This makes us wonder how Jekyll ahs the power to do that and how he will get rid of Hyde. There are many other examples of mystery/thriller elements in the book, the two scenes where Hyde attacks a little girl and a gentleman uses animalistic imagery and the brutality of Hyde. Hyde is described as “ape-like fury”, “Gnawing his nails”, “ape-like spite”, “like Satan”, “abnormal”. These examples more or less describe him like a wild ape going crazy, as it also says “with a swarth growth of hair”.
The most horrific attack and descriptive attack came from the Carew murder, a known and respected man, which led to a wide scale search of the killer because he was known. If the victim were to be a tramp, then nothing would be made of it. Pathetic fallacy is used to describe the scene of the murder, “a fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was cloudless”.
The murder starts of with a maid servant looking outside her window and she became aware of an “aged and beautiful gentleman with white hair”, she notices this man and finds him attractive, but when she notices this man, “another and very small gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention.” She recognises the man when the moon shines in his face and remembers she disliked him from the moment she saw him, this shows that people judged others on their appearance in the Victorian times, and also the appearance of peoples houses on the outside, also reflected on the mans personality.
Then she goes on to describe the assault, “all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger”, this shows hellish fury, referring to the flames as great. “Stamping with his foot”, “Carrying on like a madman”. “Mr Hyde broke out of all bounds, and clubbed him to the earth.” This shows the brutality of Hyde, as he carries out an unprovoked attack on a gentleman. “And next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot, and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered”. The words used help describe the attack, as you can picture Hyde jumping like an ape onto his victim, and the noise it causes. After the attack the victim is left “Incredibly mangled”, this shows the force used to carry out the attack and the insanity needed to do it.
This will shock the readers back when the book was first published, as acts like these very rarely occurred, and no-one thought of such things. But Jack the Ripper was around at the time but at the beginning of this chapter, it says the date is, “in the month of October 18--”, which stops the reader from referring to past occurrences that happened in that month and year.
This story is also based on the allegory of good versus evil, especially within yourself, as the evil had to be restricted or else you will be shunned. There are many things that stop you from doing evil things, but back in the Victorian times, you had to stop yourself, but Jekyll found a way of doing evil things without losing his reputation, as everyone knew it was Hyde doing the acts of crime but then again the readers knew that Jekyll is Hyde, and that Hyde is the evil within Jekyll brought out. Stevenson is also trying to say that there is a little evil within everyone, they just need to bring it out but now the times have changed, and tougher laws stop us from doing the evil.
As you can see the name “Hyde”, is similar to “hide”, and throughout the book, Hyde is in hiding, within Jekyll. The final chapter is Jekyll’s statement and confession, taking the narrative half an hour before the events of chapter 8. He writes it over the last week of his life, and is discovered after he commits suicide. The final chapter is actually “Dr Lanyon’s narrative”, where we hear Jekyll’s death, and how he came about creating his other half. The way this is structured, gives us a chance to figure out why Jekyll did what he did and how he came about doing it, and also the narrative structure looks more into the allegorical context of good versus evil, and original sin, which was committed by Adam and Eve. Jekyll says “man is not truly one but truly two”, meaning that there are two sides to every one. He also says, “Temptation of a discovery”. This refers to Adams temptation to taste the forbidden fruit. As you can see, this is a confession of his guilt and also a conclusion of what the results were of Hyde.
The final chapter is also important in many other ways. Imagery, language and pathetic fallacy are used in this chapter, and also themes are raised. Themes of good V evil are used, and also evil in religion. Examples are, “instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me”, and “Devilish fury”, “That child of hell”, “something not only hellish but inorganic”. These words are used because; religion was also a main factor of life in Victorian times. Imagery is used to describe the differences of Jekyll and Hyde, “Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll”. Then a comparison of their hand uses imagery, “The hand of Henry Jekyll was professional in shape and size; it was large, firm, white and comely”. While Hyde’s hand is described as, “lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor, and thickly shaded with a swarth growth of hair”. The swarth of hair is also an animalistic imagery, as animals such as bears and apes have more hair than humans. Poor people were looked down as if they were animals, because they slept like animals, treated themselves like animals and ate like animals, as they begged for little scraps of food. That’s partly why lots of animalistic imagery is used on Hyde.
The last chapter also comments on the real desires of humans in that era. Such as, “men have hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter.” This is an example of the good and evil that lie within a person, but other people get other people to do their crimes instead of doing it themselves and losing their reputation. Jekyll is also trying to say that every one desires what he wants, to break free from social restrictions and have fun by going to pubs, drinking a lot, and fornicating. But the only thing that stands in their way is losing their reputation. By saying this, Stevenson is criticising the social conventions of his time, as he clashed with the social beliefs and didn’t follow his father’s line of work. He knew what it was to be restricted by the moral beliefs of having to be a gentleman, and only doing things that were reasonable such as drinking a little of fine wine, being friends with people of your own self, and so on.
The contrast of animalistic versus human imagery is used a lot in this novel. The animalistic is used upon Hyde, and human imagery is used on gentleman as a whole, not as an individual. Hyde is described as, “Ape like fury”, “Chained down”, “hence the ape like tricks”, “like a monkey”. Most of these animalistic features describe him as a primate of some sort, “chained down” like a dog. Human imagery describes the gentleman as “handsome”, “white haired”, “tall”, and “strong build”. These features represent a good man, who is shown as a handsome good looking man. The contrast of good V evil is the same as every other example, such as light V dark, beauty V ugly, the negative of the both being evil. So negative phrases were always pointed to the evil person, they weren’t shown in any way as good. Stevenson uses these comparisons to show attitudes humans have towards others, the way they brand other people who are inferior to them as low and evil, and the things they must have done to be in a situation like that.
As a whole, I agree with the opinions Stevenson presents in this book. The strict social and moral beliefs they have to follow because of the fear that they would be looked down upon. We still live in a world today, were we are restricted by social and moral beliefs, and also the way people are treated due towards their appearance. You would not see today, a teenager who has fancy clothes and is wealthy, hanging around with a boy who has torn clothes and less money to buy all the fashion accessories. People, who are powerful, treat other people who are less powerful as inferior, and they push them around. Reputable men such as politicians and respected well known men, hire people to do their evil acts, instead of doing it themselves and risk losing their status. Humans will act towards other humans like this for a very long time, no matter what happens to enforce that it doesn’t happen, no one wants to lose the reputation that they have built, as people of all ages have reputations of their own. Beauty V ugly also is used nowadays, as handsome men who dress properly and formally, are looked at as smart, wealthy and comes from a very good social background. And a man that doesn’t treat himself as good, and doesn’t dress professionally, is looked at as a tramp, and most probably wouldn’t be let into any restaurants or any other social places where gentleman usually go to. So in most ways, the same social and moral beliefs are still used to this day, and Stevenson’s ideas about human nature are still relevant today, it can’t be stopped, as it is within us all, and unless we stop it ourselves, these beliefs will still be around.
