder if they’d have a record of it in the bookstore still? Now I gotta check. McNally sounds right, though. I will call this week. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/18 "2008-06-15T04:25:34Z")
From the way it was described in the novel and knowing about the extreme Victorian reticence about mentioning anything sexual, I’ve always assumed Dr. Jekyll’s secret vice had to do with seeing prostitutes. I can’t think of any other scandalous vice from that period (e.g., drunkenness, smoking opium, or indulging in absinthe) that would have to be described in such a close-lipped fashion. Incidentally, it’s been a long time since I read the novel but, as I recall, it’s not revealed until the end that Jekyll and Hyde are two sides of the same coin (which likely makes it a little frustrating to modern readers who are aware of the big plot twist coming in). However, to Victorian readers it was probably as big a shock as the revelations about the identities of Mother Bates in **Psycho** and Keyser Soze` in **The Usual Suspects** (who seem to be both artistic descendants of Jekyll and Hyde). ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2008, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/19 "2008-06-15T12:17:49Z")
Well I reckon that his secret vice was to go around coveting his neighbours oxen,that and masturbation. I also think that if I took his potion I myself would turn into Dr Jekyll. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2008, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877/20 "2008-06-15T13:28:12Z")
Juggling. A clear indication of a depraved mind. Any rumor of plate-spinning was cause for immediate censure in most London clubs of repute at the time. Apparently the name “Jekyll” is actually pronounced “Jee-kill.” How about that? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-dr-jekylls-secret-vice/452877.md?page=2)