Mr Enfield starts to talk about an incident that involves that door and starts to tell Mr Utterson about. “I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o’clock of a black winters morning” This sets the scene and creates an almost scary atmosphere.” And my way lay through the part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps.” This adds to the atmosphere that Mr Enfield is describing. “Street after street, and all the folks asleep- street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession, and all as empty as a church – till at last I got into a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman.” This adds tension to the atmosphere around. “All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross-street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground.” This is indeed horrific and without a doubt adds the horror to the atmosphere. “It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.” The word hellish is a very strong word to use and emphasises the horror. Also the fact that he stamped calmly over the child horrifies the reader. He done this by the lack of emotion that Mr Hyde has and also the fact that it was a young girl makes the reader even more horrified.
“It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut.” The word Juggernaut means: a huge lorry and is also the name of a Hindu God but the word also means a hideous monster and is not usually how you describe a person, this suggest this is more of a creature than a man, this would also account for his actions. This sense of horror also creates mystery and tension. Is Mr Hyde human? What where the reasons for his actions? Even more mystery is about to unravel in the next part of the book.
“I gave a halloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running.” This creates even more horror in the case of Mr Hyde’s character’s description, to make someone scared just by the look on there face means that they must look quite horrific. Also this is a part of foreshadowing, later on in the book a servant girl witnesses the murder of Sir Danvers Carew where he is trampled on by Mr Hyde, his bones crushed under his feet.
“The people who had turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon the doctor, for whom the girl had been sent, put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened, according to the sawbones; and there you might have supposed to be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentlemen at first sight. So had the child’s family, which was only natural. But the doctor’s case was what struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent, and as about emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir he was like the rest of us: every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that sawbones turned sick and white with a desire to kill him.” This reaction is truly shocking. Having a desire to kill someone is an extreme emotion.
“ I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and killing being out of the question, we did the next best. We told the man that we could and would make a scandal out of this, as should make his name stick from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the women off him the best we could, for they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was he man in the middle, with a king of black sneering coolness – frightened too, I could see that – but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan.” This shows emotion from the group of people who had gathered around then child and exactly how strong this emotion was. The emotions are clearly standing out, “we were keeping the women off him the best we could, for they were as wild as harpies.” and “I never saw a circle of such hateful faces” make it look like a gang attack or mugging person would be enough to make anyone scared, even Mr Hyde. Many people are scared for their life when a crowd of people have had verbal abuse shouted at them and threatened but somehow he kept a sort of cool about him as if he wasn’t sorry for what he did in the slightest.
“If you choose to make capital out of this accident,” said he, “ I am naturally helpless. No gentlemen but wishes to avoid a scene,” says he “Name your figure.” Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the child’s family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; but there was something about the lot of us that meant mischief, and at last he struck. The next thing was to get the money; and where did do you think he carried us to but the place with the door? – Whipped out a key, went in and presently came back with a matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on Coutts’s” He manages to bribe the people into letting him go for a matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque but from whom did he get the money from? “Drawn payable to the bearer, and signed in a name I can’t mention.” The information of the bearer that is held back from the reader to create mystery in the novel.
“Although it’s one of the points of my story, but it was a name at least very well known and often printed. The figure was stiff; but the signature was good for more than that, if it was only genuine. I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentlemen that the whole business looked apocryphal; (Not Gospel – maybe untrue?) and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning and comes out of it with another man’s cheque for close up a hundred pounds.” This is a very good point that is made by Mr Enfield. A very suspicious (and dangerous) person walks into a house and comes out with a cheque in someone else’s name doesn’t happen without raise some (if not all) eyebrows.
Everyone one there probably is suspicious of Mr Hyde so he says himself that they will go to the bank when it opens. The next day Mr Enfield checks in at the bank, “I gave the cheque myself, and said I had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine.” So now we know that the cheque is genuine but that begs the question who would give a hundred pounds to this man? Mr Utterson tuts and then Enfield replies, “ Yes, it’s a bad story. For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good. Blackmail, I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth. Blackmail House is what call that place with the door in consequence.” So even though the cheque is genuine people still do not know why this man would pay such a large some of money for this man but they suppose is going on is there is some sort of blackmail involved which adds mystery to the novel. The phase knocking a bird on the head meaning to rob an old man comes to mind.
They carry on talking then Mr Utterson asks “there’s one point I want to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the child”
“Well,” Mr Enfield, “I can’t see what harm it would do. It was a man of the name Mr Hyde” Now the word Hyde means a number of things.
- First of all it’s a part of the rough skin around the back.
- Hide, a hut where bird watches can sit without being seen by the birds and scaring the birds.
- And hide as in hiding and being secretive.
All these aspects have something in common with Mr Hyde
“He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary-looking man, yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.” This whole paragraph is full of horror and mystery about the description of Mr Hyde.
As they continue to talk Mr Utterson questions Mr Enfield about this Mr Hyde and that he had a key to this house. Why? This is more mystery to add.
That night Mr Utterson broke his usual routine that he keeps which is very strange for him because he austere with himself and opens the private document of Dr Henry Jekyll Will which is strange in its self seeing that Dr Jekyll is about forty five years of age so why right a will at that time in his life? Is he expecting something bad to happen to him soon? These are all to do with horror and mystery and some tension. And the strange thing is that all possessions go to Mr Hyde. Mr Utterson has been a friend to Jekyll for years and know all his possessions go to him, what’s Dr Jekyll has to do with this mysterious (and rather unpleasant in appearance and attitude) figure Mr Hyde? The strange thing is that it quotes “in the case of Dr Jekyll’s’ disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months. The said Edward Hyde should step into the said Henry Jekyll’s shoes without any further delay.” This is a very mysterious will left by Dr Jekyll. What could possibly be going on with the two characters?
Straight away Mr Utterson goes to see Dr Lanyon, him and Mr Utterson are Henry Jekyll’s oldest friends. Mr Utterson asks Lanyon about Dr Jekyll but them two had falling out ten years ago over a science matter. There was tension between Jekyll and Lanyon for Lanyon did not approve of what Dr Jekyll was doing. “ He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though, of course, I continue to take an interest in him for old sake’s sake as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such scientific balderdash,’ added the doctor flushing suddenly purple, ‘would have outraged Damon and Pythias.” Dr Lanyon seems to be getting very worked up about Dr Jekyll. Utterson asks Lanyon about Hyde but he says he knows nothing about him, never heard of him.
Mr Utterson decided to find this Mr Hyde “ If he be Mr Hyde, then I’ll be Mr Seek.” This play on words shows relevance to the name Hyde again. He waits at his chosen post.
“His patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night; frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow. By ten O’clock, when all the shops were closed, the by street was very solitary, and, in spite of the low growl of London from all around, very silent. This creates a tense and almost frightening atmosphere for the reader to give them a picture of the street. He then hears footsteps and soon after sees a figure, “He was small, and very plainly dressed; and the look of him, even at that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher’s inclination.” When Mr Utterson asks if he is Mr Hyde the man “hisses” and says, “what do you want?” Mr Utterson explains who he is and that he wishes to speak with Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde replies
“ You will not find Dr Jekyll; he is from home,” replied Mr Hyde. Then he turned suddenly and asked but without looking up “how do you know me?”
“On you side,” replied Mr Utterson, then he asks to see Mr Hydes face, Hyde Hesitates for a second. Then Hyde asks again “how did you know me?”
“By Description” was the reply.
“Who’s Descriptions?”
“We have common friends,” said Mr Utterson.
“Common Friends!” echoed Mr Hyde, a little hoarsely. “Who are they?”
“Jekyll for instance,” said the lawyer
“He never told you “ Cried Mr Hyde, with a flush of anger. Mr Hydes starting to act weird at this point he “snarled aloud into a savage laugh” then “disappears into the house.”
Mr Utterson starts to walk and think to himself “God bless me the man seems hardly human! Something trogoldytic (caveman).” This description is quite horrific and adds horror to the novel. “O my poor friend Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend!”
Mr Utterson goes to Dr Jekyll’s house and is let in by his servant Mr Poole who he has known for years, who goes to find Jekyll but is not in. “…tonight there was a shudder in his blood; the face of Mr Hyde sat heavy on his mind.” Poole returns with no Dr Jekyll but says that Mr Hyde has gone upstairs. Mr Utterson then questions Poole about his master’s trust with Mr Hyde then says goodnight and leaves. He decides that he may need to help his friend out of the trouble he must have got into.
