The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde follows the decline of Dr Henry Jekyll’s social standing and mental wellness after he is introduced to a monstrous stranger, Mr Edward Hyde. While Jekyll is portrayed as an upstanding and wealthy doctor, Hyde is his antithesis; a creature that rejects Victorian puritanical restriction. Due to this, Hyde is often interpreted as an allegory for addiction, temptation, mental illness, immorality, or changing social norms. Yet despite being the central figures of the novella, the story is told from the perspective of Jekyll’s friend and peer, Gabriel John Utterson. Although it limits the reader’s insight into Jekyll and Hyde’s internal motivation, Utterson’s position as the narrator illuminates Victorian

Although Jekyll excuses his behaviour by insisting that Hyde does not understand his evil nature, Hyde demonstrates the opposite. When Hyde attacks the child, he pays her family a hundred pounds so that they do not “make such a scandal out of this […] [that Hyde loses] any friends or credit” (Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde 7). Hyde’s acknowledgement of the possible repercussions means that he – at the very least intellectually – knows that the attack was immoral. The same knowledge is evidenced after the murder of Sir Danvers Carew, which causes Jekyll and Hyde to retreat to “a life of extreme seclusion” (29). However, Hyde’s self-awareness is ultimately irrelevant, since it was Jekyll’s choice to house (56), empower (56), and eventually bequeath all his earthly possessions to his creation (11). Jekyll relinquishes his control before he cannot dictate the transformations anymore, making him culpable for the violent outcomes in the eyes of Victorian society (Ganz, “Madness”

He is othered by his “deformity” (9) which separates him from the civilised and educated sphere that Jekyll inhabits. Consequently, Hyde is subjected to descriptors that dehumanise him: Hyde is “hardly human” (16), screeches like an “animal” (41), and possesses an “ape-like fury” (20) and “apelike spite” (66). By comparing Hyde to animals and uncontrolled emotions, he is restricted to his depiction as a primitive being that awakens an “unknown disgust, loathing and fear” (16). Hyde cannot escape this depiction, since when he dresses “plainly” (14), he is not seen as a gentleman. However, when Hyde dresses in “rich and sober fabric” (48), the ill-fitting garments are used to demonstrate that he does not