A fallible narrator is crucial to a story like ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’; in a way that it facilitates suspense and gradual discovery. It enables the reader and the narrator to discover things simultaneously. Utterson also provides rational theories – as being a
lawyer, he will first and foremost go for the most logical answers – which are inaccurate. This seems a bad thing, yet this makes Utterson a fallible character and narrator, in that it is much more human to solve things by process of elimination as one might say. Utterson’s trustworthiness linked in which his judicious theories makes the ending particularly unforeseen for the reader, as when they have been following Utterson’s hypothesises they then cannot envisage such an ending as this. Gradual discovery in the story also adds the stratagem of a detective story. Detective stories, much like Sherlock Holmes, were very fashionable during the Victorian era.
Gradual discovery is connected with curiosity, which is essential to a good narrator. “If he be Mr Hyde; I shall be Mr Seek” – curiosity is naturally a part of human nature (although the presence in some is stronger than in others), which makes Utterson appear a more pragmatic character. His strong curiosity links him in a way to Jekyll, who has a strong desire to discover the forbidden knowledge, to discover this evil. Utterson differs nonetheless in this aspect in that his curiosity compels him to discover the links between the good and evil, yet he is not attracted to the evil as Jekyll is. It is a part of simple human nature to be fascinated by evil, by knowledge unknown to them, yet it is also part of human nature to fear the unknown. Although long considered an evil, humanity still yet compels itself to discover more, to seek as far as may, and this is still shown today in technology, and ethical issues such as euthanasia or abortion. Many say the knowledge we have discovered now should have remained forbidden and taboo. Utterson is shown to be a very candid and religious man, as is shown by “A volume of some dry divinity on his [Utterson’s] reading desk”.
The way Stevenson describes the setting in the story contributes to the atmosphere needed for the type of story as this. Much of this is to do with contrast; one of the main themes in this story. “The street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood” is a key line which shows this. It is in contrast parallel to Jekyll and Hyde, who are the shining street and dingy neighbourhood in this aspect. Now only a key theme in the book, contrast is found all over the world in reality, examples being good and evil and religion and science. This idea of contrast also shows the social divisions in the Victorian world, with its posh, sophisticated and fashionable middle class families living as the cover over the rough realities of the streets, such as poverty, prostitution, beggars and thieves etc.
The rear door which leads into Jekyll’s house offers a mystery throughout the story. It appears to be merely a door on a house with no windows, which links with the theme of concealment in the story. A closed door has many meanings, a desire for privacy and no desire for welcome for example. Although a locked door is as the end of the path, an unlocked one can yet be crossed, and Utterson gains enough to unlock the door and cross the threshold. A closed door means concealment, as Jekyll conceals Hyde, and one only conceals if guilty. The story begins and ends with a door, as a metaphor to the opening and closing of a story for example. The door elicits Enfield’s story which triggers Utterson’s though about the will and so on, and at the end they break down the door to Jekyll’s cabinet. As a warden of privacy, a door excludes people. Jekyll yearns but to hide from the world, in the form of Hyde, yet unlike Hyde, Utterson respects boundaries and privacy. Jekyll did not know where the boundaries lay when he experimented, he did not know where he had gone too far. Or perhaps it is guilt which compels him to hide himself away; guilt that he had long crossed the line, and a though perhaps that now he has discovered what ought not to be discovered, there is no going back.
In describing the city at the beginning of the book, Stevenson uses the phrase “Labyrinth of a lamp-like city”. A labyrinth is in the ancient Greek myth of the Athenian hero Theseus, whereat the centre lays the beast. However in this context, at the centre of this “labyrinth” could be the answer to the mystery of the story, or the knowledge being sought. Utterson is, in a way, travelling through his own labyrinth towards Hyde, yet a labyrinth can also be symbolic of Jekyll’s mind, and Utterson is trying to reach out to Jekyll hiding in the centre. The full moon described in the maid’s narrative of Hyde’ murder of Carew is also symbolic in quite a way. Moon in Latin is lune, which is part of the word lunatic, an indication perhaps to the madness that has overcome Jekyll in the form of Hyde. Born from another Greek myth is the werewolf, which changes form at full moon into a beast no unlike a wolf. Although not inevitably at full moon, Jekyll changes into a beast of a man which is Hyde, and the full moon being present adds to atmosphere.
Description of characterisation in “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” is quite strong, principally within Jekyll and Hyde themselves. At the beginning, when Enfield describes the case where Hyde stampedes over the girl, he mentions Jekyll subtly and without name: “Signed with a name I cannot mention”. It is interesting that he should withhold Jekyll’s name. It links yet again with the theme of concealment, yet this time the one concealing is not the one guilty, merely the one defending the guilty, as Enfield protects Jekyll. Also here it seems the link between Jekyll and Hyde, although found out later in the book nonetheless by Utterson, is being strategically hidden. It also generates curiosity within the reader, as then one begins to wonder what the name is and why it cannot be cited.
There is an intriguing discrepancy within Hyde. When he meets first with Utterson, he divulges his address, in a well spoken manner, “À propos, you should have my address”. Divergent to this fact, he reveals his address as to be in Soho; a rough, run down area, particularly compared to West End wherein Jekyll lives. The fact that they are so close to one another is also strange, as they are two of the extremes one would find in a characteristic Victorian London.
Jekyll’s will is anomalous; he leaves his money to a mysterious beneficiary, one whom his friends know of not. “What should he do this?” is the question Utterson appears to ask, and that elicits the chain of events that later occur. There is also a strange clause to the will, where Hyde will inherit but only if Jekyll disappears for three months. This creates suspense and curiosity in the reader, who then deduces that not all is well already within the story.
Religion is quite a prominent theme throughout the story, and the malevolent half of it is shown when Hyde is compared to Satan by Utterson commencing their first meeting: “If ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face”. What is meant by this is that one thinks upon meeting that Hyde has been touched by the Devil, or at least by iniquity. Temptation is considered an evil, and if Hyde has been touched by the Devil, whose expertise is that to tempt, it appears that Jekyll is tempted and looses to temptation again and again to change into Hyde, who is the one touched by the Devil. This refers also to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Here it appears that the snake is Hyde, and Jekyll is Adam, who falls to the snake. The forbidden fruit here is the forbidden knowledge, which Jekyll delves into. Fruit has before represented knowledge also, as it was an apple falling from a tree which inspired Isaac Newton’s work on gravity; which links with the theme of science. This also show how science and religion clashed so closely in the Victorian era, and how it confused so many people and so angered the Church.
Religion is also referred to in the line “My devil had long been caged, he came out roaring”. “My devil” here refers to Hyde, who Jekyll managed to evade for so long, yet when he could no longer Hyde came back with a fresh confidence, perhaps he was gaining independence over Jekyll? There is also here anticipation to Freud, who wrote about the psychology of the human mind. “My devil” could be Jekyll’s resentment, or something else unwanted or forbidden, which when kept repressed would build up and in the end erupt. The use of the word “roaring” seems to have some special significance, perchance the fact that it seems to relate man to some animal-like sense, which at that instant was not a particularly popular idea, especially due to the fact that Charles Darwin had just written his book on the theory of evolution, which was principally scorned by the Church and ideas of religion.
On the last page, there seems to be a slight instability in the language being sued, where it is not clear if who is speaking then is Jekyll or Hyde. This builds and increasing curiosity and confusion in the reader, as it seems then there is confusion in Jekyll / Hyde. There are clauses where Jekyll is referred to as himself, but then he will be referred to as another person, the same as with Hyde. One then begins to wonder if Jekyll has not already begun his transformation into Hyde, or if Hyde is becoming completely independent of Jekyll and developing perhaps a free will of his own within Jekyll. This shows particularly the duality between these two personas, and Stevenson leaves what is really happening unclear for the reader’s mind to wonder and contemplate.
There are a few different accounts which make up the story, primarily that of Utterson’s, but others include documentaries of Jekyll’s and Lanyon’s, and the maid’s eye witness view of the murder of Carew. The documented accounts Stevenson very shrewdly gives a fixed date at which these documents may be studied. The raison d'être is that it may add suspense and trepidation. If Utterson had no prefixed date of delineated event occurring, opening these documents would destroy the point of the story from the start.
“Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” certainly is a magnum far ahead of its time. It still persists to haunt us today, as it makes its way into films and other forms of modern media. There is also still common speculation about the very realistic psychological aspect of the story to do with the duality in characters. Although naturally it is not possible to change entirely into another person, there is a very psychological view of this to do with mental state and health which is very real among us today. It gives the book a very prophetic feel to it, as if Stevenson is using his book to envisage the future events and mounting issues with mental health we have today.