Stevenson presents evil through the form of Hyde, the way he describes the Victorian London setting and also the fact that it is set mainly at night, producing a dark and creepy effect. There are no women in the book other than the little girl, who Hyde knocks over. A lot of people saw him trample over a small girl in the middle of a street, so when they saw him, they felt “hatred and disgust”, and could feel the eerie evil and nastiness about him. The book described Hyde as being “monster-like” and “like some damn juggernaut”. When Hyde barged the small girl, she started crying, but Hyde just carried on walking straight over her like she wasn’t there. This shocked people to see such a dreadful thing, and many people made their minds up about what they thought of Mr. Hyde when they had witnessed that event.
For most of the novel, the narrative follows Utterson’s point of view; in the last two chapters, Lanyon and Jekyll report their experiences from their own perspectives. I reckon that Lanyon knew that there was something odd about the way Jekyll acted when Hyde was bought up in conversation. In his letter to Utterson, he wrote; “…like a man restored from death— there stood Henry Jekyll.” It almost seemed that Lanyon knew that Jekyll did have another side of him – a darker side – and I think that Lanyon knew that Hyde was something to do with it. Even if he didn’t realise when he wrote the letter, he certainly found out when he quickly keels over after witnessing the transformation from the good Jekyll to the evil Hyde – ending his life.
There is a lot of tension throughout the entire novel; it is mainly caused between the characters, especially Jekyll and his friends. Jekyll’s friends’, Utterson, Lanyon and Enfield notice that there is something not quite right with their old friend Jekyll – something suspicious that he was not telling them. This created a tension because when they tried talking to Jekyll about it, Jekyll would act shiftily, unlike his usual self. Jekyll, a thought-after, well dressed, upper-class doctor come scientist – the complete opposite to Hyde, a short, ape-like being, with not much going for him, seemed to change drastically becoming more and more like Hyde in his mannerisms. His friends’ first heard about Hyde when they read his Will. His will states that if he disappears he leaves everything to Hyde. His oldest friend, Utterson, knows nothing of Hyde and urges Jekyll to change his will. He fears Hyde has a mysterious, perhaps criminal, hold over Jekyll, and that Hyde might murder him to benefit from the will.
In the last chapter, Jekyll is telling his story about how Hyde took over his life, saying things like, “the hands of this extraneous evil”. He describes the feelings as he turns into Jekyll, and how it caused a “grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death”. Jekyll became addicted to Hyde, he felt that he needed to let out his emotion in the form of Hyde. The whole chapter is tense; it is building up to a climax – the moment when Lanyon finds out the real truth but can not tell anyone for he is already dead, and the moment when Hyde completely takes over him and destroys Jekyll.