Since a year has elapsed since the last Chapter, we can never know what Hyde has been doing, what atrocities he has committed and what degradations he has stooped to. Apparently, they have been many and numerous because he has moved from being a creature that tramples on a child in the first Chapter to this Chapter, where he commits an unprovoked murder. In other words, Hyde's capacity for evil is increasing. So in Chapter Four, Sir Danvers Carew is murdered, which can is a feature of the duality as all the victims of the “juggernaut” of Mr. Hyde are characters of innocence. Carew is “an aged and beautiful gentleman with white hair” and “it [his face] seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition.” The other character so far in the book that Hyde has harmed is the young girl who with the maidservant who observes Carew’s murder is one of the only female characters in the book. Stevenson is depicting a male world. The idea of the evil character, Mr. Hyde, committing harm to the good and innocent persons, the young girl and Carew, shows one of the main dualities in the book, good versus evil. The character of Hyde is described as having “an ape like fury” which suggest pre-Evolution and primitive and is also suggested as “pure evil”, a term later used in the book, killing Carew with no motive, “a purse and gold watch were found upon the victim, but no cards or papers.”
Stevenson portrays London as becoming very spooky but with two different aspects, one of “a great chocolate coloured pall lowered over heaven” which can be seen as quite rich and but is also seen as “a rich, lurid brown” which offers a muddy depiction. Stevenson calls London, “some city in a nightmare.” A city in phantasmagoria. The narration continues with Stevenson talking of women having “morning glasses” which is gin, a working glass drink, again referring to his own alcoholism. “This was the home of Henry Jekyll’s favourite; of a man who was heir to a quarter of a million sterling.” This was the residence of Edward Hyde and is a burrow for the rich, a place of secrecy and concealment.
It is not only the characters that have this sense of duality. When Mr. Utterson visits Jekyll’s house described by Stevenson as having “a great air of wealth and comfort”, in Chapter 5, he sees the two façades, the front of the house is seen to be prosperous, sociable, congenial and respectable. The Hyde façade is bleak, neglected, and lowering on a street and is the laboratory which is dingy and is described by the narration as “the dingy windowless structure” and Utterson sees it as having a “distasteful sense of strangeness.” Due to the convoluted layout of the streets in the area, the casual observer cannot detect that the structures are two parts of a whole, just as he or she would be unable to detect the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde As the chapter concludes, Mr. Guest, Utterson’s confidant, sees the resemblance between the two handwriting styles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, “the two hands are in many points identical: only differently sloped.” This reinforces the idea of Jekyll and Mr. Hyde being one of the same, just with dual personas.
In Chapter 6, this idea of Utterson being very popular yet being quite a lonely character, “Utterson locked his door.” There are secrets within secrets as Utterson opens letters enclosed in letters from Dr. Lanyon and there is this sense of claustrophobia. While in Chapter 7, Utterson and Enfield encounter the first signs of this duality of human nature but we can only assume this as Stevenson does not reveal what Enfield and Utterson saw, the evil that resides in the soul of man. But whereas Lanyon was a man who could not tolerate such an insight, Utterson and Enfield both belong to a different world. Enfield is “that man about town” who has theoretically seen many sorts of things, and Utterson, from the first pages, is a man who is not quick to judge his fellow man. Yet each of these men, upon seeing something in Dr. Jekyll's face, feel “abject terror and despair” Utterson says, “God forgive us, God forgive us” which is an odd choice of words. They then walk “on once more in silence.” Silence is a key motif in the book as Enfield and Utterson cut off their discussion of Hyde in the first chapter out of distaste for gossip; Utterson refuses to share his suspicions about Jekyll throughout his investigation. Moreover, neither Jekyll in his final confession nor the third-person narrator in the rest of the book ever provides any details of Hyde’s sordid behaviour and secret vices. It is unclear whether these narrative silences are due to a failure of language or a refusal to use it.
London, in Chapter 8, from the description of some areas by Stevenson as having “a great air of wealth and comfort” there is this sense of duality, as Stevenson suggests it is isolated, “never seen that part of London so deserted.” Joseph Conrad described London as “The dark consumer of the world’s light.” As Utterson and Poole, Jekyll’s butler, hear the strange voice, Poole tells Utterson about the incident he saw and the unknown character which he cannot place as Hyde or Jekyll, “Sir, if it was my master, why had he a mask upon his face? If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat, and run from me?” This character is half Jekyll and half Hyde. The butler also describes the voice of Jekyll/Hyde as “weeping like a woman or a lost soul.” There is this sense of pity for Hyde. When Utterson and Poole break down the door, they see the body of a man, described as “it” as though the narration is unable to distinguish as to whether it is Jekyll or Hyde. “It” is wearing clothes of the “doctor’s bigness” as though there is a semblance of Jekyll and Hyde. The mystery of the duality is increased by Utterson's assumption that Hyde has murdered Dr. Jekyll and then taken poison, “the smell of kernels [arsenic].” The search for Jekyll's body still leaves the reader in suspense over the Jekyll/Hyde duality, especially when the search for Dr. Jekyll's body is pointless, “Nowhere was there any trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive.” There is also the further duality of Jekyll and Hyde as Utterson discovers a pious work, annotated in Jekyll’s own hand “with startling blasphemies” which may actually be Hyde’s hand but in a different slope as Guest earlier pointed out. In addition Utterson finds “a large envelope was uppermost, and bore, in the doctor’s hand, the name of Mr. Utterson.” This refers to the secrets that are in envelopes and as if Utterson is unravelling the mystery. The chapter concludes by Utterson leaving, telling Poole not to say anything about the note, “we may at least save his [Jekyll’s] credit.” The importance of reputation is a key theme in the book, this is demonstrated when Utterson and Enfield avoid gossip at all costs; they see gossip as a great destroyer of reputation. Similarly, when Utterson suspects Jekyll first of being blackmailed and then of sheltering Hyde from the police, he does not make his suspicions known; part of being Jekyll’s good friend is a willingness to keep his secrets and not ruin his respectability and that has led to Utterson’s close circle of friends. The importance of reputation in the novel also reflects the importance of appearances, facades, and surfaces, which often hide a sordid underside. In many instances in the novel, Utterson, true to his Victorian society, adamantly wishes not only to preserve Jekyll’s reputation even as he senses a vile truth lurking underneath.
Whereas in Chapter Nine, the reader comes to the realisation that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are one and the same person or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are two parts of the same person, one evil and the other good. Then Lanyon and Hyde talked for an hour but Lanyon “cannot bring my mind to set on paper.” The knowledge of this evil simply kills Lanyon and yet the reader has no knowledge as to what happened in this conversation and it is left as a mystery, leaving the reader in suspense.
The final chapter, Chapter Ten, describes Jekyll’s theory of humanity’s dual nature,
“It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date. . . I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements,”
This states that human beings are half virtuous and half criminal, half moral and half amoral. Jekyll’s goal in his experiments is to separate these two elements, creating a being of pure good and a being of pure evil. In this way he seeks to free his good side from dark urges while liberating his wicked side from the pangs of conscience. Ultimately, Jekyll succeeds only in separating out Hyde, his evil half, while he himself remains a mix of good and evil, this duality of “Jekyll and Hyde.” Eventually, Hyde begins to predominate, until Jekyll ceases to exist and only Hyde remains. This outcome suggests a possible falsehood in Jekyll’s original assumptions. Perhaps he did not possess an equally balanced good half and evil half, as he thought. The events of the novel imply that the dark side (Hyde) is far stronger than the rest of Jekyll—so strong that, once sent free, this side takes him over completely. It is not the drug that makes Jekyll evil, “The movement was thus wholly towards the worse.”
Although Jekyll want his good side to prevail, “an angel instead of a fiend” and so the narration says, “the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to the disgrace of and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.” Human personality is not simple. We are a crowded mass, a city with desires, thoughts, feelings pulling in different directions, warring with each other. Human life is a struggle. It is evolution, the toughest creature survives, the toughest bit of personality is seen and maybe that is the reason why the “primitive” Hyde eventually took control of Jekyll. Additionally, we learn more of Jekyll and see this scientist and foolhardy experiment in comparison to Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, of the learned man going too far, “I put this theory to the test of practise. I knew well that I risked death.” The result is as if something is being born, “The most racking pangs succeeded…these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness.” Jekyll feels he has “a solution of the bonds of obligation” and has “sold a slave to my original evil and the thought…braced and delighted me like wine.” It is almost like Doctor Faustus selling his soul to the Devil and there is the reference to alcohol and Stevenson’s own alcoholism and as if Jekyll is in a drunken stupor. Jekyll also mentions that he “had lost in stature.” Jekyll had become like primitive man, losing both moral and physical stature.
As Utterson reads Jekyll’s full statement of the case, it becomes apparent that whoever is writing is neither Hyde or Jekyll or both of them, “I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.” On reading this passage, he is writing about Edward Hyde and Henry Jekyll but who is “I”, who is writing, “it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll.” When the narrator talks about Jekyll and Hyde, he says, “This, too, was myself.” It becomes clear that he is a bridge between Jekyll and Hyde. The narrator describes his “pleasures were (to say the least) undignified” which leaves it to the reader’s imagination. Jekyll’s enjoyment of Hyde’s activities allows Hyde’s to grow in stature suggesting a possible ascendancy. The narrator describes his two houses, one in Soho for Hyde, and “my house in the square.” The two houses demonstrate the two sides to his nature.
The narrator wants to escape into another world, “Let me but escape into my laboratory door.” He enjoys his “undignified” pleasures as Mr. Hyde, “vicarious depravity,” his alcohol drinking, “drinking pleasure with bestial avidity,” his selfishness, “his every act and thought centred on self” and blames everything on Hyde, “It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty.” He then encounters the dominant form of Hyde, taking control and not relying on the drug, “Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde.” It is involuntary. The addictive nature of the experience means that he could not stop but needs the kick from it, “the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde became irrevocably mine. The power of the drug has not been always equally displayed.
Jekyll develops a father like interest in Hyde while Hyde had more of a son’s indifference, “The two natures…faculties were most unequally shared between them.” Jekyll “projected and shared in the pleasures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll.” Jekyll was to die of frustration and Hyde would die, “despised and friendless.” Jekyll then tries to kick back the drug, fighting away Hyde but “for drunkard reasons.” This is again a reference to Stevenson’s alcoholism. “My devil had long been caged, he came out roaring.” This is a sense of bubbling energy, hatred and maybe even sexual frustration that this dominant half of Jekyll, Hyde ended up killing Sir Danvers Carew and took pleasure in his death, “divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future.” Jekyll then battles with himself, “I laboured to relieve the suffering” and “the first edge of penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for license.” Jekyll had been a sinner before, which may have suggested brothels, “it was as an ordinary secret sinner, that I at last fell before the assaults of temptation.” He chose to misbehave as Jekyll which led to Hyde’s awakening within himself, “this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.” Jekyll soon begins to appear as Hyde without the drug. In the duality between Jekyll and Hyde, there is only one aspect that remains similar and that is the ability to “write my own hand” to share the same handwriting.
Jekyll’s hatred of Hyde due to the ascendancy Hyde has over him and Hyde’s hatred Jekyll as he has the power to destroy Hyde again reinforces this question as to who is writing this account, “The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. Jekyll then soon begins to pity Hyde, “But his love of life is wonderful…I find it in my heart to pity him.” Jekyll it seems is writing, and he feels his own goodness and respectability are against the love of life. Trapped in his house and the gallows awaiting Hyde, who has become more animal like described as having, “ape-like spite”, Jekyll commits suicide, “I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.” The irony is though that even though Jekyll commits suicide, Hyde regains dominancy and it is his body that Utterson and Poole find.
The duality in the book is not only demonstrated by Jekyll and Hyde but also by some of the key features like the two houses, the dingy laboratory and the sociable front of Jekyll’s house, London and Utterson. The term of the two characters, two opposite poles forged in one is a term still coined today. It now lives an independent life from Stevenson’s creation.
