Jekyll and Hyde Notes

Setting: - Darkness and light (including street lighting) -   Dirt and dust -   Fog -   Housing – contrast of different areas -   Cupboards, closets, cabinets- things shut away

Structure and Narration: - 3rd Person Narrative -   seen mostly from the perspective of Utterson (characterisation) -   Maud’s story of the Carew murder (Hyde’s second crime)

Structure and Narration: - 1st Person Narration: -   Enfield’s story (Hyde’s first crime) -   Jekyll’s letters -   Lanyon’s story -   Jekyll’s statement

Structure and Narration: - Framing: everything is at one remove: -   seen through the eyes of others -   told in letters or statements -   seen only in part seen through a window (Utterson talks to Jekyll through a window) (Imagery)

Structure and Narration: - Draws us in further and further: even if we already know or have guessed who Hyde is, we want to find out: how, why and what it felt like. - Structured and written like a Report (cf Language)

Characterisation: Utterson - of unimpeachable probity -   totally reliable -   has led a very sheltered life -   probably very dull – even boring (cf after J’s party) Lanyon Jekyll Hyde The relationship of Jekyll to Hyde

Imagery and Language: - Wine - hearth fires - animals -   cupboards, closets, cabinets -   windows -   dirt, dust -   fog -   formal language -   detailed language  

Theme, Message and Relevance: -   Jekyll well respected and the evil Hyde -   Jekyll though it been a very pure powder, but it had been contaminated: the unknown impurity lent efficacy -   Front of J’s house very respectable, but back is on dingy street (setting) -   Framing – who and what do we believe – difficulty of knowing the truth

Theme, Message and Relevance: -   Criminals who were well respected (eg Shipman, Soham murderer) -   Political systems that claimed to be good but produced evil (Nazism, Communism, Inquisition, Prohibition (USA))

Theme, Message and Relevance: The nature of personality: -   Personality changes caused by illness, injury, trauma, stress, alcohol, drugs -   Multiple personality -   Brain research (cf Jekyll: “a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens”)

Theme, Message and Relevance: 3.The nature of evil: - our propensity to evil (cf Crime and Punishment ) -   dualism -   Is pure evil more powerful than our normal mix of good and bad? Torturers (cf Psychological experiments)

Theme, Message and Relevance: 4. The risks of scientific experiment: -   nuclear technology -   genetic modification -   cloning (cf Frankenstein )

Antecedents: Historical: - Deacon Brodie -   Dr Knox and the body snatchers, Burke and Hare (Stevenson wrote a short story based on this also The Bodysnatchers) Literary: -   Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) -   Confessions of a Justified Sinner (James Hogg) -   Tales of Hoffman -   Murders in the Rue Morgue (Edgar Allan Poe) Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoievsky)

Genre links:  The Gothic – esp Frankenstein (pre); Dracula (post) -   Crime ficion – Edgar Allan Poe (pre); Sherlock Holmes (post); stories about Jack the Ripper (post); modern psychological crime fiction (eg Val McDermid) -   Horror -   Psychological fiction: Confessions of a Justified Sinner (pre); -   Multiple Narratives: Confessions of a Justified Sinner (pre); Dracula (post);

Higher Essay Questions: development or deterioration of a character: Jekyll and Hyde contrast between characters: Jekyll and Utterson key scene the importance of setting: buildings/fog/light/rooms to eg appearance and reality narration: different narrators, framing, characterisation of Utterson, language imagery theme, message or relevance