The Symbol of Space

The Symbol of Space
Whether movements on a broad sense or author on a specific one, literature critics, scholars
and students have become accustomed to reading between the lines, or to look for a ‘hidden’
or ‘deeper’ meaning behind the more ‘obvious’ events stated on the texts. The boundaries
between the ‘surface’ and the ‘depths’ of meaning are thus established on literature, and the
same can be done with the proper spaces where Stevenson’s story occurs. While they could
be read merely as a factual description of streets and buildings, this short analysis means to
delve on the symbolic aspects that they offer after a more detailed review.
The first chapter of Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” focuses on a
peculiar door. The characters are placed on a street described as “small and what is called
quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on the week-days” 1, and “the street shone out in contrast to
its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-
polished brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught and pleased the
eye of the passenger.”2 However, is something else what caughts the attention of the
characters:
Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east, the line was broken by the entry
of a court; and just at that point, a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable 1
on the street. It was two storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower
storey and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the
marks of prolonged and sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither bell
nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched into the recess and struck matches
on the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on the
mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to drive away these random
visitors or to repair their ravages.3 (Stevenson, 32)
This contrast sparks both the curiosity of the characters and the reader, though there is a clear
predisposition to negative ideas: the building is on the left hand of the street, going east,
which could be a reference to the East End, “an area in industrial decline on the edge of the
City, a vast, overpopulated centre of crime and poverty” 4 that ”came to symbolize all that was
wrong in the metropolis.”5 If it were not, the left hand would still be amplified by the
“sinister” of the building, as well as the deformity of the place anticipating the same
sensations for the person that uses it, Hyde. However, as it was presented before, it is the one
to move the events forward. Alex Clunas explained it when he wrote “the door, paradoxically,
utters its secretiveness through an absence, the lack of bell or knocker.” 6
This closed door, without bell or knocker, excludes everyone from the knowledge of its
contents, its owner or its past, while at the same time making obvious the existence of the
secret, and “opening” a way to uncover it. The interest that provokes is enough to revive a
memory in Enfield’s mind, a story that will make a terrible unkown man which can open this
door and the mysterious beneficiary of the recent will of Utterson’s friend, one and the same.
While it is true that the ingredients needed for Jekyll’s potions would have run out with or
without Utterson’s investigation, prompting the same end to Jekyll’s story, without this door,
there would be no story as it is written, though the possible changes are not relevant to this
spatial study.
More important to the subject is the following space, after Utterson’s has decided to
investigate the strange relationship between his friend and this violent beneficiary and talk
directly to Dr. Jekyll. Again, quoting Stevenson’s work:
Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of ancient, handsome houses,
now for the most part decayed from their high estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts
and conditions of men: map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers and the agents of obscure
enterprises. One house, however, second from the corner, was still occupied entire: and at the
door of this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort, though it was now plunged in
darkness except for the fanlight. 3 Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A well-dressed, elderly
servant opened the door.7 (Stevenson, 42)
The parallelism between both paragraphs is obvious in their contrast. The narration has now a
positive view of the scene: a house of wealth and comfort, unlocked, and “socially
distinguished from the other, as it comes equipped with a manservant.” 8 Here, the door is
closed, but not locked; this space is ready to reveal its secrets, and its inside is “the pleasantest
room in London.”9 Moreover, the owner is known and well-presented thanks to the
characters’ commentary.
If the analysis stopped here, at the surface level, the idea of both doors symbolizing Hyde and
Jekyll would be a logical conclusion. However, there are some other aspects to take into
account before that. From what has been gathered so far, there are two very distinct doors and
two very distinct characters, and they frequent the spaces that are expected to frequent.
However, that would completely ignore that, while Jekyll and Hyde may appear two different
individuals, they are one and the same. They share a body, even if this changes to reflect their
inner transformation. It could be said that they share a space, and that the experiment has
created a boundary, a division, an split inside. This proper duality, their own symbolism and
the desperate attempt of Jekyll to draw away the blame of evil to this other self is not
discussed here, but it is important to remember that “he has constructed this moral duality in
his laboratory and that he has produced it out of what was already there, beginning when he
first proposed the hypothesis that they could be "housed in separate identities”” 10
The relevance of the point above in this study is to reconsider that those places could have
subtle hints to “the other side”, as they are also one and the same. The “sinister door” is
connected with a proper house, a house that belongs to a respectable doctor, and that “The
doctor had bought the house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon” 11. Not only that, but as
the laboratory is there, Jekyll is the one to use it most of the time, prior and after the split.
Jekyll’s cabinet, a key place on the narrative—Jekyll needs to send a friend of his to break in,
so he can get the ingredients, when he loses control of his transformations; is the place where
he isolates himself when he loses hope of replicating the effect; is where Jekyll, ultimately,
writes his last statements and where both, Jekyll and Hyde, die before Utterson breaks in a
last time— is on “Hyde’s side” of the house. Though Clunas considers it to be “At the heart
of Jekyll's house”12, the truth is that he continues “beyond the threshold, along the passage,
across the court, through the old operating theatre, and up the stairs” 13, and thus the placement
is considered nearer the “sinister door” than the “welcoming one”. And revisiting the house,
the one that inspires wealth and comfort, it is on a street of “for the most part decayed for
their high estate” houses and among their inhabitant it is possible to find “shady lawyers and
the agents of obscure enterprises”. Jekyll’s statement proves that he is not the exception, but
the rule; he is one of those agents of obscure enterprises. While the servants of the house are
not pleased with Hyde being on the house, Jekyll muses that, at the same time, “it came back
upon my mind that the servants were already used to the coming and going of my second
self."14 Both Jekyll and Hyde are at home in each “other spaces”, and those reflect both of
them.
But it could be argued that this house is still Jekyll’s property, and any possible reference or
symbolism that reflected Jekyll would be expected. This means another location is needed,
one that could be “only Hyde’s”. And there is one:
In the whole extent of the house, which but for the old woman remained otherwise
empty, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of rooms; but these were furnished with luxury and
good taste. A closet was filled with wine; the plate was of silver, the napery elegant; a good
picture hung upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson supposed) from Henry Jekyll, who was much
of a connoisseur; and the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in colour. 15
The house is on Soho, and the address is describes as “a dingy street, a gin palace, a low
French eating house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers 1 and twopenny salads, many
ragged children huddled in the doorsways, and many women of many different nationalities
passing out, key in hand, to have a morning glass ;2”16 Superficially, or externally, the place
seems to identify clearly with Hyde: the dirtiness, the alcohol, the women; the perfect place to
look for deshonorable pleasures. However, the interior of Hyde’s rooms are acommodated
with taste, riches and elegance. Utterson even supposes that a picture must come from Jekyll,
because there is no way a evil man like Hyde could live in a place like this without his
assisstance. There is some truth at this, as the statement confirms that Jekyll both took and
furnished it, but in the same statement Jekyll informs that Hyde is no stranger to destroying
things he dislikes.
Summarizing, as to get to the final concluison, it has been said that, at a surface level, the
spaces on Stevenson’s work, specifically Jekyll’s house and laboratory and Hyde’s house in
Soho, appear to symbolize the inhabitants in a clear duality of contrast, Jekyll represented
only by socially acceptable places and Hyde portrayed by suspicious, locked, secretive ones.
However, after revisiting each one, hints of the opposite appear at both locations, blurring that
line of division between the two characters, an effect given not only with Jekyll and Hyde’s
actions, words and the opinions of other characters about them, but also with the spatial
notions where all of the previous things ocurr.
Works Cited
123
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, edited by Martin
A. Danahay, Broadview editions, 2005. page 32
4 5
Dryden, Linda. The Modern Gothic and Literary Doubles - Stevenson, Wilde and Wells,
Palgrave Macmillian, 2003. page 48
6
Clunas, Alex. “Comely External Utterances: Reading Space in “The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, The Journal of Narrative Theory, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Fall, 1994), page 177
7
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, edited by Martin A.
Danahay, Broadview editions, 2005. page 42
8
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12 13
14
15
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The Symbol of Space

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