In chapter one, Mr. Enfield tells us the story of the attack of the young girl and describes the characteristics of Hyde; ‘It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut’ and ‘he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point’. The use of the word ‘Juggernaut’ gives Hyde a barbaric and un-Christian character. Barbaric rituals and violence in Victorian society were feared, and the Krishna ‘Juggernaut’ links Hyde to these Indian practices where innocent rituals could be concealing more savage truths. When Enfield observes the seeming deformity of Hyde, it is symbolic of Hyde being morally deformed like the Devil to whom he is also compared. All of these descriptions reinforce that Hyde is a pure form of evil, which is highlighted by him having no motive and using ‘ape-like’ fury to ‘trample’ and ‘shatter’ his victims. Both of these verbs are very forceful and give a very vivid picture of the attack, strengthening the image of the evil side of mankind which Hyde represents. Verbs such as ‘hit’ or ‘knock’ could also have been used, but they are less forceful in describing the attack.
When Jekyll transforms into Hyde after a long period of time, Hyde becomes more muscular and physically larger to symbolize that as Hyde physically grows, his powers develop. As a result of this, his victims suffer increasingly more, which eventually leads to the murder of Carew. The evil within Hyde is so powerful that it leads to a gruesome assault which causes a watching maid to faint. On some film versions of ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, Sir Danvers Carew is often replaced with a woman to emphasize the victim’s vulnerability and innocence, similar to the ‘little girl’ in the first chapter. Hyde is associated with descriptions such as ‘hum and ‘growl throughout the novel which imply a hidden danger and add to the tension which also contributes to London’s landscape while he is present.
It is interesting to note that Dr. Jekyll writes his last words ‘I bring the life of that unhappy Dr. Jekyll to an end’ as if he was not directly talking about himself. It implies that, firstly Jekyll knows that he will not live and so is sealing his own fate in ink. It also considers the fact that Hyde is overpowering him, saying that he has ended his half of himself to allow his other half to take control forever. He sacrifices himself knowing that Hyde will not be able to hide behind him anymore. Therefore he too will die with the components which created him. I believe that the fact that Hyde committed suicide is significant to the good versus evil theme which is demonstrated throughout the novel.
London is used throughout the novel to help link the different sides of characters. Stevenson would use nightmarish imagery to describe the effect of the horrors and crimes which took place. The ‘dingy street’ and ‘ragged children’ make Hyde’s character disturbingly at home considering the time that he has existed. ‘When it veiled its more florid charms’ and ‘the street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood’ instantly shows us on the first few pages of the novel that there are other forms of duality and contradiction. ‘Florid charms’ adds to the ‘air of invitation’ that this particular street is more pleasing than the other areas which are not mentioned in as much detail. Again, this mirrors the darker side of London.
Stevenson also describes London as pleasant, much like restraining moral attitudes that the Victorians considered cultural and necessary in order to maintain status in society. The description of this area also mirrors the hidden layers which aren’t meant to be seen, such as Victorians smugness and unwillingness to face up to facts. Throughout the novel, the atmosphere mirrors the themes that Stevenson sets, however it often shows hidden meanings and subtle truths, concealed from the surface.
In ‘Carew’s murder’ atmosphere is used to create a sense of fear, which draws attention to the scene. The chapter ‘The Carew Murder case’ is even titled as if it was a police report, factual and too the point giving it a no longer fictional feel to this novel. Stevenson uses London’s landscape to create tension in this chapter, when a maid witnesses the scene by using descriptive words in sentences like ‘was brilliantly lit by the full moon’ which indicates a spotlight like scene on a stage. ‘Although a fog rolled over the city… the early part of the night was cloudless’ gives the impression that the weather can change quickly and be unpredictable, yet again mirroring Hyde’s character. The weather also suggests that the city can give Hyde cover when he needs it and that his power is growing.
Initially, a rolling fog gives the reader an eerie suspicion as it is often associated with horror films. It builds tension by making the scene feel trapped and fog also enhances the feeling of other things becoming faded and less important. It would have been particularly effective as the industrial revolution was taking place around this era. Consequently, a ‘fog rolling over the city’ could be seen as deadly smog which was produced by factories in major cities. ‘Brilliantly lit by a full moon’ implies that there is a spotlight which builds suspense that a key event is about to unfurl. ‘Through wider labyrinths of a lamp-lighted city’ suggests that London is inescapable, like the labyrinths of Greek mythology. The phrase uses alliteration effectively and suggests that if this ‘lamp’ were to blow out, the city would turn dark in two ways. ‘At every street corner crush a child and leave her screaming’ is used when Mr. Utterson was thinking about Mr. Hyde’s actions. This sentence is used to help show exactly how horrific and deformed Mr Hyde appeared. Even without mentioning the character we know who it is.
The settings of the chapters add to the novel because Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde are both portrayed by the places where they live. The ‘blistered and distained’ part where Mr. Hyde resides represents Mr. Hyde's dark and sinister character, while the house that Dr. Jekyll lives in is more elegant. However, Dr. Jekyll’s house begins to be consumed by darkness and deteriorates; it shows that Dr. Jekyll can no longer control the evil Hyde from taking over. A ‘little damp’ and ‘premature twilight’ creates the feeling that Jekyll’s influence on his house is fading as the sky was ‘still bright with sunset’ and that eventually he will fade away. The setting shows Dr. Jekyll’s and humans’ deterioration when they try to attain pure goodness, without any evil counterpart. The duality between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde implies that man must have duality, embodying both good and evil, or else he would be out of balance and would become corrupted.
Victorian London gives the impression that Mr. Hyde needs the anonymity of the masses, and he needs the newly gas lit streets, the flickering night time landscape of pubs and brothels and beggars and the urban underworld. The growing and developing city of London gives Hyde a cloak in which to hide his despicable behaviour, and gave him precious anonymous freedom. In this world, Hyde is able to walk through society unnoticed and disregarded whereas, without this opportunity for absolute anonymity, Jekyll would never have been able to carry out his experiment. Accordingly, the bustling, growing and many layered city of London supported Jekyll’s work and gave him the freedom to pursue his dual lives.
Mr. Utterson is the main narrator of the book. Utterson is a middle-aged lawyer, and a man in which all the characters confide throughout the novel. Utterson represents the standards of conventional society and the law, where Victorians are supposed to always be ‘proper’ and well mannered. He is ‘a modest man’ who is well respected within Victorian society. As an old friend of Jekyll’s, he recognises the changes and strange occurrences of Jekyll and Hyde, and resolves to further investigate the relationship between the two men. He is perhaps the most circumspect and rational character in the book and it is therefore significant that we view Hyde's crimes and Jekyll's hypocrisy through his observant, but generally sympathetic perspective. That is why Jekyll cannot confide in him about what is happening, even though they are old friends. ‘Some day, Utterson, after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this. I cannot tell you’ shows that, although Dr. Jekyll wishes to tell Utterson of his discovery, the unlawful and treacherous situation prevents him from sharing it.
Stevenson probably uses him to represent the attitudes of the average reader of his time which explains his disapproving approach to fiction as he is ‘a lover of the sane and customary sides of life’. It is also why, throughout the novel, Stevenson makes Utterson come to all the wrong conclusions. The law blinds him to the truth. It is because Utterson is a lawyer that he constantly suspects Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll or has some other criminal purpose. Like Lanyon, he does not have the imagination to understand what Jekyll is doing.
The ultimate failure of Utterson and therefore the law is built into the structure of the novel. At the end of Chapter 8, The Last Night, Utterson promises the servant, Poole, ‘I shall be back before midnight, when we shall send for the police’ but neither he nor the police (the other arm of the law) are heard of again. Their silence is like the death of Lanyon; they have no power to deal with the unexplained that Jekyll has unleashed.
Richard Poole is Dr. Jekyll’s faithful butler. He appears briefly in the novel from time to time, notably when Utterson goes to visit Jekyll. Strong parallels can be drawn between Utterson and Poole as their characters are similar. They are both rational men despite their hierarchy. They both have the same calm, sensible attitudes which crumple while they fear for Jekyll’s welfare. At the start of the novel, this ‘well-dressed’ and ‘professional’ servant appears composed and unruffled, as is expected of him. However, when he fears for Jekyll’s life he ‘spoke harsh and broken’ with fear for his beloved master. He changes from being ‘polite’ to having ‘his manners altered for the worst’ – he is so worried he cannot answer Mr. Utterson’s questions efficiently and leaves his offered wine ‘untasted’. This contributes to the theme ‘man is not truly one, but truly two’ as it shows that characters contrast into their real selves when confronted with fear and panic.
Although his inferior status does not require it, he appears to have two approaches to Dr. Jekyll. He is faithful in fulfilling his duties, yet considers himself responsible for the other servant’s and Jekyll’s well being. So much so, that when fearful for his master's life, Poole seeks out Dr. Jekyll’s respected friend, Mr. Utterson for assistance. At the same time, ‘the whole of the servants, men and woman, stood huddled like a flock of sheep’. This suggests that Poole is more courageous and independent which means that he is more willing to help when he suspect’s ‘foul play’.
Jekyll’s faithful butler and Mr. Utterson discover Edward Hyde dead in Dr. Jekyll’s cabinet and then, from a letter written by Dr. Jekyll’s hand, learn of the doctor's fantastic experiments. When Poole sees Jekyll/Hyde in his final form, he thinks he sees his master with a ‘mask’ on his face, ‘that thing was not my master and there's the truth’. Again, Poole’s ‘thing’ is monkey-like and dwarfish, and it weeps ‘like a woman or a lost soul’. These words are used not only to criticise Hyde, but to confirm to the two logical men that there is no possibility that this outlandish creature could be their friend Jekyll, demonstrating the rational and logical reasoning which was standard for the Victorian society and their occupations.
Throughout the novel, Robert Louis Stevenson gives the readers various different messages about the dual nature of the human personality, from the evil hidden beneath the goodness of man to the true inner side we all possess. In my opinion, the basic message of the novel is that we are all evolved from primitive ‘ape-like’ creatures. The book metaphorically explores what would happen if we went back on the evolutionary timeline. This theme of duality or dichotomy permeates right through to the end of the novel. However, Stevenson’s message about the dual nature of the human personality in ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ may be interpreted in a different way. Some people might think that mankind is not made up of good and evil, but is one primitive creature, which has been transformed into a civilised being due to the natural evolution theory which Darwin introduced around the same time as this novel was written.
Throughout ‘The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ Stevenson subtly comments on Victorian society. He describes the duality of life and how misleading life is and was. This may have influenced the society to change their moral codes. It may have also inspired more fictional writers to be more imaginative. His lasting moral message of ‘man is not truly one, but truly two’ could be considered with a number of meanings: civilisation versus savagery, good versus evil, or religion versus science. All of these were significant to Stevenson and are asked rhetorically throughout the novel.
I think that the structure of the novel contributes to the development of the themes effectively, as they do not emerge fully until the last chapters. By giving us several narratives in the book, Stevenson provides stronger evidence that this is a realistic novel instead of being a one sided fantasy. Stevenson also does this to develop the characters independence and shows layers within the book where each character is missing parts of the information, leaving us to piece together the true story and answer the unsolved questions. He interconnects the duality of many characters and scenes of the novel to contribute to its dual theme.
