‘Many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many women of many different nationalities passing out.’
Here Stevenson was trying to write about prostitution but if he had not used a more blunt approach it would surely not have been allowed to be published. With him being so subtle the reader would be able to tell what he was talking about and the book would pass the strict publishing code. The strict rules about what is allowed to be put in a book are an obvious sign of a hypocritical society. They were trying to pretend that prostitution and other bad things did not happen in their streets even though they knew perfectly well that they did.
Stevenson cleverly uses the characters to represent types of people in society, he uses them to help portrait the central themes of the novel.
Mr Utterson is a middle-age lawyer, he is someone that all the characters seem to like and he doesn’t seem to have any enemies. As an old friend of Jekyll, he could tell that something wasn’t right to do with Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He is perhaps the most respected and rational character in the book; therefore, it is significant that we view the crimes of Hyde and the hypocrisy of Jekyll through Utterson’s eyes because he is bias towards Jekyll as he has been friends with Jekyll for a long time.
It was a very clever idea of Stevenson’s to use a character like Utterson, as we can use his job as a way to getting inside information about Jekyll. He knows things no one else knows because he controls very important documents such as Jekyll’s will. Utterson has all these secrets locked up inside him, and can’t tell anyone or do anything to let it all out because that would be unprofessional and he may lose his reputation and people would lose trust in him. In the modern world, to let off steam and forget about things, young people go out and get drunk, go to nightclubs, go to rock concerts etc, but because of the expectations of the Victorian era, there were many secrets bottled up within the society.
‘His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done.’
What makes Utterson such a fascinating character is the way he has flaws in his character and has a dark past but he still is the hero of the novel. I think that Stevenson is trying to show how in society no one is perfect even those who appear to be.
Lanyon symbolises the majority of the Victorian society who hide from the truth and refuse to face up to the beast in man and the divided self. He believes so strongly that everything is good and respectable, that when he comes face to face with the truth about Jekyll and Hyde, he dies. In my opinion he is a typical man from the Victorian times. The moral code of the society with which they were to live by, protected him so much, when he found out the truth about everybody having an evil side within them, he felt he couldn’t live any longer. His respectable world comes crashing down and he’s forced to face up to the hypocrisy of his life.
Dr Jekyll is described as a prominent middle-age doctor.
‘A large well made, smooth faced man of fifty with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness.’
He is also very rich. He is described as well respected and proper. This was a not always true, as throughout the novel we subtly witness his hypocritical behavior, something that Stevenson claimed was Jekyll¹s fatal flaw. He believed that within every person their were to different sides, good and evil, this lead him to experiment on how to separate the two. This, however, was not only done for scientific reasons, but also because he enjoyed escaping the strict standards which he set himself as Dr Jekyll.
Mr. Hyde is the ‘villain’ of the book; it is he who murders Sir Danvers Carew. We first meet him when Mr. Enfield is describing how he trampled the little girl.
‘The man trampled calmly over the Childs body and left her screaming on the ground’
This is how we are first introduced to the man and instantly the reader gets a feeling of how evil he is. He is often compared to animals, implying that he is not a fully evolved human being. Despite these horrific descriptions, Hyde is generally civilized in his communications to others.
‘He was pale and dwarfish; he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation.’
When all the characters meet Hyde they see something ‘downright detestable’ about him. They feel this way because when they see him they see the evil inside themselves and are forced to subconsciously face up to the fact that within everyone there is evil and are reminded of the hypocrisy of everyone’s lives. For Dr Lanyon this was too much for him and the shock of it killed him.
The street, in which Dr Jekyll lives is described as having shop fronts ‘like rows of smiling women’ and has a brightness that stands out ‘in contrast to its dingy neighborhood.’ This represents the moral and respectable side to Dr Jekyll. These respectable front doors with ‘freshly painted shutters’ are the opposite to the door which we are introduced to by Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield in the first chapter.
‘The door which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker was blistered and distained.’
The big differences in the two doors represent the difference in Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s character and as the doors belong to the same house Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde belong to the same man. I think that Stevenson got this theme of things having two sides to them from the town in which he grew up in, Edinburgh.
There are many locked doors and windows commented on throughout the novel I think that these help us to exploring the central theme of secrecy and control and how we all have parts of our character hidden away that we don’t want anyone to know about. I think that in the beginning Hyde’s house it locked, and When Mr. Utterson sees Dr Jekyll, Jekyll slams the window and locks it. I think that this shows how secret Dr Jekyll was being and how he was trying to lock Mr. Hyde away. When M Utterson breaks the lock into where Mr. Hyde is hiding in the second to last chapter this symbolized how The secret of Mr. Hyde is no longer locked away.
‘A great chocolate pall lowered over heaven.’
Stevenson used detailed imagery to describe the weather conditions of Mr. Hyde’s scruffy street. He often referred to the ‘quite broken up’ fog conditions which symbolised how worried Mr. Utterson was. The trees were personified as they were described as ‘lashing themselves along the railing’ due to the furious March wind. I think Stevenson deliberately uses fog to represent evil as fog can almost be a blanket, which covers up the evil deeds that are taking place at the other side. It is quite threatening and scary which is very effective symbolism to explore the central themes, suppression and secrecy.
‘The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles.’
This technique of pathetic fallacy symbolises Utterson’s fears about Jekyll and his link to the murder of Sir Danvers Carew.
The final technique I am going to explore, which helps us to understand the central themes is the structure of the novel. The major theme of the book is to explore good versus evil, and the dual nature of human beings, so to add authenticity to the story Stevenson uses multiple perspectives. In the beginning chapters to set the scene Stevenson narrates the story as a third person, for example he describes the ‘door which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker,’ of the house in which Hyde lives. The Carew murder case was told as third person, but also had a detailed account from the maid who saw it all out of her window to make the tale more believable. In the chapter, ‘The Last Night,’ Poole the butler gives his account of the Jekyll and Hyde story, which gives the reader an insight into different characters and their personalities. And the final points of view are from Dr Lanyon and Jekyll’s letters. I think that both these letters give the reader a chance to be a ‘detective’ and piece together he two stories and find a constant theme. It also makes it seem more believable and less bias if it is written by two different people.
