Deadly Transformations

Alright, so I’m going to go into a question that I posed for the class on Wednesday, as to why witnessing the transformation of Hyde into Jekyll had the devastating effect on Dr. Lanyon that it did. Is it because it revealed to him that the “unscientific balderdash” which Jekyll was interested in and that he had wholeheartedly dismissed, had some truth to it after all that shook the doctor so much it led him to his demise? Or could it be that seeing Hyde, this sort of base, evil, despicable kind of man that revolted almost everyone upon first meeting him, could come from, and be the same as the stately, kind and gentlemanly Jekyll, brought Lanyon to death? And his death interested me, as Lanyon could not recover from what he had seen, what he had asked to see despite Hyde’s warnings/tauntings. But it seems that death had less to do with what he had seen, and more with the meaning behind what he saw, what humanity could truly be, what it truly meant to be “human”, something we sort of got into near the end of class. Leaving him to then come to the understanding that this could then exist within every man, regardless of social status or rank, and it was too much for the very practical and logical Lanyon to cope with, and he willingly dies rather than to speak of or continue to face the truth about human nature, other than his letter to Utterson. However it could be of note, that although Lanyon knew that it was this knowledge that killed him, that he would then choose to pass it along to Utterson in the form of his letter, and although it was distanced from Utterson as he did not witness it first hand, we as readers do not get to know its effect on him as well, as the narrative ends with Jekyll's confession with no mention of how Utterson then takes the revelation. But I would really like to hear what others have to think on this as well, why death as the outcome, and what might it mean that Utterson, as well as the reader, then get to know the information as well?