Download
1 / 4
50 likes | 278 Vues
Jekyll & Hyde. Chapter 7 – Incident at the Window. Summary. Utterson and Enfield are taking their customary Sunday walk together.
E N D
Jekyll & Hyde Chapter 7 – Incident at the Window
Summary • Utterson and Enfield are taking their customary Sunday walk together. • Utterson stops outside Jekyll’s window. As he has been ill, Utterson believes that even just the “presence of a friend” (p45) outside might strengthen the poor man. • They are both drawn to one window that is half open and has Dr Jekyll sitting it in, looking like a prisoner in solitary confinement. • Utterson calls out “Jekyll, I trust you are better.” to which he replies that he fears he “will not last long, thank God.” (both p45) • Jekyll explains he would invite him and Enfield in, but "the place is really not fit." (p45)
Summary • Utterson suggests then that they converse where they are, and the suggestion causes Jekyll to turn and smile at them. But suddenly his features convulse and freeze in an expression of "abject terror and despair." The narrator tells us that the change in Jekyll's expression was so instantaneous and so horrible that it "froze the very blood of the two gentlemen below.“(both p46) • Jekyll's window is jerked down so viciously that, without a word, Utterson and Enfield turn and leave the courtyard. They do not speak to one another until they reach a neighboring thoroughfare, where there are "still some stirrings of life.“ (p46) Both men are so pale that when they look at one another, there is "an answering horror in their eyes.“ (p46) • Utterson speaks softly, "God forgive us, God forgive us." (p46) Enfield nods, and the two men walk on once more in silence.
Analysis • Chapter 7 is obviously the shortest Chapter in the novel, only about two pages long, but it contains a key scene: During the walk that Utterson and Enfield take, they find themselves before that same door which prompted Enfield to relate the story of his encounter with Hyde in Chapter 1. Likewise, here are the three windows that were half-open in Jekyll's laboratory, described in Chapter 5. Now the reader is fully aware of the significance of the front of Jekyll's house with its great facade and its elegant interior, as contrasted to the back entrance with its anonymous, broken-down structure.
