Every character in the novel has a specific purpose. For instance, Mr Hyde represents the pure evil in Dr Jekyll. Stephenson’s use of language in the name is astounding for there are many different layers of meaning in the name. Hyde could relate to hiding as in to keep out of sight, which is what Dr Jekyll uses Hyde for, and escape where people cannot recognise him, where he can do as he likes. It could also be interpreted as relating to the hide of an animal, a thick skin. Hyde himself is insensitive, also the thick skin keeps things out, such as in Hyde’s case good. Yet another meaning of the word hide is a place from which to observe wildlife from a secreted position; perhaps this relates to Dr Jekyll using Mr Hyde as a place from which to observe his friends without them knowing, to check up on them.
Another crucial character in the novel is Mr Utterson. Utterson narrates most of the story. He is a lawyer another highly respected position; being a lawyer makes him a good character to use as the narrator because he would have the right qualities such as, he wont judge other people, he is curious, he is impartial and he is fair/neutral. So is therefore allows the reader to formulate their own opinions on the characters.
Stevenson uses Utterson inquisitiveness to bring twists into the plot and it causes Mr Utterson to become obsessed in solving the puzzle of the connection between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Utterson is very strict with himself and is a calming influence on all around him, “They liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company, practising solitude, sobering their minds in the mans rich silence”. He is also very popular and brings most of the characters together by his friendships, “Where Utterson was liked, he was liked well”. Stevenson uses Utterson to tell the reader what to think and feel during the novel, he does this by expressing Uttersons feelings in the book, but with Utterson being the narrator the reader sees things from his point of view therefor he is the readers eyes and ears. This is good because his inquisitive nature means most of the major events in the plot are based around him. This brings the reader into the novel.
You can also tell Utterson is very loyal because of his long term friendships wit h Lanyon and Jekyll. Utterson mistrusts Hyde from the first time he sees him, “The look of him, even at that distance went somehow against the watchers inclinations. This quote means that even at a long distance Utterson takes a dislike to Hyde. This tells the reader how evil Hyde is, that someone can tell what he is like from his exterior.
Another key character is Dr Jekyll he is a highly respected physician, scientist and lawyer. But underneath his pleasant exterior is a man ripped in two by contradictory desires. Jekyll has great desire to commit evil deeds but to balance this he does many good deeds. He wants to be perfect and wants to get rid of his bad side. “I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only”. This means Jekyll tries to advance his life without fault in only one direction. By the end of the book Jekyll has become so obsessed with trying to purify himself it has dire consequences.
You can see Jekyll wants to separate himself so that he will be a perfect human. “That man is not truly one but truly two.” But he also knows his knowledge is limited, “The state of my knowledge does not pass that point.” But his desperation to rid himself of his evil habits that he forgets his limits and goes all or nothing to achieve his goal.
He knows how dangerous his experiment is but is so desperate to cleanse his soul that he takes the risk, “I knew well that I risked death”. He is so fascinated by his idea that he is willing to take any risk, this shows how dedicated Jekyll is to his work. It shows also how much he hates himself for wanting to do evil things, he is a perfectionist who wants to be good but cant help doing evil.
The girl that Mr Hyde tramples is also quite a pivotal character in progressing the story. The girl shows us just how evil Hyde is but more importantly she is used by Stevenson to show the audience that Hyde has access to Dr Jekylls money and gives the first hint of a connection between the two. “I had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine”. This shows how surprised Mr Enfield was to find the connection between Jekyll and Hyde. It shows how unlikely it was that the respectable Jekyll was linked to Hyde.
Stephenson on many occasions uses the weather to reflect the feel of the situations. For example after Sir Danvers murder, while Hyde is in hiding as Jekyll, Stevenson uses the weather to portray a dark feeling, “ A great chocolate pall lowered over heaven”. This suggests that the fog was so thick it covered the heavens, this would make anything very difficult to find. And Hyde would have been near impossible to find while disguised as Jekyll. Also after Jekylls first transformation into Hyde he walks across his courtyard under the constellations, “I crossed the yard wherein the constellations looked down on me”. It gives the passage a magical feel, because magicians to tell the future etc often use constellations. This could possibly be to relate to the magical transformation Jekyll has undergone.
The structure of the novel is that the reader hears the story from Uttersons point of view until, the last two chapters where the plot is revealed in a letter that Lanyon writes explaining his fate and then Henry Jekylls full statement of the case. In the last chapter the plot is revealed through Jekylls eyes. This layout is one of the novels greatest assets in my opinion, the way the reader does not fully discover the plot until the final chapter. I think this is great because it keeps the audience now and when it was published, guessing at what drove Dr Jekyll to those ends.
In addition, the way the story is narrated through the eyes of Utterson for the first chapters is very effective because it brings the reader into the mystery that he is trying to solve. The effect of this method is that the reader is brought into the plot because they feel they are trying to solve the mystery through Uttersons eyes because he is the narrator.
The moral of the text in my opinion is that humans are made up of good and evil, so no body can be perfect because there will always be something under the surface that will, no matter how the person appears, be bad. For instance the way Dr Jekyll is so pleasant on the exterior but under the surface he has the evil of Hyde hiding in him. In 1886 this could have related to the debate over evolution and that humans may not be as perfect as people would think. Now it could relate to the debate over modifying babies DNA while they are still in the womb. I think because the novel shows that if you mess with the way humans are made it will end in tragedy. 12345678910
Overall in my opinion Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a book which still remains to have relevance to situations 100 years after it was written because of Robert Louis Stevenson’s vivid writing style and intriguing plot.
