🎭🧪 MY BEST ATTEMPT AT STRINGING TOGETHER A JEKYLL AND HYDE TIMELINE - A STRUGGLE
so like the jekyll and hyde timeline is kinda....fucked. i'll forgive rls because i like him but this was hell to try and work out. to preface; this is written with the assumption that the story begins (meaning, utterson learning about hyde) in 1886. this just makes it easier for me to place a date and not get confused with my years. i'm losing it so if this is incoherent, i miss something or i'm wrong about something please let me know and i'll edit it to the best of my ability. wihtout further ado.... jekyll and hyde...guh.
so we do not get a date at all for this. my best guess? early 1886. when lanyon is examining jekyll's notes, he says that they end abruptly "nearly a year ago". this is said in january 1888, which...no. assuming they end because hyde is made, then like. how does that make sense with events i'll touch on later?? it doesn't imo so, if this is what the entries are referring to, it's best to assume that this is a timeline error and i'll just pretend it says two years. so, this places the first transformation in early 1886, probably around february - march time. the entries span "many years", and i do believe that this was an experiment jekyll was working on for a decent amount of time, so this could be entirely hyde related stuff, but it could be a general experiment notebook so that makes sense. anyways. jekyll very quickly puts arrangements in order to make it look like hyde is a real person, draws up his will, and utterson hates it from the get-go and lets jekyll know. at least a good amount of time has to pass between this and the next event, because utterson goes on about how the will has "long been [his] eyesore".
this event occurs at "three o'clock of a bleak winter morning" when enfield witnesses hyde trample that one little girl and he writes them a cheque in jekylls name. so, winter, that's useful. it makes sense that this doesn't take place too long before enfield tells utterson about the encounter, so maybe a couple weeks prior? i'll place it in late 1886, december if we're taking winter as being literally in the season of winter and not just...cold. shortly after this incident, jekyll opens a bank account in the name of hyde.
utterson learns about hyde's ventures on a sunday walk with enfield. this is also probably in winter seeing as, when he goes to look for hyde, there's said to be "frost in the air". i feel confident placing this in december or january, thought the former feels better thanks to the carew case taking place "nearly a year later" in october 1887. he sets out at six o'clock to go find hyde, and im not totally sure if he finds him in the same night or returns to the door multiple times? whatever the case, he meets hyde.
"a fortnight later". its pretty simple, this happens two weeks after utterson meets hyde. he tells jekyll that he doesn't like the will while at dinner with him, and jekyll promptly tells him to drop it.
two months before the carew murder, jekyll wakes up in his own bed but as edward hyde. since the carew murder 100% takes place in october, this must happen in august. for that two month period between the surprise transformation and the murder, jekyll locks in and doesn't turn into hyde. however, that night in october, he gives into temptation and turns into hyde, leading to...
hyde comes out even more furious after being locked away for two months, and this manifests in the murder of sir danvers carew, a member of parliament. we know this takes place in october, which is said to be "nearly a year" after utterson and jekylls conversation. it happens late into the night (or early hours of the morning depending on how you look at it) and the police are informed at two o'clock in the morning. the next morning (which...do they mean the morning of or did they wait a day?) utterson is informed of the death of his client. by nine, they're at hyde's house raiding the place. it is literally within the day that they close the case and decide it was hyde, no more investigation needed. that afternoon, utterson visits jekyll who swears he'll never talk to hyde again (which is really just him swearing off the drink and avoiding responsibility) and then he gives that fake letter. the same evening mr guest is at uttersons place and they realise jekyll is forging the letter. interesting to note that jekyll sends utterson a dinner invite that very night. he JUST got away with murder and he's already having dinner!!!
two months go by with no incident and jekyll is sociable again untilll he suddenly shuts his doors to everyone. we get actual dates here, thank god. on january 8th, utterson and lanyon attend jekyll's house for dinner. the next day, january 9th, jekyll is on a bench in reagents park when he spontaneously transforms into hyde and books it for a hotel so that he can write to lanyon to get his drugs back. now, quick thing - the letter says "10th december". this is blatantly wrong and contradicted by the january date multiple times, so i must assume it was either an error on stevenson's part or like. hyde forgot what day it was in a state of panic? ignore that date. it is wrong. this undeniably happened on january 9th. lanyon immediately goes to jekyll's to get the stuff and then at twelve o'clock (midnight, as specific in jekyll's letter) hyde arrives. lanyon finds out and jekyll shuts himself up after this. on the 12th utterson is denied entry to the house, and then again on the 14th and the 15th. on the 16th he dines with guest, and on the 17th he visits lanyon who is veeery ill. a week afterwards (which, if exactly places it on january 24th) lanyon becomes bedridden, and within the fortnight he is dead. a fortnight after the 17th is the 30th, so lanyon dies before the end of january.
like i said, after lanyon finds out jekyll shuts himself away. he becomes hyde once again one breakfast, and finds that hyde is now the default. if he falls asleep, he wakes up as hyde. he spends all of february trying to make more of his concoction, since he's running low. however, all the salts he comes upon do not work as the original did, and i'm pretty sure it's because the original salt was impure to begin with? anyway's, its "a wild, cold, seasonable night of march" when poole comes to utterson for help in regards to jekyll. that night, jekyll uses the last of his original batch to write his full statement of the case and gives up full control to hyde, who decides to just kill himself rather than face the gallows. utterson goes home, reads lanyon and jekyll's narratives, and hopefully takes a big fat nap because i'd be tired too if my friends had this much going on.
this took over an hour to write. i'm tired. some stuff to add, though -- lanyon says that it'd been "more than ten years" since he had enough of jekyll, so they probably stopped being close in the early 1870's. interesting that lanyon starts dining at jekyll's again after he shapes up following the carew case. hm. anyways. jekyll is 50 at the start of the story, so would've been born around 1836 depending on his birthday if it begins in 1886. and finally, i like to imagine that this did start in the march of 1886, because if so, it gives us a pretty neat time frame of exactly two years. something something insert severance joke here ummm yeah okay im tired and this was hard. hope this was useful and not totally incorrect!!!
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