Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Dr Jekyll

• 
• Bildunterschrift: Dr Jekyll with a potion
• Jekyll is a doctor and experimental scientist.
• He is wealthy and respectable.
• He has been a sociable person in the past, with a circle of friends including the lawyer, Utterson, and another doctor, Lanyon.
• During the course of the novel his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic.
• His
• will states that if he disappears he leaves everything to Hyde. His
• oldest friend, Utterson, knows nothing of Hyde and urges Jekyll to
• change his will. He fears Hyde has a mysterious, perhaps criminal, hold
• over Jekyll, and that Hyde might murder him to benefit from the will.
• In
• the last chapter we learn that Jekyll has been carrying out experiments
• to separate his personality (the 'evil' part embodied in Hyde) from his
• higher nature. Hyde eventually becomes more powerful and takes over.

Mr Hyde

• 
• Bildunterschrift: Mr Edward Hyde
• He is described as small ('dwarfish') and young.
• People
• react with horror and fear when they see him. But there is no single
• thing about him that is especially unpleasant; it is as if his spirit
• affects people.
• He is violent, and has no sense of guilt about
• his crimes. In Chapter 1, Hyde assaults a young girl, and in Chapter 4
• he beats an elderly gentleman to death. He has no motive for either of
• these attacks.
• His appearances in the novel are always brief.
• People only catch impressions of him, before he vanishes into the dark
• or behind a door.
• Hyde is very secretive.

Mr Utterson

• 
• Bildunterschrift: Mr Utterson
• Utterson is an old friend of Jekyll, and his lawyer.
• He
• is calm and rational, just as lawyers are supposed to be. Rather like a
• scientist, his approach in life is to weigh up the evidence.
• Utterson
• is 'a lover of the sane and customary sides of life'. Stevenson
• probably uses him to represent the attitudes of the average reader of
• his time.
• His sense of shock and horror when he first meets
• Hyde is, by contrast to his normal reaction to things, irrational: 'not
• all these points together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust,
• loathing and fear with which Mr Utterson regarded him.'
• He
• spends much of the novel trying to advise and help Jekyll, giving advice
• about his will and avoiding Hyde, and trying to help him when he shuts
• himself in his room. Jekyll recognises that he is a good friend, but
• rejects all his offers of help.

Richard Enfield

• 
• Bildunterschrift: Richard Enfield
• A distant relative of Utterson, Enfield is a well-known man about town and the complete opposite to Utterson.

Richard Poole

• 
• Bildunterschrift: Richard Poole
• He is Jekyll's man servant.
• Poole appears briefly in the novel from time to time, notably when Utterson goes to visit Jekyll.
• In
• Chapter 8, he goes to Utterson's house to report the strange goings on
• in Jekyll's house. He helps Utterson to break down the door.
• ekyll’s
• butler. Mr. Poole is a loyal servant, having worked for the doctor
• for twenty years, and his concern for his master eventually drives
• him to seek Utterson’s help when he becomes convinced that something
• has happened to Jekyll.

Mr Guest

• Mr Guest is Utterson's secretary and a handwriting expert. In Chapter 5,
• he comments on the remarkable similarity between Jekyll and Hyde's
• handwriting.
• Guest notices that Hyde's script is the same
• as Jekyll's, but slanted the other way. Sir Danvers Carew - A well-liked
• old nobleman, a member of Parliament, and a client of Utterson.
• 
• Bildunterschrift: Mr Guest

Dr Lanyon

• Dr Jekyll and Dr Lanyon were close friend, however when Dr Jekyll got intreteted about spepraing the bad from the good.
• Lanyon is questioned keenly by Utterson about Jekyll, but Lanyon will
• say nothing definite, just that Jekyll is interested in the perverse
• aspects of science, and for that reason, he is no longer friends with
• him.
• Dr lanyon became termanly after seen the transformation of Mr Hyde to Dr Jekyll.
• 

Summary of all ten chapters

• Chapter 1 – Story of the Door
• Utterson and Enfield are out for a walk when
• they pass a strange-looking door (the entrance to Dr Jekyll's laboratory).
• Enfield recalls a story involving the door. In the early hours of one winter
• morning, he says, he saw a man trampling on a young girl. He pursued the man
• and brought him back to the scene of the crime. (The reader later learns that
• the man is Mr Hyde.)
• A crowd gathered and, to avoid a scene, the
• man offered to pay the girl compensation. This was accepted, and he opened the
• door with a key and re-emerged with some money and a large cheque.
• Utterson is very interested in the case and
• asks whether Enfield is certain Hyde used a key to open the door. Enfield is
• sure he did.
• Chapter 2 – Search for Hyde
• That evening the lawyer, Utterson, is troubled
• by what he has heard. He takes the will of his friend Dr Jekyll from his safe.
• It contains a worrying instruction: in the event of Dr Jekyll's disappearance,
• all his possessions are to go to Mr Hyde.
• Utterson decides to visit Dr Lanyon, an old
• friend of his and Dr Jekyll's. Lanyon has never heard of Hyde, and not seen
• Jekyll for ten years. That night Utterson has terrible nightmares.
• He starts watching the door (which belongs to
• Dr Jekyll's old laboratory) at all hours, and eventually sees Hyde unlocking
• it. Utterson is shocked by the sense of evil coming from him.
• Utterson goes next door to warn his friend,
• Jekyll, against Hyde, but is told by the servant, Poole, that Jekyll is out and
• the servants have all been instructed by Jekyll to obey Hyde.
• Utterson is worried that Hyde may kill Jekyll
• to benefit from the will.

Summary #2

• Chapter 3 – Dr Jekyll was Quite at Ease
• Two weeks later, following a dinner party with
• friends at Jekyll's house, Utterson stays behind to talk to him about the will.
• Jekyll laughs off Utterson's worries,
• comparing them to Lanyon's 'hidebound' (conventional and unadventurous)
• attitude to medical science. The reader now sees why Lanyon and Jekyll have
• fallen out, and starts to understand that Jekyll's behaviour has become
• unusual.
• Utterson persists with the subject of the
• will. Jekyll hints at a strange relationship between himself and Hyde. Although
• he trusts Utterson, Jekyll refuses to reveal the details. He asks him, as his
• lawyer not his friend, to make sure the will is carried out. He reassures him
• that 'the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr Hyde'.
• Chapter 4 – The Carew Murder Case
• Nearly a year later, an elderly gentleman is
• brutally clubbed to death in the street by Hyde. The murder is witnessed by a
• maid who recognises Hyde.
• A letter addressed to Utterson is found on the
• body and the police contact him. He recognises the murder weapon as the broken
• half of a walking cane he gave to Jekyll years earlier. When he hears that the
• murderer is Hyde, he offers to lead the police to his house.
• They are told that Hyde has not been at home
• for two months. But when they search the house they find the other half of the
• murder weapon, a semi-burnt cheque book and signs of a hasty exit.

Summary #3

• Chapter 5 – The Incident of the Letter
• Utterson goes to Jekyll's house and finds him
• 'looking deadly sick'. He asks whether he is hiding Hyde. Jekyll assures him he
• will never see or hear of Hyde again. He shows Utterson a letter from Hyde that
• indicates this. Jekyll also hints that it was Hyde who forced him to write his
• will which assures Utterson he was right in thinking Hyde wanted to murder
• Jekyll.
• Utterson asks Guest, his head clerk, to compare
• the handwriting on the letter to that on an invitation from Jekyll. There is a
• resemblance between the two, though with a different slope. Utterson believes
• Jekyll has forged the letter in Hyde's handwriting to cover his escape.
• Chapter 6 – Remarkable Incident of Dr Lanyon
• The police cannot find Hyde. Coincidentally,
• Jekyll seems happier and, for two months, he socialises again.
• Suddenly, however, he appears depressed and will not see Utterson. Utterson
• visits Dr Lanyon to discuss their friend's health, but finds Lanyon on his
• death-bed.
• Lanyon refuses to discuss Jekyll who, he hints, is the cause of his illness.
• Trying to find out what has happened, Utterson writes to Jekyll. He receives a
• reply which suggests Jekyll has fallen into a very disturbed state and talks of
• being 'under a dark influence’.
• Lanyon dies and leaves a letter for Utterson in an envelope marked 'not to be
• opened till the death or disappearance of Dr Henry Jekyll'. Utterson, being a good
• lawyer, locks it away unopened in his safe.
• Utterson tries to revisit Jekyll several
• times, but his servant, Poole, says he is living in isolation in his laboratory
• and will not see anyone.

Summary #4

• Chapter 7 - Utterson and Enfield are taking one of their walks, as at the
• opening of the book. They pass Jekyll's window and see him looking like a
• prisoner in solitary confinement. Utterson calls out to him and Jekyll replies,
• but his face suddenly freezes in an expression of ‘abject terror and despair'.
• The change in Jekyll's expression is so sudden
• and horrible it 'froze the very blood of the two gentlemen below’ and they
• depart in silence.
• Chapter 8 – The Last Night
• One evening, Jekyll's servant comes to Utterson and asks him to
• come to Jekyll's house. They go to the laboratory, but the door is locked. The
• voice from inside does not sound like Jekyll's and both men believe it is Hyde.
• Poole says the voice has for days been crying out for a
• particular chemical to be brought, but the chemicals given have been rejected
• as 'not pure'.
• Poole says that earlier he caught a glimpse of a person in the
• lab who looked scarcely human.
• They break down the door and inside find a body, twitching. In
• its hand are the remains of a test tube (or vial). The body is smaller than
• Jekyll's but wearing clothes that would fit him.
• On the table is a will dated that day which leaves everything to
• Utterson, with Hyde's name crossed out. There is also a package containing
• Jekyll's 'confession' and a letter asking Utterson to read Dr Lanyon's letter
• which he left after his death (in chapter
• 6) and is now in Utterson's safe.
• Utterson tells Poole he will return before midnight, when he has
• read all the documents.

Summary #5

• Chapter 9
• – Dr Lanyon’s Narrative
• Chapter 9 lists the contents of Dr Lanyon's letter. It tells of
• how Lanyon received a letter from Jekyll asking him to collect a drawer
• containing chemicals, a vial and a notebook from Jekyll's laboratory and to
• give it to a man who would call at midnight.
• Lanyon says he was curious, especially as the book contained
• some strange entries.
• At midnight a man appears. He is small and grotesque, wearing
• clothes that are too large for him.
• The man offers to take the chemicals away, or to drink the
• potion.
• Lanyon accepts and, before his very eyes, Hyde transforms into
• none other than Dr Jekyll.
• In horror at what he has witnessed, Lanyon becomes seriously
• ill.
• Chapter 10 – Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case
• Jekyll tells the story of how he turned into Hyde.
• It began as scientific curiosity in the duality of human nature
• (or the good and evil), and his attempt to destroy the 'darker self'.
• Eventually, however, he became addicted to the character of Hyde, who increasingly
• took over and destroyed him.
• The novel does not return to Utterson who, at the end of Chapter
• 8, was going to return to Jekyll's house.