I also think it as if the person doesn’t want any visitors “The door which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained” (page 6) it could also be that the person isn’t expecting anyone or they don’t have friends which could say a lot about their character. It is also as if when they are inside and the door is closed then the secrets are kept among them but when they are out in the open air then there are no secrets I know this because Utterson longs for openness and says the line “he preferred [to be] surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city” (page 34)
There is also a link between the blistered door and Hyde I think this because the door has animalistic type scratch’s on it this could have quite easily have been Hyde I know this because of some of the other events that happened in the book that I will go on to explain later in this essay this is another example of symbolism in the novel.
There is also a lot of symbolism about the windows in the novel this is again to do with secrecy. When the windows are closed again to secrets can be shared but as well as secrets not getting out they can’t get in either. It’s a two way thing know one can know Dr Jekyll’s secrets and he can’t know anyone else’s when he’s in his house. There is a whole chapter about windows “Incident at the Window” this shows the extensive amount of symbolism used in the novel a whole chapter of it. The secrets are only let out when the windows are opened I know this because when Utterson and Enfield are speaking to Dr Jekyll through his window Jekyll must realise that too many secrets are being let out through the window and that Utterson and Enfield have seen too much then he slams the window shut. We then find out that they had seen enough for secrets to be let out “ that glimpse had been sufficient” (page 36) Utterson and Enfield find out some thing shocking it is described as “ an expression of such abject terror and despair as froze the blood of the two gentlemen” (page 36) It must have been some very shocking or maybe even horrific as we know that Utterson and Enfield didn’t speak a word too each other until they were into the next neighbourhood when Utterson asked God forgiveness and then they don’t speak again. It must have been very horrific and not a pretty site.
In the chapter “The Last Night” Utterson decides that the secrecy has to come to an end when Jekyll’s butler Poole visits Utterson unexpectedly Poole is very distressed and obviously cares about his master Dr Jekyll as Poole believes that Hyde has come to kill Jekyll. It is at this point where Utterson has had enough and decides to go round to Dr Jekyll’s house and end the secrecy. Utterson prepares to knock the door of Jekyll’s laboratory with an axe there is anticipation in him he knows that when the door is down that their will be no more secrets but that he might have to solve a mystery but he may also be faced with a dead body. The door was “tough and the fittings were excellent workmanship” it took them five swings of the axe before they got in and there they found him. Edward Hyde, he lay on the floor wearing clothes that were too big for him there was a smell of drugs in the air. It appeared that he had committed suicide as they were breaking down the door; he had taken arsenic “the strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air” and this is what he died of, arsenic poisoning.
Stevenson uses a ‘multiple perspective’ technique where we receive the story from more than one viewpoint unlike the rest of the book which is in ‘third person’ in this chapter, “Doctor Lanyons Narrative” it is a letter from Jekyll to Lanyon and then it is Lanyons thoughts and events that followed from the letter. Again there is more symbolism used about secrets and again it is breaking in and letting out secrets but this time it’s into Jekyll’s cabinet. Again it was very hard to get in and took two hours again this is more secrets let out into the open. This chapter is about Lanyon finding out how the potion is made up and finding out what he said was impossible.
The fog in the city is yet more symbolism because the fog is described as being dark fog and the above it the sun shining brightly this is showing duality and again like the old and new town within the city. The weather also reflected the novel so say when the secrets are out then the fog lifts this is called pathetic fallacy so the weather reflects the mood of the novel you always picture something sad with it raining heavily and something happy with the sun shining brightly this is also an extensive use of symbolism.
When we think about what the words actually mean in the novel it is very easy to see what Stevenson means in the novel for example “a great chocolate coloured pall lowered over heaven” (page 23) when we think about we can see what it means that some thing is being covered up or hidden. There are some phrase’s though that taking a bit of thinking about “the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours” (page 23) What does it mean? Well I think that something is being disrupted in the air this phrase also has an example of personification in it ‘charging’ is personified. These are also examples of pathetic fallacy.
There is also a lot of violent and pessimistic vocabulary used about Soho it is described as haggard and needs life putting back into it. It’s a dismal, muddy and gloomiest place in London probably in the country. I think that Soho and London are like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Soho is the impure dismal extraction from London. So all the bad parts of London are put into this one area so that the rest of London is nice but we all know that I cant be completely pure. Soho and Hyde are the parts that we want to enjoy but we know we shouldn’t in Soho there might be prostitutes and Hyde might have take drugs they are things we shouldn’t do but that we enjoy.
I also think that there is a lot of sexuality in the novel but it is indirect so that the book could still be published without parts being taken out and therefore spoiling the novel. Examples of this indirect sexuality are “a pale moon lying in her back” this is also personification. Stevenson would have had to use this indirect sexuality because the prove readers wouldn’t have aloud it to be published he would also have had to do the same for some of the horrific scenes that we would think are nothing now as times change films and books are doing more and more that wouldn’t have been aloud in the 19th century.
A lot of Stevenson’s characters are symbolic to other themes and ideas in the novel. Like the one that I have already mentioned about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Soho and London are mirrored against each other Soho and Mr Hyde are the extracts of bad from the good of London and Dr Jekyll.
Mr Hyde actions are very animalistic and has an animal instinct in him it is as if he is the link between man and ape “it wasn’t like a man it was like some damned Juggernaut” (page 7). He’s a hairy small “so ugly” (page 7) creature that walks stooped, it is as if he’s not properly developed “Mr Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave the impression of deformity without any nameable malformation” (page 16). He shows a lot of violence in a different way to most people when he trampled over the girl but in the book it is described as “the man trampled calmly over the child’s body” (page 7).
In the Victorian era there was a lot of suppression and it’s like Dr Jekyll’s evil has been suppressed into this one character but this evil is suppressed so much that it burst’s out even bigger than it was in the first place. I think this is also another use of symbolism because when you suppress something it becomes small and Mr Hyde is a very small person and has some of Dr Jekyll’s evilness in suppressed in him.
Mr Utterson is a very honest man and doesn’t let out other peoples secrets and is also the keeper of Dr Jekyll’s will which shows that he must be a very trusted man which you would hope he is as he’s a lawyer. I think he is also a very noisy man as he’s the one that see’s something through the window and he’s the one that goes and breaks down Dr Jekyll’s door to the laboratory. He is man that you become to like and is liked by others he is also a very respectable man most likely because he’s a lawyer.
Dr Lanyon is a man that likes to live life as a bit of a poser really very theatrical I picture him as the type of guy who is in ‘the’ bars and leads a very high class live in society also he would have all new nice clothes and the right friends a gentleman I also think that he would be quite snobby. People also have trust in him “If anyone knows its Lanyon” he also obviously has a good character “This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red faced gentleman with a shock of hair prematurely white and a boisterous and decided manner” he also would strike me as the type of man that would have a lot of energy and would keep himself fit.
Dr Jekyll is almost an opposite to Mr Hyde which he should be really because Mr Hyde is an extract from Dr Jekyll but the bad parts of him. In this I mean that for example Dr Jekyll is described as being “a large, well made, smooth faced man of fifty, with something of a stylish cast perhaps” (page 19) where as Mr Hyde is described as being “small and very plainly dressed” (page 14) and “so ugly” (page 7). Its has if Dr Jekyll can’t cope with the evil in side him because its not what he wants to be like and associated with.
I think that it is also so he can lead the double life that he wants to, he can socialise in the new town with his high class society of people that he likes to socialise with or he can go into the old town as Mr Hyde and do what ever he wants with any and not be found out by the up class people he likes to be with.
All the main characters are hypocrites they all are repulsed off Jekyll yet when it comes to facing there own evilness they can’t I see this as them tearing there bodies in half. One half good being repelled from the other half bad I say this because if they are repulsed off Hyde’s evilness then they must surly repulse of their own evilness in themselves.
There was a lot of hypocrisy in the Victorian era
Stevenson couldn’t go into great detail about murder and crime and things like that this is because back in the 19th century the public would have to have been protected with a censorship anything to do with the arts and media would have been censored but a lot higher then we know it today. There were ways to get around the censorship though this would have been done by using an allusion and doing something indirectly. An example of this is that in this novel did you know that Hyde, Jekyll, and Danvers were supposed to be ‘up to something’? We never really get to know about this in the novel though because of censorship.
