5 - “Bankruptcy at my heels”: Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and the bankerization of identity

Summary

Dr. Jekyll may float us a wee.

(RLS to W. E. Henley May 1887)

The world is too much with us; and coin it grows so sparsely on the tree!… I am pouring forth a penny (12 penny) dreadful … they call it Dr. Jekyll.

(RLS to Sidney Colvin September/October 1885)

I have as you know been off work this considerable time, and hunger was in the bank account.

(RLS to Andrew Chatto, 7 November 1885)

I drive on with Jekyll, bankruptcy at my heels.

(RLS to his wife, 20 October 1885)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written and published during what was known as the Great Depression, for by 1873 the periods of successive nine- to twelve-year business cycles ceased and the Great Depression, lasting for over twenty years, took place. During this time dramatic “cyclical peaks” became “flattened” and the economy stagnated. Such as they were, fiscal peaks occurred in 1882 and 1890, while the “troughs” took place in 1879, 1886, and 1893. Prices and wages sank, and there were six bad harvests starting in 1873. Between 1875 and 1879 the depression grew worse as factories failed and the rate of unemployment increased. In addition, agricultural land values dropped dramatically, accompanied by the fall of incomes from farming. The long economic doldrums indicated England's entropy.