jekyll and hyde essay introduction

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Full Analysis and Themes

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The story for Jekyll and Hyde famously came to Robert Louis Stevenson in a dream, and according to Stevenson’s stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson wrote the first draft of the novella in just three days, before promptly throwing it onto the fire when his wife criticised it. Stevenson then rewrote it from scratch, taking ten days this time, and the novella was promptly published in January 1886.

The story is part detective-story or mystery, part Gothic horror, and part science fiction, so it’s worth analysing how Stevenson fuses these different elements.

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: analysis

Now it’s time for some words of analysis about Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1886 novella. However, perhaps ‘analyses’ (plural) would be more accurate, since there never could be one monolithic meaning of a story so ripe with allegory and suggestive symbolism.

Like another novella that was near-contemporary with Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , and possibly influenced by it ( H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine ), the symbols often point in several different directions at once.

Any attempt to reduce Stevenson’s story of doubling to a moral fable about drugs or drink, or a tale about homosexuality, is destined to lose sight of the very thing which makes the novella so relevant to so many people: its multifaceted quality. So here are some (and they are only some) of the many interpretations of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde which have been put forward in the last 120 years or so.

A psychoanalytic or proto-psychoanalytic analysis

In this interpretation, Jekyll is the ego and Hyde the id (in Freud’s later terminology). The ego is the self in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, while the id is the set of primal drives found in our unconscious: the urge to kill, or do inappropriate sexual things, for instance.

Several of Robert Louis Stevenson’s essays, such as ‘A Chapter on Dreams’ (1888), prefigure some of Freud’s later ideas; and there was increasing interest in the workings of the human mind towards the end of the nineteenth century (two leading journals in the field, Brain and Mind , had both been founded in the 1870s).

The psychoanalytic interpretation is a popular one with many readers of Jekyll and Hyde , and since the novella is clearly about repression of some sort, one can make a psychoanalytic interpretation – an analysis grounded in psychoanalysis, if you like – quite convincingly.

It might be significant, reading the story from a post-Freudian perspective, that Hyde is described as childlike at several points: does he embody Jekyll’s – and, indeed, man’s – deep desire to return to a time before responsibility and full maturity, when one was freer to act on impulse? Early infancy is the formative period for much Freudian psychoanalysis.

Recall the empty middle-class scenes at the beginning of the book: Utterson and Enfield on their joyless Sunday walks, for instance. Hyde attacks father-figures (Sir Danvers Carew, the MP whom he murders, is a white-haired old gentleman), which would fall in line with Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex and Jekyll’s desire to return to a time before adult life with its responsibilities and disappointments.

However, one fly in the Oedipal ointment is that Hyde also attacks a young girl – almost the complete opposite of the ‘old man’ or father figure embodied by Danvers Carew.

Nevertheless, psychoanalytic readings of the novella have been popular for some time, and it’s worth remembering that the idea for the book came to Stevenson in a dream. Observe, also, the presence of dreams and dreamlike scenes in the novel itself, such as when Jekyll remarks that he ‘received Lanyon’s condemnation partly in a dream; it was partly in a dream that I came home to my own house and got into bed’.

An anti-alcohol morality tale?

Alternatively, a different interpretation: we might analyse these dreamlike aspects of the novel in another way and see the novel as being about alcoholism and temperance , subjects which were being fiercely debated at the time Stevenson was writing.

Here, then, the ‘transforming draught’ which Jekyll concocts represents alcohol, and Jekyll, upon imbibing the draught, becomes a violent, unpredictable person unknown even to himself. (This reading has been most thoroughly explored in Thomas L. Reed’s 2006 study The Transforming Draught .)

Note how often wine crops up in this short book: it turns up first of all in the second sentence of the novella, when Utterson is found sipping it, and Hyde, we learn, has a closet ‘filled with wine’. Might the continual presence of wine be a clue that we are all Hydes waiting to happen? Note how the opening paragraph informs us that Utterson drinks gin when he is alone.

This thesis – that the novella is about alcohol and temperance – is intriguing, but has been contested by critics such as Julia Reid for being too speculative and reductionist: see her review of The Transforming Draught in The Review of English Studies , 2007.

The ‘drugs’ interpretation

Similarly, the idea that the ‘draught’ is a metaphor for some other drug, whether opium or cocaine . Scholars are unsure as to whether Stevenson was on drugs when he wrote the book: some accounts say Stevenson used cocaine to finish the manuscript; others say he took ergot, which is the substance from which LSD was later synthesised. Some say he was too sick to be taking anything.

You could purchase cocaine and opium from your local chemist in 1880s London (indeed, another invention of 1886, Coca-Cola, originally contained cocaine, as the drink’s name still testifies: don’t worry, it doesn’t any more).

This is essentially a development of the previous interpretation concerning alcohol, and arguably has similar limitations in being too restrictive an interpretation. However, note the way that Jekyll, in his ‘full statement’ becomes reliant on the ‘draught’ or ‘salt’ towards the end.

A religious analysis

As such, the story has immediate links with the story Stevenson would write sixty years later. Stevenson was an atheist who managed to escape the constrictive religion of his parents, but he remained haunted by Calvinistic doctrines for the rest of his life, and much of his work can be seen as an attempt to grapple with these issues which had affected and afflicted him so much as a child.

The sexuality interpretation

Some critics have interpreted Jekyll and Hyde in light of late nineteenth-century attitudes to sexuality : note the almost total absence of women from the story, barring the odd maid and ‘old hag’, and that hapless girl trampled underfoot by Hyde.

Some critics have suggested that the idea of blackmail for homosexual acts lurks behind the story, and the novella itself mentions this when Enfield tells Utterson that he refers to the house of Mr Hyde as ‘Black Mail House’ as a consequence of the girl-trampling scene in the street.

As such, the novella becomes an allegory for the double life lived by many homosexual Victorian men, who had to hide (or Hyde ) their illicit liaisons from their friends and families. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote to his friend Robert Bridges that the girl-trampling incident early on in the narrative was ‘perhaps a convention: he was thinking of something unsuitable for fiction’.

Some have interpreted this statement – by Hopkins, himself a repressed homosexual – as a reference to homosexual activity in late Victorian London.

Consider in this connection the fact that Hyde enters Jekyll’s house through the ‘back way’ – even, at one point ‘the back passage’. 1885, the year Stevenson wrote the book, was the year of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment ), which criminalised acts of ‘gross indecency’ between men (this was the act which, ten years later, would put Oscar Wilde in gaol).

However, we should be wary of reading the text as about ‘homosexual panic’, since, as Harry Cocks points out, homosexuality was frequently ‘named openly, publicly and repeatedly’ in nineteenth-century criminal courts. But then could fiction for a mass audience as readily name such things?

A Darwinian analysis

Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species , which laid out the theory of evolution by natural selection, had been published in 1859, when Stevenson was still a child. In this reading, Hyde represents the primal, animal origin of modern, civilised man.

Consider here the repeated uses of the word ‘apelike’ in relation to Hyde, suggesting he is an atavistic throwback to an earlier, more primitive species of man than Homo sapiens . This reading incorporates theories of something called ‘devolution’, an idea (now discredited) which suggested that life forms could actually evolve backwards into more primitive forms.

This is also linked with late Victorian fears concerning degeneration and decadence among the human race. Is Jekyll’s statement that he ‘bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul’ an allusion to Charles Darwin’s famous phrase from the end of The Descent of Man (1871), ‘man […] bears […] the indelible stamp of his lowly origin’?

In his story ‘Olalla’, another tale of the double which Stevenson published in 1885, he writes: ‘Man has risen; if he has sprung from the brutes he can descend to the same level again’.

This Darwinian analysis of Jekyll and Hyde could incorporate elements of the sexual which the previous interpretation also touches upon, but would view the novel as a portrayal of man’s – and we mean specifically man ’s here – repression of the darker, violent, primitive side of his nature associated with rape, pillage, conquest, and murder.

This looks back to a psychoanalytic reading, with the ‘id’ being the home of primal sexual desire and lust. The girl-tramping scene may take on another significance here: it’s a ‘girl’ rather than a boy because it symbolises Hyde’s animalistic desire to conquer and brutalise someone of the opposite, not the same, sex.

There have been many critical readings of the novella in relation to sex and sexuality, but it’s important to point out that Stevenson denied that the novella was about sexuality (see below).

A study in hypocrisy?

Or perhaps not: perhaps there is something in the idea that hypocrisy is the novella’s theme , as Stevenson himself suggested in a letter of November 1887 to John Paul Bocock, editor of the New York Sun : ‘The harm was in Jekyll,’ Stevenson wrote, ‘because he was a hypocrite – not because he was fond of women; he says so himself; but people are so filled full of folly and inverted lust, that they can think of nothing but sexuality. The Hypocrite let out the beast’.

This analysis of Jekyll and Hyde sees the two sides to Jekyll’s personality as a portrayal of the dualistic nature of Victorian society, where you must be respectable and civilised on the outside, while all the time harbouring an inward lust, violence, and desire which you have to bring under control.

This was a popular theme for many late nineteenth-century writers – witness not only Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray but also the double lives of Jack and Algernon in Wilde’s comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). This is a more open-ended interpretation, and the novella does appear to be about repression of some sort.

In this respect, this interpretation is similar to the psychoanalytic reading proposed above, but it also tallies with Stevenson’s own assertion that the story is about hypocrisy. Everyone in this book is masking their private thoughts or desires from others.

Note how even the police officer, Inspector Newcomen, when he learns of the murder of the MP, goes from being horrified one moment to excited the next, as ‘the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition’. He can barely contain his glee. The maid who answers the door at Hyde’s rooms has ‘an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent’.

From these clues, we can also posit a reading of the novel which sees it as about the class structure of late nineteenth-century Britain, where Jekyll represents the comfortable middle class and Hyde is the repressed – or, indeed, oppressed – working-class figure.

Note here, however, how Hyde is repeatedly described as a ‘gentleman’ by those who see him, and that he attacks Danvers Carew with a ‘cane’, rather than, say, a club (though it is reported, tellingly, that he ‘clubbed’ Carew to death with it).

A scientific interpretation

The reference to the evil maid with excellent manners places Jekyll’s own duality at the extreme end of a continuum, where everyone is putting on a respectable and acceptable mask which hides or conceals the evil truth lurking behind it. So we might see Jekyll’s scientific experiment as merely a physical embodiment of what everyone does.

This leads some critics to ask, then, whether the novella about the misuse of science . Or is the ‘tincture’ merely a scientific, chemical composition because a magical draught or elixir would be unbelievable to an 1880s reader? Arthur Machen, an author who was much influenced by Stevenson and especially by Jekyll and Hyde , made this point in a letter of 1894, when he grumbled:

In these days the supernatural per se is entirely incredible; to believe, we must link our wonders to some scientific or pseudo-scientific fact, or basis, or method. Thus we do not believe in ‘ghosts’ but in telepathy, not in ‘witch-craft’ but in hypnotism. If Mr Stevenson had written his great masterpiece about 1590-1650, Dr Jekyll would have made a compact with the devil. In 1886 Dr Jekyll sends to the Bond Street chemists for some rare drugs.

This is worth pondering: the use of the ‘draught’ lends the story an air of scientific authenticity, which makes the story a form of science fiction rather than fantasy: the tincture which Jekyll drinks is not magical, merely a chemical potion of some vaguely defined sort. But to say that the story is actually about the dangers of misusing science could be a leap too far.

We run the risk of confusing the numerous film adaptations of the book with the book itself: we immediately picture wild-haired soot-faced scientists causing explosions and mixing up potions in a dark laboratory, but in fact this is not really what the story is about , merely the means through which the real meat of the story – the transformation of Jekyll into Hyde – is effected.

It’s only once this split has been achieved that the real story, about the dark side of man’s nature which he represses, comes to light. (Compare Frankenstein here .)

All of these interpretations of Jekyll and Hyde can be – and have been – proposed, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the popularity of Stevenson’s tale may lie in the very polyvalent and ambiguous nature of the text, the fact that it exists as a symbol without a key, a riddle without a definitive answer.

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'Jekyll and Hyde': writing introductions and conclusions

I can write well structured introductions and conclusions as part of an overarching argument.

Lesson details

Key learning points.

• Introductions are made up of three parts, moving from the general to the specific.
• Conclusions move the opposite way, from the specific to the 'impact of the text today'.
• In the final sentence of your introduction, you must focus on the writer's intention; this is your thesis statement.
• A conclusion could consider the timeless nature of the text.
• Your introduction and conclusion should be linked to form a coherent argument.

Common misconception

When including 'the impact of the text today' in your conclusion, you just need to explain why the book is still studied today.

Ask pupils to 'step outside the text' and think about why themes, characters or moral messages might resonate with readers today.

Duplicitous - acting in a tricky way, saying one thing, but meaning another

Bourgeois - typical of middle-class life, perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes

Psyche - your mind and feelings, the inner you

Pertinent - directly related, important to the topic or situation

Façade - the front of something, like a building's outer appearance

You will need access to a copy of 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' by Robert Louis Stevenson for this lesson.

Content guidance

• Depiction or discussion of sensitive content

Supervision

Adult supervision recommended

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited ( 2024 ), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert louis stevenson.

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Introduction

Dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: plot summary, dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: detailed summary & analysis, dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: themes, dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: quotes, dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: characters, dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: symbols, dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: literary devices, dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: quizzes, dr. jekyll and mr. hyde: theme wheel, brief biography of robert louis stevenson.

Historical Context of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Other books related to dr. jekyll and mr. hyde.

• Full Title: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• When Written: 1885
• Where Written: Bournemouth, England
• When Published: 5th January 1886
• Literary Period: Victorian
• Genre: Horror, Drama, Victorian Gothic
• Setting: The streets of London
• Climax: Utterson reads the narrative written by Lanyon before his death, which describes the horrific bodily transformation of Mr. Hyde into Dr. Jekyll, explaining everything that has happened so far in an absolutely incredible way.
• Antagonist: Mr. Hyde forms the antagonist of the tale until we realize that he is in fact the double of Dr. Jekyll.
• Point of View: A third person narrator tells the story with an omniscient view of characters but stays mostly with Mr. Utterson, which allows Stevenson to reveal things to the reader with suspense.

Extra Credit for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Strange Beginnings. Robert Louis Stevenson reportedly wrote the draft of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in an astonishing three days in a drug-induced fever.

Expensive Taste. Robert Louis Stevenson was known as “Velvet Jaket” as a young man because of his dandy-fied taste in clothes.

• Quizzes, saving guides, requests, plus so much more.

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Jekyll and hyde sample essay.

Starting with this extract (start of chapter 4), how does Stevenson present moments of horror in Jekyll and Hyde?

At the beginning of the extract, taken from the ‘Last Night’ Hyde is lurking in the cabinet in a hope he will not be found by Poole and Utterson. Stevenson describes how “a dismal screech as of mere animal terror” rang through the cabinet as Hyde can hear the two men breaking in. The verb “screech” conveys the fear of Hyde as he is about to be discovered in the cabinet and the comparison of the “screech” to an “animal” may horrify the reader as it reinforces that Hyde is animalistic and inhuman, which builds tension as the reader ponders what Hyde may have unleashed inside the cabinet. Moreover the “animal terror” reinforces the vulnerability of Hyde and may create a sense of horror in the reader as they feel sympathy for the masked Hyde who is being compared to a vulnerable animal. A Victorian reader may also feel revolted that the respectable Jekyll is hiding Hyde, who is being hunted for the murder of Sir Danvers Carew as Jekyll is supposed to be a respectable doctor and Stevenson is suggesting that gentlemen in this era have two sides: a public and a private side hidden from society. This may link to Freud’s theory of personality that our ‘id,’ is animalistic and is caged by society yet still lurks within.

In the extract Stevenson also presents the discovery of Hyde’s body as a horrific moment as he describes Hyde’s body as “sorely contorted and still twitching.” The adjective “contorted” suggests that the suicide has been painful and that Hyde’s body has been distorted out of its usual shape. It may also suggest a struggle between Jekyll and Hyde as Hyde over powers Jekyll and commits suicide, killing them both. The verb “twitching” suggests that Jekyll is still partially alive and creates a grotesque image of Hyde’s body still having “some semblance of life.”   This may provoke disgust and revulsion in the reader as Hyde’s body is presented as slowly perishing in a painful fashion. Stevenson successfully conveys the horror of the discovery of Hyde’s body and conveys Hyde’s death as painful and revolting. We are also told that Hyde’s body is the body of a “self-destroyer” which would further shock the Victorian reader as suicide is considered a sin by Christians and they would therefore believe Hyde would be condemned to hell for all of his sinful actions.

Furthermore, Hyde is described as “wearing clothes far too large for him” and he suggests the clothes were “of the doctor’s bigness.” The juxtaposition between “the face of Edward Hyde” and his wearing Jekyll’s clothes foreshadows the discovery in Chapter 9 that they are the same person. Some readers in this chapter may therefore realise that they are the same person which would create a feeling of horror in the reader as we have previously witnessed Hyde killing Carew with “ape-like fury” in chapter 4 and now realise that Jekyll knew and therefore is partially responsible. The Victorian reader would feel a sense of shock that the once respectable Dr Jekyll is in fact Hyde, and would feel revulsion he is capable of murder. This would be particularly unsettling to a Victorian reader who would most likely believe that humans were created by God so this presentation of Jekyll’s dual nature would leave them concerned and confused. Stevenson uses moments of horror to provoke a sense of fear and outrage in the reader, but also to perhaps highlight how civilisation cages the beast within us all.

Stevenson establishes scenes to create horror throughout the novella as a whole. This can be seen in ‘The Story of the Door’ when Hyde ‘trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming.’ The juxtaposition between the verb ‘trampled’ and the adverb ‘calmly’ aids in conveying a sense of horror. Not only is Hyde able to commit this revolting and violent act, but he is able to do it in a ‘calm’ manner. This lack of remorse and repentance would have been especially disturbing to a Victorian readership – adhering to strict moral guidelines, they would have been repulsed and horrified by Hyde’s lack of morality. Furthermore, the girl was left ‘screaming’. This verb only adds to the horror of the incident as it allows the readers to understand the brutality of the act. The readers would therefore be horrified by the cruelty of the actions of Hyde and appalled by his lack of penitence.

Moreover, later in the novella Hyde kills Sir Danvers Carew with ‘ape-like fury’. Carew is described as a ‘beautiful’ man with ‘white’ hair who ‘bowed’ to Hyde. This gives the readers the idea that Carew is an innocent and reputable member of Victorian society. Hyde treats this man with callousness and disdain breaking out into ‘a great flame of anger’. The use of this metaphor implies that Hyde is a mercurial character whose actions are unexpected and frightening. Additionally, Hyde is compared to an ‘ape’. A Victorian readership would have been shocked by this comparison as Darwin had just published his Theory of Evolution stating that men evolved from primitive life forms. Within this, Darwin also acknowledged that people could revert to a more animalistic state. Therefore the comparison of Hyde to a more ‘troglodytic’ life form seems to imply that devolution was a sincere possibility, further instilling a sense of horror into the readers. The contrast between Hyde’s treatment of Carew and Carew’s personal characteristics seem to heighten the horror of the passage and leave the readers feeling shaken by this unprompted outburst.

Finally, Hyde’s transformation into Dr Jekyll in Dr Lanyon’s Narrative, is described in a horrifying manner. Hyde’s features become ‘suddenly black’ and his features ‘melt and alter’. The adjective ‘black’ evokes ideas of evil and darkness and creates a sense of foreboding. The verb ‘melt’ conjures a disturbing image in the readers’ minds – the physical deformity that Hyde is always described with worsens and further distorts, creating a petrifying image. The transformation causes Lanyon’s ‘mind’ to be ‘submerged in terror’. This metaphor could imply that Lanyon is drowning in fear from the horror of what he has just seen. This transformation causes Lanyon’s death from ‘shock’ and the readers are also horrified by what they have witnessed.

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English Literature

Jekyll and Hyde Chapter 1 Summary, Key Quotes, and Analysis Essay

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Revision note

Jekyll and Hyde Chapter 1 Summary : The opening chapter introduces Mr. Utterson, a reserved lawyer, and his friend Mr. Enfield. During their weekly walk, they encounter a mysterious door connected to a strange incident.

• Mr. Utterson is described as austere but loyal to friends • The chapter establishes the setting in London and introduces key characters • A sinister building with a neglected door stands out on an otherwise pleasant street • Mr. Enfield hints at an odd story related to the door

Chapter 1: Story of the Door

The opening chapter of Jekyll and Hyde introduces us to Mr. Utterson, the protagonist and a lawyer by profession. Stevenson paints a vivid picture of Utterson's character, describing him as austere yet somehow lovable.

Highlight : Utterson is portrayed as a complex character - reserved and stern, but also loyal and tolerant of others.

Utterson's friendship with Mr. Richard Enfield is described, emphasizing their weekly walks together. Despite having little in common, they value these excursions greatly.

Quote : "For all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions, counted them the chief jewel of each week."

The narrative then shifts to describe a particular walk that leads them down a busy London street. The author contrasts the generally pleasant appearance of the street with a sinister building that stands out.

Imagery : "The street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest."

This building, with its neglected appearance and mysterious door, becomes the focal point of the chapter. Enfield's interest in this door sets the stage for the story to unfold.

Foreshadowing : The description of the door and building hints at the dark events to come in the Jekyll and Hyde summary .

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The Mysterious Door

The chapter continues with a detailed description of the mysterious door and the building it belongs to. This description serves to create an atmosphere of foreboding and intrigue.

Vocabulary : Sinister - giving the impression that something harmful or evil is happening or will happen.

The building is described as thrusting its gable forward onto the street, standing out from the otherwise pleasant surroundings. Its appearance is marked by neglect and disrepair.

Imagery : "The door, which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained."

The contrast between this building and the rest of the street is stark, emphasizing its significance to the story. Stevenson uses this contrast to build tension and curiosity in the reader.

Literary device : The author uses juxtaposition to highlight the oddity of the building and door.

As Utterson and Enfield pass by this building, Enfield points out the door and hints at an odd story connected to it. This moment serves as a hook, drawing the reader into the mystery that will unfold in subsequent chapters.

Quote : "Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when his companion had replied in the affirmative, "It is connected in my mind," added he, "with a very odd story."

This chapter effectively sets the stage for the Jekyll and Hyde summary , introducing key characters and establishing the mysterious atmosphere that will pervade the novella.

Character Analysis: Mr. Utterson

This section of Chapter 1: Story of the Door provides a deep dive into the character of Mr. Utterson, the protagonist of the story.

Definition : Protagonist - the main character in a story, who the narrative focuses on and follows throughout.

Utterson is described as a complex character, with seemingly contradictory traits that make him intriguing to the reader.

Quote : "Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable."

Despite his austere exterior, Utterson is portrayed as a loyal friend and a good influence on those around him. He is tolerant of others' faults and inclined to help rather than judge.

Highlight : Utterson's character serves as a moral anchor in the story, providing a contrast to the more ambiguous characters we will encounter.

The author uses Utterson's character to explore themes of duality and the complexity of human nature, which are central to the Jekyll and Hyde summary .

Literary device : Characterization is used effectively to introduce themes that will be developed throughout the novella.

Setting the Scene

The final part of Chapter 1: Story of the Door focuses on establishing the setting and atmosphere of the story.

The author paints a vivid picture of a London street, describing its bustling nature during the week and its quieter Sunday appearance.

Imagery : "Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest."

This description serves to create a sense of normalcy and pleasantness, which is then disrupted by the appearance of the sinister building with the mysterious door.

Literary device : The author uses contrast to heighten the impact of the mysterious building and door.

The neglected state of the building and door is described in detail, with references to tramps, children, and schoolboys leaving their mark on the property.

Quote : "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."

This vivid description not only sets the scene but also contributes to the atmosphere of mystery and foreboding that permeates the Jekyll and Hyde summary .

Highlight : The detailed description of the setting serves to immerse the reader in the world of the story and build anticipation for the events to come.

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Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Amy C. ★ 5.0 (32)

Leeds beckett university - ba media and culture.

Chartered English Teacher of over 13 years. | Experienced Tutor and Examiner.

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Notes || Exam Prep || Character Profiles || Themes || Additional Reading & Videos

This topic is included in  Paper 2 . You can find notes and guides for it below.

• Overview and Key Scenes
• Glossary of Definitions
• Flashcards of Definitions
• How to plan and write a top mark essay
• Question Bank - Character
• Question Bank - Plot
• Question Bank - Setting
• Question Bank - Themes

Additional Reading & Videos:

• The strange double life of Robert Louis Stevenson
• Law, Science, Facts and Morals in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• The Beast Within
• A Study in Dualism: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Duality in Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• The effect of Charles Darwin on Victorian literature
• Sigmund Freud and the Psyche

Character Profiles

• Mr Utterson
• Appearance vs Reality
• Secrecy & Reputation
• The Gothic & Supernatural

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Jekyll and Mr Hyde Moral

Jekyll and Mr Hyde Moral

• Categories: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

Words: 503 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, moral ambiguity, psychological implications, societal reflection, relevance to contemporary society.

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Related Essays on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde is a novel which is arguably entirely about duality. The most obvious example is of course that of Jekyll and Hyde duality discussed in this essay, but [...]

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Jekyll and Hyde Introduction

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

29 November 2021

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Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde introduction that approaches context and introduces students to duality, as well as asking them to express their ideas on human nature and humanity’s relationship with good and evil. The lesson uses the example of Phineas Gage to get students to think about mind and personality. A fully differentiated and resourced introductory lesson to Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This lesson is ideal preparation for KS3 and KS4 students studying the text, including for the new spec AQA Literature Paper 2.

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Jekyll and Hyde

20 fully differentiated lessons and revision guides to help prepare GCSE students analysing the text for new spec GCSEs. Ideal preparation for those studying The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for AQA English Literature Paper 1. Includes Jekyll and Hyde Escape Room too.<br /> <br /> Revamped recently and all resources are now twice as detailed. Don't forget to leave a review! :)

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TES Resource Team

We are pleased to let you know that your resource Jekyll and Mr Hyde Introduction, has been hand-picked by the Tes resources content team to be featured on https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/english-collection/jekyll-and-hyde in April 2024. Congratulations on your resource being chosen and thank you for your ongoing contributions to the Tes Resources marketplace.

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