Jekyll’s tastes were ‘rather chemical than anatomical.’ He owned a large house, with a laboratory at the back. Dr. Lanyon, a friend of both Utterson and Jekyll, believed that around ten years ago, ‘he [Jekyll] began to go wrong in mind.’ Lanyon believed that he and Jekyll ended their friendship because Jekyll participated in ‘such unscientific balderdash.’ Lanyon was too conservative to do experiments, such as those done by Jekyll, which were forbidden by society. This was brought about by the fear of losing his social status by doing so.
Indeed, Lanyon’s primary suspicions were correct. Jekyll’s experiments did, in the end, turn to something evil. Jekyll had discovered that ‘man is not truly one, but truly two.’ He wanted to split these two sides of man, one being the responsible body, and the other being one which can enjoy the pleasures of life without the burden of social status. This is where we can begin to not feel sympathy for Jekyll, as he began this experiment purely for his own benefit, not for any scientific purpose. He managed to create a potion that could split these two personalities. By taking this, ‘the most racking pangs succeeded,’ but afterwards he ‘felt younger, lighter, happier in body.’ In doing this, he gave in to the powers of this new being without a fight, knowing that he was evil.
‘Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend.’ This is basically Jekyll taking responsibility for the first time, however, I feel that he should have done this a long time ago, and so we cannot feel too much sympathy for him at this point. If he had not have wanted to partake in the previously forbidden pleasures, he could have created a good person. A possible reason for Jekyll doing this is because ‘he was wild when he was young; a long while ago, to be sure.’ Indeed, this is what he wanted to do, ‘like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty.’ This shows signs of irresponsibility, which may lead us into not feeling sympathy.
The first evidence that is given to us that Hyde is evil is in the trampling of the child. Afterwards, when Hyde goes into ‘a certain sinister block of building’ to get the blackmail cheque for one hundred pounds, it is written in Jekyll’s name
The house is a good symbol of the contrast in Victorian society. It ‘thrust forward its gable on the street,’ meaning that this evil house is out of place in this nice area. Later on in the book, it also describes how Hyde always enters through the back of the house. Therefore, the sinister side to Jekyll lives out of sight, but the respectable is in the forefront.
Throughout this chapter, Enfield continually describes Hyde as ‘displeasing,’ ‘detestable,’ ‘deformed somewhere.’ ‘There is something wrong with his appearance.’ This feeling of utter disgust is conveyed to us throughout the book. Each time, however, the person cannot describe what they actually hate about Hyde, they just despise him. The female witness ‘had conceived a dislike’ to Hyde, and even Utterson had an ‘unknown disgust, loathing and fear’ of him.
After the trampling incident, Jekyll is very arrogant in the fact that ‘the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde.’ This certainty leads us to ask ourselves a question, is Hyde that easy to get rid of?
The Carew murder caused considerable discomfort for Jekyll. The day after the incident, when Utterson visited Jekyll, he was ‘looking deadly sick.’ Could this mean that Jekyll was implicated with Carew? Jekyll, at this point, shows great remorse and says ‘I bind my honour to you that I am done with him in this world.
It is all at an end,’ ‘he will never more be heard of.’ This is a change in tone from when he was very laid back about Hyde; however, he still has the arrogance to be sure that he can ‘be rid of him.’ However, a paragraph later, it says that he has ‘lost confidence in myself’ so maybe he is not so sure of Hyde. This makes us feel no sympathy for Jekyll, as he is so confident that he can get rid of Hyde. We find out later that he cannot. However, we may feel a small amount of sympathy, as his loss in confidence was brought about by Hyde, and so he is in deep suffering.
In employing Hyde, Jekyll ‘was thinking of my own character, which this hateful business has rather exposed.’ This is him thinking about his loss of reputation, showing, once again, his selfishness. Jekyll does, however, show contrition. ‘I have had a lesson – O God, Utterson, what a lesson I have had!’ We cannot, however, be sure whether this remorse is for the girl and Carew, or for the loss of his reputation. If it was to be the former, then we could feel sympathy for him, however, the latter would back up further his selfishness.
‘I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.’ In this statement by Jekyll, he admits that he has done something wrong, but has also been a victim of something. He is therefore trying to shift the blame onto something else, which may lead us into not feeling sympathy for him. He says that he ‘could not think that this earth contained a place for sufferings and terrors so unmanning.’ The agonizing occurrences that he has endured lead us to feel some sympathy for him. The fact that he is both a sinner and a sufferer may mean that he has brought his pain upon himself, in which case we may feel compassion. The doctor may be guilty, but we still feel sorry for him because mitigating circumstances qualify his guilt. These are the fact that his problems were caused by Hyde.
Jekyll however, felt that he was not guilty, ‘Henry Jekyll stood…aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde.’ ‘It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty.’ This means that Jekyll is not taking responsibility for Hyde’s actions.
This could be justified by the fact that some two months before the murder of Carew, Jekyll ‘fell in slavery’ of Hyde. One morning, he woke up, half transformed, with the body of Edward Hyde, and the hand of Henry Jekyll. He had gone to bed as Jekyll, and woken as Hyde, and had taken no potion in the meantime.
Jekyll was scared, ‘the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine.’ Jekyll now had to chose which lifestyle he wanted. His ‘two natures had memory in common,’ so if he chose one, he would still remember the life of the other.
He was unwilling to lose his hedonistic side: ‘to cast in my lot with Jekyll was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper.’ This shows, once again, his selfishness.
Jekyll soon saw his ‘life to be forfeit.’ He could simply not stay as Jekyll without taking the potion constantly. When he was not in the form of Hyde, Jekyll ‘with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hand to God.’ One must feel sympathy for someone in this amount of pain.
Jekyll’s main fear was that Hyde would be hanged for the murder of Carew. ‘I was glad to have my better impulses thus buttressed and guarded by the terrors of the scaffold.’ It was at this point that Jekyll did what Hyde did, but in his own body. This shows that he actually showed little remorse because it was at those points that he could have stopped himself, and it was only his fear of execution and his selfishness that he continued. He attacked both a carriage driver and a woman in the course of a day.
After these incidents, ‘it was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.’ The power of Hyde was, indeed increasing, as to change back into Jekyll; it took a double dose of the potion.
If Jekyll did not fear the gallows, then Hyde did, as his fear ‘drove him to continually commit temporary suicide.’ Jekyll’s frustration also shows: ‘And when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.’ It is this frustration that makes Jekyll think that the chemicals that he orders are impure, because they do not turn him back into Jekyll. In fact, Hyde has taken over completely.
In the final paragraph of Jekyll’s statement, he asks ‘will he [Hyde] find the courage to release himself…?’ This is not answered, despite Jekyll eventually committing suicide, as he could have done so because of his fear of being hanged, or alternatively, for the good of society. The former would have been selfishness, the latter, would be for the good of humanity.
I conclude: Dr. Jekyll was a victim of Victorian values. If he had been allowed to engage in his experiments and his pleasures without the fear of being discarded into the gutter of a London street, then he would not have created a permanently evil person. However, because of the pressures of society, he was forced to commit these actions in private. As discussed, he did not have to create Hyde, and so brought the suffering upon himself. If he had had the discipline to not allow Hyde to take over, then we may feel more sympathy, but he ‘chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep it.’
Jekyll was selfish, but he cried ‘tears of penitence’ and admits he made a mistake. If it was not for the social divide, his mistake would have been forgotten and therefore we can feel sympathy.
Andrew Brooman
