Jekyll and Hyde

• Jekyll

  • Is a respectable and affluent man
  • Admits to leading a double life
  • Turning to Hyde becomes an addiction, which though he tries to abstain from he gives into temptation
  • He's older and bigger showing the good side develops first
  • Is shown under a microscope to highlight his vulnerability
  • Becomes sickly and pale to show what he's doing is wrong
  • Uses Hyde as a vessel for his pleasures
• Hyde

  • Small and young showing evil develops later on in life and isn't used as much
  • Tramples over a little girl who symbolises innocence
  • Kills mp who represents society and the voice of society
  • Described as "ape-like" he's regressed evolution, primal, base character
  • Commits suicide, nail in the coffin for evil back then
  • Everyone who meets him instantaneously hates him, though they don't know why
  • Dead body surrounded by representations of society, evil in the heart of society
• Utterson

  • Says at the beginning he's not nosy but contradicts that later with regards to Hyde, duality
  • Is a trustworthy narrator, respectable because he's a lawyer
  • Represents Victorian society, takes everything at face value
  • When even he is scared it emphasises the horror
  • His cluelessness furthers mystery
  • Gives the benefit of the doubt as shown by his continual belief that Jekyll is a victim
• Lanyon

  • He's a traditional scientist
  • His curiosity as a scientist is what allows him to fall for Hyde's temptation
  • He's very set in his views so when he finds them to be wrong it kills him
  • Makes a key point of some things being best left unknown and that the knowledge thereof can be your undoing
  • Jekyll and Lanyon actually fall out over their differing views in science
  • When Hyde makes the potion it is described using scientific terminology reminding the audience that Lanyon is a scientist
• Minor Characters

  • The crowd after Hyde tramples the girl emphasise how horrible he is that they should have such a visceral reaction
  • The maid over exaggerates the murder to emphasise the horror
  • Servants' fear emphasises horror at what's happening
  • Hyde's servant is as cruel as he, like calls to like
  • Poole is pale and beats around the bush a lot to create suspense
  • Little girl is innocence and freedom; Danvers Carew is society when harmed it shows the threat of evil
• Duality

  • Transcendental science seeks to split the evil we all have from good
  • Jekyll admits to leading a double life
  • Utterson says he's not nosy in the beginning but contradicts that when it comes to Hyde
  • The thriving street compared with the run-down door
  • The feeling Utterson gets from Jekyll's hall that cannot be reconciled with before he met Hyde
  • Light's eternal battle against the darkness, portrayed in setting
  • Jekyll's front and back door
  • Jekyll and Hyde
• Gothic

  • Plays with psychological horrors instead of physical ones
  • Bars on the windows to show entrapment
  • People described as going pale with fear
  • The omnipresent fog, representing confusion
  • Characters often seen to be isolated from the rest of the world
  • Challenges Victorian societal views
  • Jekyll is entranced by Hyde, his victimizer
• Respectability

  • Jekyll is outwardly respectable
  • In Victorian society there were clear and strict lines as to how to conduct oneself (as Jekyll, Utterson and Lanyon did) at the risk of outcast should you step over them
  • For this one must repress the lesser instincts, Stevenson warns against the outcome of this
  • It is this very same pressure that drives Jekyll to create Hyde
  • As Hyde he can abandon this need for respectability, he feels free
  • Everything Hyde does is very much not respectable