There is a constant battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ throughout the story. ‘Evil’ plays the dominant role all the way through until the end when ‘good’ only just wins, but only at the cost of people dying or being killed. In this case, Hyde commits horrific crimes to keep ‘evil’ in control. He slowly takes control of Jekyll and attempts to wipe him and his ‘good’ side out permanently. However, Jekyll commits suicide for the sake of getting rid of the evil Hyde. He kills himself so that ‘evil’ can be rid of and that ‘good’ can win right at the end. This battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ was typical of nineteenth-century gothic horror novels. Jekyll’s evil side, represented by Hyde, is the cause of the death of Lanyon. Lanyon died due to the shock he got from witnessing the transformation of Hyde in Jekyll. This again shows how ‘evil’ was dominant in the sense that it was trying to get rid of all ‘good’.
Stevenson also writes about how meddling in things beyond human understanding lead to disaster and punishment. Jekyll is shown to be ‘playing God’ by being two people at the same time: Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. After years of experimenting, he split his personality between two people. Jekyll represented a mixture of ‘good and ‘evil’, but Hyde represented pure ‘evil’. Stevenson shows how the consequences of interfering with this sort of thing are not what are expected. Hyde eventually starts to take control of Jekyll, but never completely does because Jekyll kills himself to stop it from happening. Therefore, the consequences of Jekyll prying in matters he cannot understand are grave. Also, Dr. Lanyon ends his friendship with Jekyll due to Jekyll going “wrong in mind”. He wanted to separate his personality, but Lanyon strongly disapproved of it. The strong friendship between them collapsed due to Jekyll experiments in an ‘out-of-bounds’ field of science.
The building up of mystery also creates horror. For example, the true identity of Hyde and the reason for Dr.Jekyll’s strange behaviour are not revealed until the final chapters of the novel. Throughout the rest of the novel, the mystery is slowly increasing to keep the reader engaged and to create suspense. The cause of the sudden change of health of Dr. Lanyon is a complete mystery until the end, but hints are given, such as
“… a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind”.
Stevenson uses hints like this one to build up mystery and suspense to keep the reader thinking about what the truth really is.
He also uses the technique of pathetic fallacy. This was a popular technique used by nineteenth-century writers. He writes,
“The thin trees in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing”.
Here, Stevenson uses the weather to reflect the feelings of Utterson and Poole when the go to Jekyll’s house to break into his study. It shows a sense of pace and makes the scene much more dramatic. It also suggests how the adrenaline is rushing around inside the two characters’ bodies.
The clever use of cliffhangers is also used. An example of this would be in the chapter where Utterson and Enfield see something in Jekyll’s house when they look through his window. The chapter ends with just their reaction to what they saw and the reader is not told what they saw.
There are letters incorporated into the story, but they do not relieve the reader of suspense and mystery. Instead, they build it up even more. In Jekyll’s letter to Utterson, he describes the situation he is in as “nameless”. This is because it is unique and so has never been described before. It makes the reader wonder what his “nameless situation” is.
Stevenson criticises Victorian society in this novel as well as the normal features a gothic horror story has.
He makes reference to the typical Victorian gentleman through his characters, especially Utterson. Utterson is described as being “backward in sentiment”, showing that he is slow to show his emotions. He is very “austere” and is “never lighted by a smile”. He represents a certain type of Victorian gentleman who strives to live an upright, strictly moral life. He is shown to read for hours from a religious book on Sundays. Whether he likes doing it is something different, he just wants to be thought as a respectable person because an outward devotion to God was considered a worthy characteristic. Utterson’s friends “were those of his own blood”, which shows that he would only be friendly with people of a similar status or occupation, such as Enfield. Enfield is a distant relative who is “a well-known man about town”. He is friends with Utterson even though they seem to have nothing in common. Utterson is
Dr. Jekyll is another character Stevenson uses to show Victorian gentlemen. He represents the wealthy and rich part of society. For example, his house is “furnished with cabinets of oak”. Dr. Jekyll’s house is grand and well kept. His front door “wore a great air of comfort and wealth”.
Hyde is another character who is shown to be wealthy. He is the same person as Jekyll so he obviously would be. His lodgings are “furnished with luxury and good taste”. His “carpets were of many piles”, and “the napery elegant”.
However, all this luxury and opulence can be greatly contrasted with the areas in which they are situated. Jekyll and Hyde live in separate homes, but both live in the district of Soho. It is described as a “district of a city in a nightmare”. When Utterson and the policeman go to find Hyde after the murder of Sir Danvers Carew, they experience the dinginess of Soho. There were “many ragged children huddled in the doorway” and “women of many nationalities” who were going out to have “a morning glass”. In the middle of this rundown town, there is “the home of Henry Jekyll”. There is a large contrast between what Utterson and the policeman see outside, on the streets, and what they see inside the impressive house of Jekyll. Outside, the streets are “dingy”, but inside Jekyll’s and Hyde’s houses it is luxurious and grand.
Stevenson also shows the importance of social class. Poole, a servant, comes to Utterson, who is a lawyer and therefore of a much higher class, for help. Utterson takes charge because he is superior in status and is expected to be courageous and is supposed to know what to do. When Utterson arrives at Jekyll’s house to break into the study, he finds the servants “huddled together like a flock of sheep”. Stevenson shows the servants as helpless to show the reader how much social class mattered.
The author also weaves the idea of double standards into the story. These are best shown through Jekyll and Hyde. They are to sides of the same person, which Jekyll described as the “profound duplicity of life”. Jekyll is a mixture of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and is the part of him who he wants the public to see. He felt that he needed to let his evil part out, which is represented by Hyde. The name, Hyde, also has its significance. It is similar to the word, ‘hide’. It could show that Jekyll turns into Hyde to hide his unrespectable ways. He cannot do things that will ruin his reputation so he turns into Hyde when he needs to do something to satisfy his ‘evil’ side.
Jekyll’s home is also a way Stevenson shows double standards. The front door to his house is very grand. It “wore a great air of wealth and comfort”. It represents Jekyll’s public image and is what people, who come to meet him, get their first impressions from. However, he also has a back door into his house. This door is very different. It is hidden away in a dark alleyway and shows signs of neglect. This door represents the more corrupt side of Dr. Jekyll and others like him. Hyde also enters the house through this door. He represents the corrupt side of Jekyll, as a person, so uses this back door. Jekyll would not want people to see the back door so it is hidden away. He would want people to regard him as very respectable so his front door is the focal point. Also, his laboratory is not looked after. It is described as a “dingy windowless structure”. No one from the public would see his laboratory so Jekyll feels no need to make it presentable. The parts of his house that the public will see, like his hall and his front door, are smart and well kept.
Richard Enfield is “a well-known man about town”. He is friends with Utterson, who only makes friends with people of the same status or occupation. Therefore, Enfield must also be a respectable character in the area. However, one of his Sunday walks with Utterson reveals a more corrupt side of him. Utterson says that he had “come home from some place at the end of the world” when he saw Hyde trampling on the little girl. This bit of speech reveals that he may be allowing his more unrespectable side to come through and fulfil its desires. He could have possibly come back from an opium den or an illegal drinking den because he talks about “some place at the end of the earth”. This is another character Stevenson shows double standards through. Enfield is shown to be a respectable person in society, but what people do not know is that his nocturnal pursuits are very different. Alcohol drinking was frowned upon at the time so he obviously does not want people to know about what he is doing at night.
In Victorian times, it was outward appearance that mattered, rather than inner goodness. If a great man, like Jekyll or Utterson, appeared to be respectful, any doubtful morality in his private life was ignored. Stevenson has used this novel to attack this sort of hypocrisy.
Victorian people had a great fear of scandal. Stevenson shows this through the characters. For example, when Hyde is found dead in Jekyll’s study Utterson suspects Jekyll is responsible for it. He had found a letter from Jekyll addressed to him, which leads him to suspect Jekyll. He says to Poole,
“I would say nothing of this paper. If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save his credit”.
Utterson does not want Jekyll to have his reputation stripped from him so wants Poole to keep quiet about the letter. Also, when Hyde trampled on the little girl, he was so scared of scandal that he agreed to pay one hundred pounds to stop the girl’s family from “making a scandal out of this”.
Stevenson has a few female characters in the novel who he uses to show the Victorian attitude to women. The little girl was “trampled” on by Hyde. This could suggest that all women were trampled on, not generally physically, but by how they were treated in society. The women who surrounded Hyde at this scene are described as being “as wild as harpies”. The servant who witnessed the killing of Sir Danvers Carew fainted after seeing it happen. This shows women to be mentally and physically weak. Another way this is shown by Stevenson is when Poole and Utterson go to find out what is wrong with Jekyll. The moon is used to give a negative image of women. It says,
“The pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her…”
It shows women to be weak and submissive and that they have to rely on men to be able to live.
When Utterson and the police got to search for Hyde, they meet his landlady. She is said to have “an evil face” which has been “smoothed by hypocrisy”. She is presented as being unpleasant and she also takes delight in the idea that Hyde is in trouble, “a flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman’s face”. It is implied that she enjoys scandal and also that she is two-faced. This is another negative way of showing women.
One thing that is unclear is that Stevenson could either be joining in with negatively portraying women or he could actually be trying to make people realize how unpleasant they are being to women.
Stevenson also highlights how bad pollution was at the time. He describes the fog that filled the air as “rich, lurid brown” and like a “great chocolate-coloured pall” and that it “rolled over the city”. London was very industrial at the time so the smoke from factories caused pollution to get this bad.
Stevenson also makes references to a very different thing. He shows the effect of Darwin’s theory of evolution on Victorians. This theory had newly been made when this story was written and Victorians found it very difficult to accept it. They could not imagine themselves having evolved over many years from apes. The way Stevenson refers to the theory is quite clever. Hyde is probably meant to represent an early version of man. He is described as being “troglodytic” and “ape-like”. These words show him to be like a primitive and uncivilised form of man. Stevenson has possibly combined the theory into the novel to try and make Victorian people accept the theory as a valid one.
This novel has the regular gothic horror story features, but Robert Louis Stevenson cunningly also uses the story to highlight the hypocrisy of Victorian society and to possibly change the views of people who will read his book. He talks about everything from the double standards in society, which everyone is unaware of or cannot accept, to the typical view of women at the time. Whether he changes the views of the reader or not, it is not possible to tell, but what he does do successfully is to make his readers aware of the rather shocking parts of society people are deliberately ignorant about.
