Hysterical reality: Weimar Germany and the Victorian Gothic in Mattotti and Kramsky’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn creating their graphic novel adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeDr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde: A Graphic Novel, Italian comics creators Lorenzo Mattotti and Jerry Kramsky transposed the narrative from Victorian London to Weimar Germany. Mattotti has called the book ‘a voyage into Expressionist culture’, in which he drew on the work of Expressionist painters to create the highly varied visual style for the piece. Mattotti uses visual techniques from Expressionist art and film to create a grotesque vision of Hyde whose appearance is constantly in flux, reflecting Stevenson’s ambiguous descriptions of Hyde and making the character more frightening and unpredictable. The graphic novel incorporates the history and culture surrounding the Weimar Republic, particularly national and personal trauma in the wake of the First World War and anxieties regarding the rise of Nazism. By situating their adaptation of Stevenson’s novella in Weimar Germany, Mattotti and Kramsky blend key characteristics of the Gothic and Expressionism and take them to new extremes, both visually and narratively. This article examines Mattotti and Kramsky’s use of Stevenson’s novella as a lens through which to comment on Weimar Germany.