Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Where to find it: About two-thirds of the way through Chapter 2, shortly after Hyde gives Utterson his Soho address and before Utterson calls at Jekyll's front door: from Hyde's angry “He never told you” to Utterson's “it is on that of your new friend”.

“He never told you,” cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of anger. “I did not think you would have lied.” “Come,” said Mr. Utterson, “that is not fitting language.” The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh¹; and the next moment, with extraordinary quickness², he had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house. The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, the picture of disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation³, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness⁴, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. “There must be something else,” said the perplexed gentleman. “There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems hardly human⁵! Something troglodytic, shall we say?⁶ or can it be the old story of Dr. Fell⁷? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent⁸? The last, I think; for, O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face⁹, it is on that of your new friend.”

1. 1“snarled aloud into a savage laugh” “Snarled” is a verb more often used of a dog or a wild animal than of a gentleman, so the moment Hyde is challenged his speech breaks down into noise. A laugh is normally a social sound; here, qualified by “savage”, it becomes a threat and a sign of something uncivilised.
2. 2“with extraordinary quickness” Hyde's quickness is a detail that recurs: in Chapter 8 Poole says the masked figure in the cabinet had “the same quick, light way with it”. He vanishes before Utterson, or the reader, can take him in, which keeps him a glimpse rather than a portrait.
3. 3“an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation” Utterson is a lawyer who works with evidence, yet he cannot point to one actual defect. Stevenson keeps Hyde vague, as in Enfield's account in Chapter 1 (“I can’t describe him”), and one effect is that each reader supplies the horror from their own imagination.
4. 4“a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness” Hyde is timid and bold at once. One reading is that this is the manner of a creature free of conscience but afraid of being caught, which is exactly his position: he shrank back “with a hissing intake of the breath” moments earlier. “Murderous” is a chilling word to choose before anyone has been murdered, and it prepares the reader for Chapter 4.
5. 5“the man seems hardly human” The exclamation is the point where Utterson's calm, lawyerly manner gives way. “Hardly human” voices a fear that runs through the novella, that civilised man might slide back towards the animal, a fear critics often link to late-Victorian anxieties about Darwin's theory of evolution.
6. 6“Something troglodytic, shall we say?” A troglodyte is a cave-dweller, so the word pushes Hyde back to a primitive stage of humanity. The hesitant question, “shall we say?”, shows Utterson reaching for a word and not quite finding one, a failure other witnesses to Hyde share.
7. 7“the old story of Dr. Fell” An allusion to a rhyme traditionally credited to Tom Brown, a seventeenth-century Oxford student, about disliking Dr John Fell, the dean of his college, without being able to say why. Utterson briefly wonders whether his disgust is plain prejudice, then rejects that for a spiritual explanation.
8. 8“transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent” “Continent” is an old word for a container, so the body is pictured as a vessel of clay, an ancient image of human flesh. Utterson's final theory is that a foul soul shines out through the body and reshapes it, so the face shows what the man is.
9. 9“Satan’s signature upon a face” A signature proves who wrote a document, and this novella turns on signatures: the cheque in Chapter 1, the will, and the handwriting Guest compares in Chapter 5. The metaphor says evil has written itself on Hyde; on a second reading it also hints that Jekyll is Hyde's author.

The question: Starting with this extract, how does Stevenson present Mr Hyde as disturbing and threatening? Write about: how Stevenson presents Hyde in this extract; how Stevenson presents Hyde in the novel as a whole.

Where to find it: The opening paragraph of Chapter 4, from “Nearly a year later, in the month of October” to “the maid fainted”.

Nearly a year later, in the month of October, 18—, London was startled by a crime of singular ferocity¹ and rendered all the more notable by the high position of the victim. The details were few and startling. A maid servant living alone in a house not far from the river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid’s window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. It seems she was romantically given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience), never had she felt more at peace with all men² or thought more kindly of the world. And as she so sat she became aware of an aged beautiful gentleman with white hair³, drawing near along the lane; and advancing to meet him, another and very small gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was just under the maid’s eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the moon shone on his face as he spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognise in him a certain Mr. Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling⁴; but he answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger⁵, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it)⁶ like a madman. The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like fury⁷, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows⁸, under which the bones were audibly shattered⁹ and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted¹⁰.

1. 1“a crime of singular ferocity” The chapter opens like a newspaper report, naming the public reaction and the victim's “high position” before the crime itself. Stevenson frames the murder as a scandal for respectable London as well as a private horror, which is how Utterson will experience it.
2. 2“never had she felt more at peace with all men” The maid's peaceful, romantic mood under a cloudless sky and a full moon is built up so that the violence can break it. The structure is calm first, then sudden horror, and the contrast makes the attack far more shocking than it would be on its own.
3. 3“an aged beautiful gentleman with white hair” “Beautiful” is an unusual word for an old man, and with the moonlight on his face and his “innocent and old-world kindness”, Carew is drawn almost as a saint. The more idealised the victim, the more monstrous the attack appears.
4. 4“a heavy cane, with which he was trifling” A cane was a gentleman's accessory, a sign of respectability. Hyde toys with it idly before it becomes a weapon, and Utterson later recognises the broken stick as one he gave Jekyll, so a respectable object ties the crime to a respectable man.
5. 5“broke out in a great flame of anger” The fire metaphor makes the anger sudden and consuming. “Broke out” returns a sentence later when Hyde “broke out of all bounds”, and the repetition marks each stage of a loss of restraint, as if something caged were escaping.
6. 6“(as the maid described it)” The bracket reminds us that this is a witness statement retold by a narrator. Stevenson keeps the reader at one remove from the violence, as a court or a newspaper would, which suits a novella built from testimonies and documents.
7. 7“with ape-like fury” The compound adjective links Hyde to apes. For readers who knew Darwin's argument that humans and apes share ancestors, the image could suggest the animal still inside civilised man, and it is one of several moments that invite us to see Hyde as less than human.
8. 8“hailing down a storm of blows” After the fire of his anger comes a weather metaphor, so Hyde becomes a natural force rather than a person. “Storm” suggests violence that is relentless and without reason, which makes it harder, not easier, for the reader to understand.
9. 9“the bones were audibly shattered” “Audibly” tells us the breaking could be heard; it reports a sound rather than imitating one, so this is not onomatopoeia. The horror is in the flat, factual adverb, and in the maid being close enough to hear, which is why the next sentence speaks of “sights and sounds”.
10. 10“the maid fainted” The only witness loses consciousness, so the paragraph ends abruptly and the reader loses the eye-witness. That gap is typical of the novella, in which the most important moments are hidden, interrupted or reported only afterwards.

The question: Starting with this extract, how does Stevenson present violence in the novel? Write about: how Stevenson presents Hyde's violence in this extract; how Stevenson presents violence and its effects in the novel as a whole.

Where to find it: Early in Jekyll's statement, just after he first drinks the potion: from “The most racking pangs succeeded” to “the appearance of Edward Hyde”.

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death¹. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body²; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy³, a solution of the bonds of obligation⁴, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul⁵. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil⁶; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine⁷. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature⁸. There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that which stands beside me as I write, was brought there later on and for the very purpose of these transformations. The night however, was far gone into the morning—the morning, black as it was, was nearly ripe for the conception of the day—the inmates of my house were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and I determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in my new shape as far as to my bedroom. I crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked down upon me⁹, I could have thought, with wonder, the first creature of that sort that their unsleeping vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my own house¹⁰; and coming to my room, I saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.

1. 1“the hour of birth or death” Jekyll compares the change to being born and to dying, and both are true: Hyde is born, and in a sense Jekyll dies. The pairing returns a few paragraphs later as “these agonies of death and birth”, so the image is deliberate rather than casual.
2. 2“I felt younger, lighter, happier in body” Three comparative adjectives in a row, a triplet or tricolon, build a rising sense of release. Nothing here contradicts itself, so it is not an oxymoron; what unsettles is that the pleasure is sincere, and that Hyde really is, in Jekyll's later words, “smaller, slighter and younger” than Jekyll.
3. 3“running like a millrace in my fancy” A millrace is the fast channel of water that drives a mill wheel: powerful, rushing and hard to stop. The simile makes Jekyll's desires a current he has released but cannot steer, and “disordered” contrasts with the orderly life he shows the public.
4. 4“a solution of the bonds of obligation” “Solution” is a chemist's word for dissolving, so Jekyll describes the effect of his drug in the language of his own chemistry: it dissolves the ties of duty that bind a gentleman. Science and morality meet in a single noun.
5. 5“an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul” The careful qualification, “not an innocent”, admits guilt without naming what the freedom is for. Jekyll never specifies his pleasures, and that silence leaves readers to imagine them, one of the novella's most consistent methods.
6. 6“sold a slave to my original evil” “Original evil” echoes the Christian doctrine of original sin, and being sold as a slave may recall St Paul in his letter to the Romans, who calls himself sold under sin; the same chapter speaks of a law warring in his “members”, as Jekyll earlier speaks of “the perennial war among my members”. Jekyll feels freedom and slavery at the same moment, which one reading takes as the logic of addiction.
7. 7“braced and delighted me like wine” The simile compares the change to drink, and later in the statement Jekyll compares himself to a drunkard reasoning with his vice. It supports reading the novella as a study of addiction, and sits pointedly beside Utterson, who drinks gin alone to discipline his taste for good wine.
8. 8“I had lost in stature” Hyde is smaller than Jekyll, which Jekyll later explains by his evil side being “less robust and less developed” than his good. Later still it seems to him that Hyde’s body “had grown in stature” as that side of him was exercised, so the size of Hyde tracks how far Jekyll has indulged him. “Stature” can also mean standing or reputation, so the phrase hints at the social cost as well as the physical change.
9. 9“the constellations looked down upon me” Jekyll imagines the stars watching him “with wonder”, as the “first creature of that sort” they have ever seen. The personification suggests his pride: even in secret he pictures himself as a discoverer admired by the universe, a hint of the arrogance that ruins him.
10. 10“a stranger in my own house” Jekyll becomes an intruder in his own home, creeping past his sleeping servants. The house, with its grand front and its neglected back door, can be read as a picture of the self, and here the self no longer recognises its owner.

The question: Starting with this extract, how does Stevenson present Jekyll's attitude to his darker side? Write about: how Stevenson presents Jekyll's feelings in this extract; how Stevenson presents Jekyll's attitude to Hyde in the novel as a whole.