Dr Lanyon

• Dr Lanyon


  Symbolises reputability and acts as a foil to Dr Jekyll
• Dr Lanyon


  • Provides the voice of scientific skepticism which balances out the wild and experimental attitudes of Dr Jekyll
  • First person to witness Jekyll's transformation into Hyde
  • Voice of tangible, material science rather than the metaphysical science which Dr Jekyll practices
• Lanyon and Jekyll had a disagreement over the "unscientific balderdash" Jekyll begins to experiment with (which results in the creation of Hyde) and their friendship never recovered
• Lanyon evidently prefers materialistic science, whereas Jekyll dabbles in a more metaphysical side of the topic
• Lanyon acts as a foil to Jekyll, showing the extremes of scientific practice and belief
• Lanyon's apparently conservative approach to scientific investigation represents those who resented the changes being induced by the innovators of the industrial revolution
• Lanyon


  Utterson
• Utterson serves as the common bond between Jekyll and Lanyon
• Lanyon: '"I felt bound to do as he requested"'
• Lanyon: '"Welcomed him with both hands"'
• Lanyon: '"Jekyll became too fanciful for me"'
• Lanyon: '"I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang along my blood. 'Come, sir,' said I. 'You forget that I have not yet the pleasure of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you please.' And I showed him an example, and sat down myself in my customary seat and with as fair an imitation of my ordinary manner to a patient, as the lateness of the house, the nature of my preoccupations, and the horror I had of my visitor, would suffer me to muster."'