Quote Ch.
AO2 & AO3 analysis
“lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet
somehow lovable.”
“He trampled calmly over the child’s
body”
“like some damned juggernaut”
‘it is more than ten years since Henry
Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He
began to go wrong, wrong in mind’
“Mr Hyde shrank back with a hissing
intake of the breath”
“A large well-made smooth-faced man
of fifty, with something of a slyish cast
perhaps”
“with ape-like fury, he was trampling
his victim under foot”
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Chapter 1 opens by establishing Utterson: the perfect Victorian gentleman. He consistently seeks to “There must be something
preserve order and society’s expectations, does not gossip, and guards his friends’ reputations as though else,” said the perplexed
they were his own. Stevenson chooses to follow Utterson through the third person limited narrative gentleman. “There is
1 perspective as he is a rationalist – a lawyer committed to evidence and fact and truth. He investigates what something more, if I could
becomes a supernatural sequence of events but is never able to even consider that something uncanny may find a name for it. God
be going on. This is a classically Gothic choice for a narrator, as it highlights questions around progressive bless me, the man seems
thinking and being open-minded to the unknown. hardly human! (ch.2)
“with ape-like fury, he was
trampling his victim under
The oxymoron 'trampled calmly' suggest violence whilst indicating Hyde is indifferent about the
foot” (ch.4)
consequences of his actions. Some Victorian scientists argued that crime was the result of ‘atavism’ – the
1 reappearance of more primitive traits lost during earlier stages of evolution. Therefore, here Hyde
“My devil had been long
symbolises Victorian fears around Darwin’s theory of evolution. He contrasts the expectations of Victorian
caged and he came out
gentlemanly behaviour and is established as an outsider.
roaring”
(ch.10)
“The dingy, windowless
Dr Lanyon is established as a foil character to Jekyll, as he symbolises traditionalism and scientific structure […] once crowded
scepticism. Lanyon disapproves of Jekyll's research into transcendental medicine and science, calling it with eager students and
2 ‘wrong’ and mocking him as ‘fanciful’ which reflects the attitude of many Victorians who also feared the now lying gaunt and
change and new ideas of the time. However, Stevenson widely makes the case that experimentation is silent”
necessary to drive society forwards. (ch.5)
The verb ‘hissing’ links to a serpent and perhaps even the devil. It could symbolically link to the story of
“Satan’s signature upon a
Adam and Eve and the idea of temptation and the fall of man. For a Victorian reader, familiar with
2 face” (ch.2)
Christian imagery, the depiction of Hyde would be synonymous with Satan and creates the wider premise
of the novel and the idea that Hyde is ‘pure evil’.
“There is something wrong
The idea of Dr Jekyll being large and ‘well made’ highlights his good breeding and developed morality with his appearance;
according to the Victorian beliefs that a person’s physical appearance could give an insight into their something displeasing,
3
personal characteristics. However, The vague language in ‘something’, ‘slyish’ and ‘perhaps’ reflects the something downright
difficulty to describe Hyde; he is beyond words, just as he is beyond morality and conscience. detestable.”
(ch.1)
Stevenson’s simile of “ape-like fury” remind us of Jekyll’s regression into Darwin’s beast. He is clearly “hailing down a storm of
compared to an animal, an ape, and is therefore, is depicted as being less evolved than other humans. blows, clubbed him to the
4 “Fury” hyperbolises Hyde’s anger, which would have been an unacceptable display of emotion for a earth” (ch.4)
gentleman in Victorian society.
“The man seems hardly

“A great chocolate-coloured pall
lowered over heaven, but the wind was
continually charging and routing these
embattled vapours”
“Now that the evil influence had been
withdrawn a new life began for Dr
Jekyll”
“If I am the chief of sinners, I am the
chief of sufferers also”
“The smile was struck out of his face”
“An expression of such abject terror, as
despair froze the very blood”
“like some disconsolate prisoner”
“My devil had been long caged and he
came out roaring”
“I have been doomed to such a
dreadful shipwreck: that man is not
truly one, but truly two”
human! Something
troglodytic” (ch.2)
“wider labyrinths of
The use of pathetic fallacy suggests an ominous atmosphere. Specifically, the noun ‘pall’ refers to a cloth
lamplighted city” (ch.2)
placed over a coffin. As it is placed over ‘Heaven’, perhaps this suggests the loss of positivity and morality
and the connection to God.
The semantic field of war also suggests conflict, suggesting that inner conflict was widespread in society, “lamps […] had been
4 kindled afresh to combat
not just limited to Dr Jekyll.
There was pollution in Victorian London due to the Industrial Revolution, which created fog that concealed this mournful re-invasion
crime, therefore fog is symbolic of immorality. of darkness, seemed […]
like a district of some city
in a nightmare” (ch.4)
“He was busy, he was
much in the open air, he did
The metaphorical reference to a ‘new life’ alludes to ideas that Jekyll is reborn each time he transforms good; his face seemed to
from Hyde back to himself. The noun ‘life’ suggests vitality and energy, building the contrast between open and bright”
6 Jekyll before and after becoming Hyde. This moment relates to Stevenson’s exploration of the conflict (ch.6)
between Jekyll’s desire to be accepted in civilised society and his desire to indulge his more transgressive
desires. ‘henceforth to live a life of
extreme seclusion’
(ch.10)
Repetition of the personal pronoun ‘I’ demonstrates on the one hand Jekyll acknowledging his
responsibility for creating and indulging in his evil alter-ego, but also implies a self-pity with the emotive
nouns ‘sinners’ and ‘sufferers’. It may also link to Christian ideas of sacrifice, with Jekyll perceiving ‘like some disconsolate
7
himself as the ultimate sufferer for humankind within his scientific endeavours. prisoner’ (ch.7)
The dramatic, hyperbolic descriptions such as ‘struck’, abject terror’ and ‘froze’ emphasize how
powerless Jekyll has become to his inner conflict.
The simile of Jekyll as a ‘prisoner’ suggests he is confined physically to his home, but also
“My new power tempted
metaphorically within his discovery of the evil side of man. The motif of confinement is a 19 th century
7 me until I fell in slavery”
Gothic motif – used here to explore the ways in which Victorian society forces gentleman to conceal their
(ch.10)
true desires from the world to preserve their reputations.
The metaphor of the evil part of Jekyll being ‘caged’ continues the idea of society’s expectations creating
slavery and imprisonment of part of Jekyll’s soul. The zoomorphic verb ‘roaring’ creates a sense of power ‘hailing down a storm of
10 and fear, demonstrating the intensity of feeling that is created by containing this part of Jekyll. Stevenson blows’
could be implying a link between the repression of Victorian society and the explosion in violent crime in (ch.4)
the 19th Century.
The metaphor of ‘doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck’ suggests that Jekyll has now lost control of his “My new power tempted
destiny and the course is fatally irreversible. The imagery of the ‘shipwreck’ could suggest that the me until I fell in slavery”
10 destruction of Jekyll is caused by nature, which is reflected in the idea that man is not ‘truly’ one but ‘truly’ (ch.10)
two: nature has made man this way.
Here, Stevenson explores his interest in duality – the idea that humanity has two natures. ‘I stood already committed
to a profound duplicity of
life.’
(ch.10)