DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDEa strange a fascinating book which can be
considered as :
A
science fiction;
thriller;
A moral allegory ( an allegory of the dualism of the human
nature);
A psychological study;
A horror story.
A
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CONTEXT
PLOT
OVERVIEW
SYMBOLS:
DR JEKYLL
&
MR.HYDE
Context
With the notion of a single body containing both
the erudite Dr. Jekyll and the depraved Mr.
Jekyll’s house and laboratory
Hyde, Stevenson’s novel imagines an inextricable
The setting: double London
link between civilization and savagery, good
DR.JEKYLL & MR.HYDE
and evil.

Jekyll’s attraction to the freedom
from restraint that Hyde enjoys
THE GOTHIC ELEMENTS
mirrors Victorian England’s secret
THEMES:
•The duality of human nature
•The importance of reputation
•Urban terror
attraction to savage non-Western
cultures, even as Europe claimed
superiority over them. The Western
world came in contact with other peoples
and ways of life and found aspects of
In its narrative of a respectable doctor who
these cultures which they both desired and
transforms himself into a savage murderer, Dr.
feared to indulge in them. These aspects
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde drew directly on the
included open sensuality, physicality,
anxieties of Stevenson’s age. The Victorian era
and other so-called irrational
was a time of unprecedented technological progress
tendencies. So, on one hand Victorian
and an age in which European nations carved up the
England tried to assert its civilization over
world with their empires. By the end of the century,
and against these instinctual sides of
however, many people were beginning to call
life.On the other hand they found them
into question the ideals of progress and
secretly fascinating. So society’s
civilization that had defined the era, and a
repression of its darker side only
growing sense of pessimism and decline
increased its fascination.
pervaded artistic circles.
Plot Overview
ON THEIR WEEKLY WALK, a respectable , trustworthy lawyer
named Mr. Utterson and his friend Enfield talk about
a horrendous
tale of an assault made by a sinister
figure named Mr. Hyde who tramples a young girl,
disappears into a door on the street, and reemerges to
pay off her relatives with a check signed by a respectable
Puzzled, the lawyer visits Jekyll and their mutual friend
Dr. Lanyon to try to learn more. Lanyon reports that he
no longer sees much of Jekyll, since they had a dispute
over the course of Jekyll’s research, which Lanyon calls
“unscientific balderdash.”
gentleman.
Another crime is supposedly committed by Hyde and
Some days later it happens, however, that one of
Utterson again visits Jekyll, who now claims to have
Utterson’s clients and close friends, Dr. Jekyll, has
ended all relations with Hyde.
written a will transferring all of his property to this same
Mr. Hyde. Soon, Utterson begins having dreams in which
After a few months, Jekyll suddenly begins to refuse
a faceless figure
visitors, and Lanyon dies from some kind of shock he
of London.
moves through a nightmarish version
received in connection with Jekyll. Before dying,
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however, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter, with
Once released, Hyde
instructions that he not open it until after Jekyll’s death.
gradually comes to
dominate both personas, until Jekyll
One night , Jekyll’s butler, Mr. Poole, visits Utterson
takes Hyde’s shape more often than his
in a state of desperation: Jekyll has secluded himself in
own. Hyde seems to possess a force
his laboratory for several weeks, and now the voice that
more powerful than Jekyll originally
comes from the room sounds nothing like the doctor’s.
Utterson and Poole travel to Jekyll’s house through
empty, windswept, sinister streets; once there, the
two of them resolve to break into Jekyll’s laboratory.
Inside, they find the body of Hyde, wearing Jekyll’s
clothes and apparently dead by suicide—and a letter
from Jekyll to Utterson promising to explain
believed.
This dominance of Hyde—first as a latent force within
Jekyll, then as a tyrannical external force
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subverting Jekyll—holds various implications for our
understanding of human nature.
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everything.
We may recall that Hyde is described as
resembling a “troglodyte,” or a primitive
creature; perhaps Hyde is actually the
Utterson takes the document home, where first he reads
original, authentic nature of man, which
Lanyon’s letter; it reveals that Lanyon’s deterioration
has been repressed but not destroyed by the
and eventual death were caused by the shock of seeing
accumulated weight of civilization, conscience,
Mr. Hyde take a potion and metamorphose into Dr.
and societal norms.Perhaps man doesn’t
Jekyll.
have two natures but rather a single,
The second letter constitutes a testament by Jekyll. It
primitive, amoral one that remains just
explains how Jekyll, seeking to separate his good side
barely constrained by the bonds of
from his darker impulses, discovered a way to
civilization.
transform himself periodically into a deformed monster
, free of conscience—Mr. Hyde.
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Moreover, the novel suggests that once
those bonds are broken, it becomes
At first, Jekyll reports, he delighted in becoming Hyde
impossible to reestablish them.Even in
and rejoiced in the moral freedom that the creature
Victorian England—which considered
possessed. Eventually, however, he found that he was
itself the height of Western civilization—
turning into Hyde involuntarily in his sleep, even without
Stevenson suggests that the dark,
taking the potion .
instinctual side of man remains strong
enough to devour anyone who, like Jekyll,
The letter continues describing Jekyll’s cry for help. He
finds himself ever more helpless and trapped as the
transformations increased in frequency and
necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to
reverse themselves. Eventually, the potion began to
run out, and Jekyll was unable to find a key ingredient to
make more. His ability to change back from Hyde into
Jekyll slowly vanished and so he decides to kill himself.
Jekyll notes that, in any case, the end of his letter marks
the end of the life of Dr. Jekyll. With these words, both
the document and the novel come to a close.
proves foolish enough to unleash it.
DR.JEKYLL
He has lived a virtuous life;
He is honest and respectable ;
He was born in a respectable and wealthy upper-
middle class family and was heavily influenced by
the Victorian wish for respectability;
His face is handsome, his hands white and well
shaped , his body is larger and more proportioned
than Hyde’s
MR
HYDE
He is pale, dwarfish, his hands are dark and hairy;
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
He is ugly and repulsive man;
Dr. Jekyll=  the well-liked, respectable doctor and
Mr. Hyde = hideous, depraved are in fact a single
character . Stevenson uses this marked contrast to make
He gives an impression of deformity and the good Mr.
Utterson reads “Satan’s signature” in his traits;
He is smaller and uglier than his alter ego .
his point: every human being contains opposite
forces within him or her, an alter ego that hides
Though the evil side of Jekill’s nature is initially less
behind one's polite façade.
developed because most of his previous life has been
devoted to “virtue and control” when Hyde is freed , he
Dr Jekyll says that he was motivated by
dark urges such as ambition and
pride.
begins to erode his good twin.
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The smaller Hyde begins to grow in stature and the
The buildings are adjoined but look out on two
original balance of good and evil in Jekill’s nature is
different streets. Because of the convoluted layout of
threatened
the streets in the area, the casual observer cannot
detect that the structures are two parts of a whole,
He is an evil genius
just as he or she would be unable to detect the
Themes
1)The Duality of Human Nature
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde centers upon a conception
of humanity as dual in nature. Jekyll asserts that
“man is not truly one, but truly two”. But his potion
succeeds only in bringing the dark side into being. Once
unleashed, Hyde slowly takes over, until Jekyll ceases to
exist. However , man is not “truly two” but is first and
relationship between Jekyll and Hyde.
THE SETTING
The setting is London , with its “double nature”
which is reflected in the respectable West End and the
appalling poverty of the East End slums.
This ambivalence is also reflected in the symbolism of
Dr. Jekyll’s house whose two façades are symbolically
the faces of the two opposed sides of the same man:the
front of his house , used by the Doctor , is is beautiful “
part of a square of “ancient , handsome houses..” while
the rear side , used by Hyde, is a part of a sinister block
of buildings which “showed no windows”
foremost the primitive creature embodied in Hyde,
brought under control by civilization, law, and
Narrative Technique
conscience. According to this theory, the potion simply
strips away the civilized layer, exposing man’s essential
Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has a multi-narration
2)The Importance of Reputation
structure , in which a complex series of point of views is
presented. There are four narrators who filter the
majority of the events in the story: Enfield, Utterson,
Lanyon and finally Dr. Jekyll himself.
The importance of reputation in the novel also
Utterson has the role of a detective as he follows clues
nature.
reflects the importance of appearances, façades,
and surfaces, which often hide a sordid
underside.
3)Urban Terror
Throughout the novel, Stevenson goes out of his
way to establish a link between the urban
landscape of Victorian London and the dark
events surrounding Hyde.
He achieves his desired effect through the use of
nightmarish imagery, with dark streets draped
in fog, forming a sinister landscape.
Symbols
Jekyll’s House and Laboratory
Dr. Jekyll lives in a well-appointed home,
characterized by Stevenson as having “a great air of
wealth and comfort.” His laboratory is described
as “a certain sinister block of building … [which]
bore in every feature the marks of profound and
sordid negligence.” With its decaying façade and
air of neglect, the laboratory quite neatly
symbolizes the corrupt and perverse Hyde.
Correspondingly, the respectable, prosperouslooking main house symbolizes the respectable,
and draws hypotheses . He himself shows aspects of
duality : he is the typical respectable Victorian
man but there is a certain ambiguity in his soul
since he is tolerant towards evildoers.
The other narrator , Lanyon, superficially a good man,
is also a kind of mirror for Jekyll : his curiosity in the
end prevails and allows him to be tempted by
forbidden knowledge and he dies.
INFLUENCES & INTERPRETATIONS
Stevenson drew inspiration for the description of
Hyde from Darwin’s studies about man’s
kinship to the animal world.
Hyde’s small stature indicates that his body is
not exercised, fully developed;
He is lame , “deformed” ;Lanyon calls him
“abnormal” .
So Hyde may be the primitive man , the
evolutionary forerunner of the civilized man ,
since he is described in grotesque animal
imagery .
Hyde can also be the symbol of repressed
psychological aspects because Dr. Jekyll
projected his hidden pleasures in Hyde , who
turns to be one part of his own being.
Thus Dr. Jekyll is a kind of “Victorian Faust”
with his pact with an interior evil that controls
him in the end.
THE GOTHIC ELEMENTS
1. The setting ( London with its two parts and
Dr.Jekyll’s house with its front and rear entrance)
2. The mysterious atmosphere ( presence of the fog)
3. The monster ( Mr. Hyde)
4. The prevalence of darkness (most scenes of the
novel take place at night: there is no natural
daylight , but only the artificial lightening of
Dr.Jekyll’s house and of the nightmarish street lamp
upright Jekyll.
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THE MEANING
The novel is based on the story of a man divided
against himself in a respectable being , Jekyll, and in an
evil genius, Hyde.
These two beings are in perpetual struggle and it
is science ( chemistry) which releases Hyde and
restores Jekyll.
Once Hyde is released , he conquers the other
respectable side.
When the Hyde element has achieved domination
over the Jekyll aspect, the individual has only two
choices.
On one hand, the man may plunge into a life of
crime and depravity , or , on the other hand, the
Jekyll aspect , unable to suppress the ranging violence
of Hyde, must eliminate Hyde in the only way left: by
killing him.
Hence Jekyll’s suicide or self-murder is the final
and only choice.
Stevenson implies that man’s salvation is based on the
annihilation of one part of his nature if he lives in a
civilized society.
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QUESTIONS:
1. What are the anxieties of Stevenson’s
age?
2. What were Victorian people secretly
attracted to?
3. What are the aspects of the non-Western
cultures which Victorian people feared
mostly?
4. What is the meaning of the dominance of
Hyde fist as a latent force within Dr Jekyll
and then as a tyrannical external force?
5. Why is Dr Jekyll’s evil side initially less
developed?
6. How is reputation linked to the Victorian
system of values?
7. How is Dr Jekyll’s double nature related
to the dual vision of Dr. Jekyll’s buildings:
his house and laboratory?
8. Why can Mr Utterson be considered the
embodiment of the Victorian mind?
9. What are the features of the nightmarish
description of London in the novel ?
10.
Why can Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde be
considered innovative from the point of
view of narrative technique?
11.
What are the three main
interpretations of this short novel?
12.
Similarly to other Victorian novels , Dr
Jekyll & Mr. Hyde contains some Gothic
features. Give reasons.
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