Throughout the novella the reader is given a sense of how important appearance and reputation was. At the start of ‘Henry Jekyll’s full statement of the case’, Jekyll writes, ‘I was born in the year 18 – to a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellow men’. This shows what a perfectionist Dr Jekyll was, he then moves on to write ‘ And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many’; this shows how his worst fault isn’t too bad; others would be happy with a small fault. It also shows how he wants to be happy like other people are, portraying the perfectionist, fickle Victorian society that existed. Dr Jekyll writes of how the drug he takes changes him emotionally, not physically, and how this fascinates him, he says, ‘The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my disposition’. The reader learns of how the way people saw and thought of each other was more important than the own persons happiness. For the characters in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, preserving one’s reputation emerges as all-important. The fact that Jekyll is so fascinated that the drug doesn’t change his appearance shows of how obsessed people were in the image that they presented. Stevenson shows of how many people can seem different to whom they really are. This suggests how rather shallow and fake Victorian society was. Dr Jekyll also refers to the drug giving him ‘ranging pangs’. This suggests Victorians casual attitude towards drug taking. Stevenson uses the character of Dr Lanyon to represent rationalism and the scientific approach to everything.
The opening description describes Lanyon as ‘a hearty, healthy, dapper, red faced gentlemen’, and with ‘a boisterous and decided manner’. He is also described as ‘some what theatrical’ and is less measured and more outspoken in his manner of speech than Utterson. When Utterson witnesses the transformation of Jekyll to Hyde, the undeniable proof of something he had always believed was impossible, is too much for him to bear. He is so devastated and distraught that he loses the will to live. When Utterson says ‘I sometimes think, if we knew all we should be more glad to get away’, the reader learns that Stevenson is putting forward the idea that by only looking at the scientific factual side of things, people living in Victorian society suppressed the duality and spiritual side of human nature. At first, Dr Jekyll’s manner of speaking is very similar to Uttersons, precise, calm and detached. He has a façade of middle class respectability and civility. This suggests that Dr Jekyll is similar in nature to Utterson. When Utterson is distressed by the terms of the will Jekyll has drawn up, leaving everything to Hyde, Jekyll calms him down, ‘but indeed it isn’t what you fancy; it is not so bad as that; and just to put your good heart at rest, I will tell you one thing; the moment I choose I can be rid of Mr Hyde’. Later on in the story, when Mr Hyde begins to take over Dr Jekyll, his language begins to become far less fluent; this is different to any of the other characters. He speaks in short plain sentences, ‘that is my name. What do you want?’ Further on still, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’s speech patterns begin to overlap, ‘as you decide, you shall be left as you were before and neither richer nor wiser, unless the sense of service rendered to a man in mortal distress may be counted as a kind of riches of the soul’. This shows how here Hyde’s speech is elaborate and thus similar to that of Jekyll’s. The fact that the speech patterns overlap has been used by Stevenson to show the ease with which the two characters different natures move back and forth. However, Stevenson was said to regret making Hyde speak so out of character, as it undermines the fact that by now Hyde has become the dominant character.
The moral points that Stevenson aims to put across are greater than the social and historical points. The main moral point of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is that good and evil exists within all of us, but it is up to us which we follow. Throughout the story the reader learns of how Jekyll becomes isolated, and dependent upon the drug, which he uses to transform himself into Hyde. Jekyll’s description of his new body and character is, ‘I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil’. It shows his new – found ‘high’; the drug allows him freedoms and new sensations that he becomes addicted to. He enjoys it too much. Jekyll’s description of the drug shows how his, ‘new self’, is dominated by evil and that he has been ‘sold a slave’ to this evil. It starts the idea that evil can manifest itself as a new person. Jekyll also writes that his new body ‘seemed natural’. The use of the word, ‘natural’, shows how he felt familiar and at ease with his new body. The moral point of this is that he doesn’t judge himself; he likes to be dissociated from his conscience. Hyde is the personification of evil. Jekyll believes that evil itself is what has deformed Hyde’s body into something unnatural. In the final chapter of the Novella, Jekyll writes, ‘- that in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then, were they dissociated?’ This shows that although Jekyll knows good and evil are complete opposites he finds it difficult to separate them.
This brings out the moral point that the two forces of good and evil are exact opposites, lying in the painful part of our consciousness, repelling each other. The maid’s description of Hyde stresses the inherent knowledge that he is a bad person and that all society knows an evil and despicable person from their looks. Hyde’s features are never described. The reader merely learns that he is, ‘disgusting looking’. As well as adding to the mystery of the character, this description implies Stevenson’s view of the world, inherent evilness in people, something that can be detected merely by glancing at a person. Dr Jekyll in ‘Henry Jekyll’s full statement of the case’. Stevenson’s last chapter is the most revealing, powerful and intriguing chapter of the Novella. In it Jekyll’s inner experiment with evil are explored and the dire consequences shown to the reader. Note that from this chapter that in Hyde, you have no Jekyll, but in Jekyll there is always Hyde, reflective that there is no ability for humanity to free itself from its dual nature. When the reader learns of how Jekyll is being taken over by Hyde, Jekyll writes, ‘that I chose the better part and was found wanting in strength too keep it that way’. This tells the reader that Jekyll chose and tried to be the better person, however he wasn’t strong enough to keep it that way.
Stevenson’s use of literary techniques to build the tense, mysterious and powerful tale are exceptional. He uses a wide range of techniques to help add to the effect of the novella. The ‘ranging pangs’ which Jekyll experiences from the drug he takes demonstrates use of aural imagery, this helps the reader to visualise the sort of effect the drug had. Stevenson also makes use of several different genres popular at the time. Mr Hyde is described as ‘ape-like’, and a troglodyte, here Stevenson uses animal imagery to portray how the evil has overcome him and how he is almost inhuman. He also uses metaphors, ‘That night I had come to the fatal crossroads’. This is the part in the final chapter where Dr Jekyll has reached the point in the experiment where he doesn’t know where to go next. He realises he is doomed whatever decision he makes. The metaphor has been used to heavily emphasise what sort of terrible position Dr Jekyll is in. The use of exaggeration for emphasis is called ‘hyperbole’, and is a trademark of gothic writing. The metaphor, ‘licking the chops of memory’ again highlights the use of animal imagery. Stevenson also adds to effect by using a range of similes. When describing how he felt when in the form of Hyde, Jekyll writes that he felt, ‘like a schoolboy’. The simile, ‘like breath upon a mirror’, describes the quickness of change between Jekyll and Hyde. Stevenson also uses the house of Jekyll as a metaphor for the façade of respectability in Victorian society. ‘Something displeasing, something downright detestable’, shows the use of alliteration for emphasis in the Novella. The wide range of vocabulary and techniques is what makes Jekyll and Hyde such a successful book.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde takes the form of being written in multiple narratives, which is unusual. Firstly the story is told through the eyes of Utterson, then Enfield recounts the incident where Hyde tramples the small girl, thirdly Dr Lanyons narrative and finally Dr Jekyll in ‘Henry Jekyll’s full statement of the case’. Stevenson uses the final chapter to build tension and to increase the mystery surrounding the story. To the modern reader this would have no real effect, as everyone knows of Jekyll’s dual identity. However, to a Victorian reader, it would have meant the mystery being maintained until the moment of revelation, such is the form of the Novella. Stevenson brilliantly uses the gothic theme and setting of the Novella as an extra character in the story, ‘- with its muddy ways and slatternly passengers and its lamps which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness’. In this, Stevenson creates a sinister and brooding atmosphere. Note also that the story of Jekyll and Hyde is not in chronological order, mainly due to the use of multiple narratives. The result of this is that the story is constantly moving backwards and forwards in time, with the climax emerging around three quarters of the way through the Novella.
The story of Jekyll and Hyde has transcended the Victorian era, with the term, ‘Jekyll and Hyde personality’, now part of out language. This term is used to describe a person who lives a double-life of outward sanctity and secret inequity. The fact that Stevenson had such a religious background perhaps creates a link between the main moral point of good and evil and his disciplined religious upbringing. This may have influenced him in his writing, (the bible teaching the importance of good and evil, and the seven deadly sins). The Gothic horror has been compared particularly to the detective fiction of Sherlock Holmes, with both works being written in the same period of the Victorian era. It is a testimony to Stevenson’s inventiveness as a writer that this novella has had this independent existence over a hundred years after the first book was published. Because of the uniqueness of the novella and the fact that such a wide range of literary techniques have been used, it is no surprise that, ‘the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, is one of the most famous works of horror fiction of all time.
