This document contains key quotations, accompanied by in depth analysis, from a novella used by the AQA exam board for English Literature, 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' by Robert Louis Stevenson. The quotations cover all key characters, key themes and the analysis covers techniques, context and the langu...
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Revision
- Written by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Written in 1886
- During the Victorian Era
Quotations:
‘Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil’
- Here, the adjective ‘alone’ emphasises how unique and isolated Hyde was.
- In some ways, this creates a similar sympathy for Hyde as he never asked to be created.
- ‘Pure evil.’ The adjective emphasises that Hyde is nothing except ‘evil,’ suggesting
something that has only previously existed as the Devil himself – an almost religious idea. It’s
not just that he does wrong, he is evil in its purest form.
‘Pale and dwarfish’
- These adjectives both relate to Hyde being weak or deformed.
- Also, although ‘pale’ relates to a lack of life or vigour, it also has horrific connotations which
link him to vampires, or anyone else who spends no time around sunlight.
- And ‘dwarfish’ although linking him to being short, could also suggest that he is below other
people socially as well as physically; also, that he is less well developed – or less evolved –
than the civilised than the ‘upstanding’ gentlemen of Victorian England.
- Also, both words suggest that Hyde was not a significant part of Jekyll – that he was
‘underdeveloped.’ The fact that he was ‘pale,’ suggests something ghostly or like a feint
version of him, while his ‘dwarfish’ stature also suggests that he was only a small part of a
larger whole.
‘A murderous mixture of timidity and boldness’
- His ‘timidity’ could come from how Hyde has not experienced the outside world so much,
given that he was always hidden while he was kept in Jekyll’s id. It’s almost like the world is
new to him and he often presents himself as being nervous around others.
- However, he also displays a ‘boldness’ which suggests a confidence. Perhaps we could look
at Hyde as a child who was born into the world as a man, and has the child’s naivety
combined with an adult’s confidence.
- The fact that he has all this combined in a ‘murderous mixture’ completes the image of Hyde
as a real character of horror: he has no conscience, no civilised, learned state; he has only
the selfishness of an angry toddler who sees only what makes him happy and pursues it
ruthlessly.
‘If he be Mr Hyde, I shall be Mr Seek’
- Hyde’s name is clearly a reference to the way that he is hidden, though his hiding is symbolic
in a number of ways: in one sense he represents the id, and his hidden in our subconscious,
kept far away from the judgement of the super-ego.
- In another sense, he represents the working class poor and dejected, who celebrated so
many of the things that Hyde also enjoyed, but who are hidden from civilised society. He is
everything that exists, but which Victorian England wanted to turn away from.
- At one point in the book, Utterson suggests that if Mr Hyde will remain hidden, that he will
be “Mr Seek.” This emphasises that this detective novel is not the search for the killer, but
the search for the inner self. The monster at the heart of us all.
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