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
