Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Setting Analysis
Setting Sets the Standards In Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he uses setting and characterization to emphasize the idea that a person will act a way if they are expected to. In his novel, the character of Dr. Jekyll alludes to the mostly good people. Mr. Hyde, however, specifically shows the bad people in society. For these two characters, the constantly changing gothic setting of this novel and the different extremes between light and dark represent their characterizations. First impressions, in any situation, are critical in knowing the natural state of a person or character. In this novel, Mr. Hyde is introduced before Dr. Jekyll. Hyde is first seen committing a crime. This obviously is not a good
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first impression; it actually gives off a scary vibe. It wasn’t a petty crime, but it wasn’t a huge one either. He tramples a small child “to the ground and then leaves her there screaming. The man who saw this scene unfold, Mr. Enfield, gives the first description of Hyde. Enfield says Hyde was like a “damned Juggernaut” (Stevenson 40). Enfield also admits that he immediately hated Hyde, “I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight.” (Stevenson 40). Others that came to the scene of the crime, being the child’s parents and a doctor, also had negative impressions of Hyde. The doctor that showed, as well as Enfield, wished to kill Hyde. When asked to go further into describing Hyde, Enfield answers with:
There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.(Stevenson 43)
This more completely give’s off the idea that there was no pin point on Hyde. Nothing stuck out about him, except for his strangeness. This strangeness was so bizarre that it couldn’t even be described. Not only does Hyde’s direct and indirect characterization immediately set and define his character, but the setting does too. Chaon says in his article, “Even in these first few pages, there is a shadiness, a subtle uncertainty that begins to cast doubt on the solidity of the narrative. We can sense a more honest version of the tale sliding along, unspoken, beneath the surface.”(128). The mystery in this whole first scene gives an insight that Hyde is going to be a mystery by himself. In his article about curb appeal Ian Howarth says “Much as the cover of a book can draw a reader in, the appeal of your home from the road is what lures people to the door and inside.” This quote is true, which means its contrapositive, a cover of a book can push a reader away, would be true as well. Hyde’s terrible and awful curb appeal, or even cover, pushes people away immediately. The four people that we first see interact with Hyde are all repulsed by him and detest him enough to want to kill him without even knowing him. Dr. Jekyll, on the other hand, has a very positive first impression, and is in many ways an opposite of Mr. Hyde. Jekyll is obviously a doctor, hence his name Dr. Jekyll. With the title of doctor, one usually thinks intelligent, wealthy, and well kept, which all apply to Dr. Jekyll. Just hearing his name gives a good impression, but being able to observe the behavior of one gives a better and more accurate impression of their real characterization. The first time Dr. Jekyll is seen, he is interacting with Mr. Utterson. The two of them, and five or six others, are at Dr. Jekyll’s house eating dinner and catching up. In the house the doctor’s position was “opposite side of the fire”(Stevenson 56). Him being across from the fire shows that he is a comfortable, warm, and welcoming character. Putting his name and his first setting together, the first impression of Dr. Jekyll is positive, but first impressions can be deceiving. Interactions following the first impression usually reflect the first impression. For Dr. Hyde, this meant dark and gloom were to follow him; or did he follow dark and gloom? There is never a direct characterization from Stevenson to explain what Hyde looks like, which only adds to Hyde’s mysterious characterization. When Mr. Utterson interacts with Mr. Hyde, the interaction leaves him confused. Stevenson gives yet another description of Hyde, but nothing exact. Mr. Utterson ‘s take on Mr. Hyde is similar to all others that have interacted with him:
Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing, and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. “There must be something else,” said the perplexed gentleman. “There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems hardly human! (Stevenson, 52)
This description is extremely vague. The usage of “sort” and “something” as well as “somewhat” keep the reader guessing if its accurate, and prevents the reader from ever being able to form a definite idea of what Hyde acts, looks, or even sounds like. All that the reader is allowed to know is that Hyde does not seem humanlike at all. In his essay, Dan Chaon described Hyde as “a throwback to primitive, precivilized ape cousin that Darwin’s theories had evoked in the late-nineteenth century imagination.”(130). Along with Hyde’s constant association with darkness, there is also a sense of evil that comes along with him. Taking Dr. Jekyll as a whole subject, Vladimir Nabokov has stated that “In this mixture of good and bad in Dr. Jekyll, the bad can be separated as Hyde, who is a precipitate of pure evil, a precipitation in the chemical sense since something of the composite Jekyll remains behind to wonder in horror at Hyde while Hyde is in action.” This is a distinguishing factor between the two, because without this difference in good and evil, Hyde would just Jekyll but in a different body. If that was the case, the whole novel would have no meaning. Nabokov also says that Hyde is Dr. Jekyll’s “parasite”, which alludes to a relationship in biology called parasitism. This is when one of the two subjects involved benefits and the other suffers. The parasite, or in this case Mr. Hyde, will harm it’s host, which in this case is Dr. Jekyll, but the parasite is smart enough to know not to kill it’s host because without the host, the parasite is nothing. This is the relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in this novel. Just as Mr.
Hyde is closely associated with darkness in both his personality and setting, Dr. Jekyll is mostly associated with light. In Jekyll’s physical appearance, he is the opposite of Hyde. Hyde is described as a hunched over dark figure, while Dr. Jekyll is said to stand tall and give off positive vibes, as well as not have an ugly face. Because Hyde’s physical appearance is associated with darkness, Dr. Jekyll’s physical appearance must be considered as light because the opposite of dark is light. Notice how it was stated earlier that Dr. Jekyll is mostly associated with light. He is not always associated with light because in Jekyll, Mr. Hyde exists; hence bad exists inside of Dr. Jekyll along with good. Nabokov points out this mixture of good and bad in Jekyll repeatedly in his essay. The three following quotes from his essay, “Is Jekyll good? No, he is a composite being of good and bad, a preparation consisting of a ninety-nine percent solution of Jekyllite and one percent Hyde.”(10), “Jekyll’s morals are poor from the Victorian point of view. He is a hypocritical creature carefully concealing his little sins. He is vindictive, never forgiving Dr. Lanyon with whom he disagrees in scientific matters. He is foolhardy. Hyde is mingled with him, within him.”(10), and “Jekyll is not really transformed into Hyde, but projects a concentrate of pure evil that becomes Hyde, who is smaller than Jekyll, a big man, to indicate the larger amount of good that Jekyll …show more content…
possesses.”(10) all convey that Jekyll is a mixture because Hyde is evil and Hyde is Jekyll. Although Dr. Jekyll is mostly good, the tiny bit of evil within him makes him a mixture. In Shubh Singh’s article, he talks about how Dr. Jekyll depends on the potion and it turns into a substance abuse issue. Since someone that is completely good would never use alcohol or substance abuse of any kind for an escape, Jekyll cannot be pure good. This emphasizes the battle between good and evil that Dr. Jekyll endured. Although the good in him was more than the bad, the bad was powerful enough to make it difficult for Jekyll to be at ease. When Jekyll would use the potion to transform into Hyde, the setting would immediately transform into a darker and gloomier setting. The society that this story takes place in is significant to the story as a whole.
There is a dependence on society from both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dan Chaon notes in his essay, “Mr. Hyde could not exist without the modern city. He needs the anonymity of the masses, and he needs the newly gaslit streets, the flickering nighttime land-scape of pubs and brothels and beggars, the urban underworld that would later transform into the world of film noir. He needs and expanse of amoral territory to slink through...”(133). Chaon also brings in personal relationships to the idea of society. For Dr. Jekyll’s dependence, he says, “just as Jekyll needs a society in which his disaffection can go unnoticed, a world in which most neighbors are strangers.”(133). Hyde needed the physical attributions of society to be able to thrive. The gloomy and mysteriousness of the freshly developed cities made it easy for him to seem creepy and be able to act in the ways that he did. Dr. Jekyll, however, needed the personal attributions to be able to thrive. Because neighbors weren’t all extremely concerned with one another, he was able to go missing for long periods of times without a huge uproar. If Dr. Jekyll’s neighbors were concerned with his actions, he wouldn’t have had the chance to sneak around as Mr. Hyde or even begin to dabble in the
experiment.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s living accommodations, much like most people, reflect their personalities extremely well. Nabokov details this in his article. He states, “Just as Jekyll is a mixture of good and bad, so Jekyll’s dwelling place is also a mixture, at very neat symbol, a very neat representation of the Jekyll and Hyde relationship.”(14) Even Jekyll’s house represents the mixture of good and bad that he has. Because his house obviously has his living quarters, which are very high maintenance, but also contain Mr. Hyde’s living quarters, the reader gets an even fuller realization that the constant changing setting follows them both literally everywhere. Mr. Hyde’s entrance to his living quarters is hidden on the side of the house. This reflects Hyde’s habit of falling into the background and hiding, which also is a play on with his name. Hyde sounds just like hide, showing that Mr. Hyde was not to be in the light, but was to be kept and contained in the darkness forever.
Through the character duo of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, their characterization, actions and setting, Stevenson conveys that one cannot be who they are truly not. One’s surroundings will always reflect who they are, whether it is controllable or not.
Works Cited
Chaon, Dan. Afterword. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By Robert Louis Stevenson. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2003. 125-135. Print.
Howarth, Ian. “Curn appeal: first impressions count: [final edition]” The Gazette (2007): ProQuest Research Library. Web. 22 April 2013.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Introduction. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By Robert Louis Stevenson. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2003. 7-34. Print.
Singh, Shubh. “A study in dualism: The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Indian Journal of Psychiatry 50.3 (2008): 221-223. Proquest Research Library. Web. 22 April 2013.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2003. Print.
first impression; it actually gives off a scary vibe. It wasn’t a petty crime, but it wasn’t a huge one either. He tramples a small child “to the ground and then leaves her there screaming. The man who saw this scene unfold, Mr. Enfield, gives the first description of Hyde. Enfield says Hyde was like a “damned Juggernaut” (Stevenson 40). Enfield also admits that he immediately hated Hyde, “I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight.” (Stevenson 40). Others that came to the scene of the crime, being the child’s parents and a doctor, also had negative impressions of Hyde. The doctor that showed, as well as Enfield, wished to kill Hyde. When asked to go further into describing Hyde, Enfield answers with:
There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.(Stevenson 43)
This more completely give’s off the idea that there was no pin point on Hyde. Nothing stuck out about him, except for his strangeness. This strangeness was so bizarre that it couldn’t even be described. Not only does Hyde’s direct and indirect characterization immediately set and define his character, but the setting does too. Chaon says in his article, “Even in these first few pages, there is a shadiness, a subtle uncertainty that begins to cast doubt on the solidity of the narrative. We can sense a more honest version of the tale sliding along, unspoken, beneath the surface.”(128). The mystery in this whole first scene gives an insight that Hyde is going to be a mystery by himself. In his article about curb appeal Ian Howarth says “Much as the cover of a book can draw a reader in, the appeal of your home from the road is what lures people to the door and inside.” This quote is true, which means its contrapositive, a cover of a book can push a reader away, would be true as well. Hyde’s terrible and awful curb appeal, or even cover, pushes people away immediately. The four people that we first see interact with Hyde are all repulsed by him and detest him enough to want to kill him without even knowing him. Dr. Jekyll, on the other hand, has a very positive first impression, and is in many ways an opposite of Mr. Hyde. Jekyll is obviously a doctor, hence his name Dr. Jekyll. With the title of doctor, one usually thinks intelligent, wealthy, and well kept, which all apply to Dr. Jekyll. Just hearing his name gives a good impression, but being able to observe the behavior of one gives a better and more accurate impression of their real characterization. The first time Dr. Jekyll is seen, he is interacting with Mr. Utterson. The two of them, and five or six others, are at Dr. Jekyll’s house eating dinner and catching up. In the house the doctor’s position was “opposite side of the fire”(Stevenson 56). Him being across from the fire shows that he is a comfortable, warm, and welcoming character. Putting his name and his first setting together, the first impression of Dr. Jekyll is positive, but first impressions can be deceiving. Interactions following the first impression usually reflect the first impression. For Dr. Hyde, this meant dark and gloom were to follow him; or did he follow dark and gloom? There is never a direct characterization from Stevenson to explain what Hyde looks like, which only adds to Hyde’s mysterious characterization. When Mr. Utterson interacts with Mr. Hyde, the interaction leaves him confused. Stevenson gives yet another description of Hyde, but nothing exact. Mr. Utterson ‘s take on Mr. Hyde is similar to all others that have interacted with him:
Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing, and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. “There must be something else,” said the perplexed gentleman. “There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems hardly human! (Stevenson, 52)
This description is extremely vague. The usage of “sort” and “something” as well as “somewhat” keep the reader guessing if its accurate, and prevents the reader from ever being able to form a definite idea of what Hyde acts, looks, or even sounds like. All that the reader is allowed to know is that Hyde does not seem humanlike at all. In his essay, Dan Chaon described Hyde as “a throwback to primitive, precivilized ape cousin that Darwin’s theories had evoked in the late-nineteenth century imagination.”(130). Along with Hyde’s constant association with darkness, there is also a sense of evil that comes along with him. Taking Dr. Jekyll as a whole subject, Vladimir Nabokov has stated that “In this mixture of good and bad in Dr. Jekyll, the bad can be separated as Hyde, who is a precipitate of pure evil, a precipitation in the chemical sense since something of the composite Jekyll remains behind to wonder in horror at Hyde while Hyde is in action.” This is a distinguishing factor between the two, because without this difference in good and evil, Hyde would just Jekyll but in a different body. If that was the case, the whole novel would have no meaning. Nabokov also says that Hyde is Dr. Jekyll’s “parasite”, which alludes to a relationship in biology called parasitism. This is when one of the two subjects involved benefits and the other suffers. The parasite, or in this case Mr. Hyde, will harm it’s host, which in this case is Dr. Jekyll, but the parasite is smart enough to know not to kill it’s host because without the host, the parasite is nothing. This is the relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in this novel. Just as Mr.
Hyde is closely associated with darkness in both his personality and setting, Dr. Jekyll is mostly associated with light. In Jekyll’s physical appearance, he is the opposite of Hyde. Hyde is described as a hunched over dark figure, while Dr. Jekyll is said to stand tall and give off positive vibes, as well as not have an ugly face. Because Hyde’s physical appearance is associated with darkness, Dr. Jekyll’s physical appearance must be considered as light because the opposite of dark is light. Notice how it was stated earlier that Dr. Jekyll is mostly associated with light. He is not always associated with light because in Jekyll, Mr. Hyde exists; hence bad exists inside of Dr. Jekyll along with good. Nabokov points out this mixture of good and bad in Jekyll repeatedly in his essay. The three following quotes from his essay, “Is Jekyll good? No, he is a composite being of good and bad, a preparation consisting of a ninety-nine percent solution of Jekyllite and one percent Hyde.”(10), “Jekyll’s morals are poor from the Victorian point of view. He is a hypocritical creature carefully concealing his little sins. He is vindictive, never forgiving Dr. Lanyon with whom he disagrees in scientific matters. He is foolhardy. Hyde is mingled with him, within him.”(10), and “Jekyll is not really transformed into Hyde, but projects a concentrate of pure evil that becomes Hyde, who is smaller than Jekyll, a big man, to indicate the larger amount of good that Jekyll …show more content…
possesses.”(10) all convey that Jekyll is a mixture because Hyde is evil and Hyde is Jekyll. Although Dr. Jekyll is mostly good, the tiny bit of evil within him makes him a mixture. In Shubh Singh’s article, he talks about how Dr. Jekyll depends on the potion and it turns into a substance abuse issue. Since someone that is completely good would never use alcohol or substance abuse of any kind for an escape, Jekyll cannot be pure good. This emphasizes the battle between good and evil that Dr. Jekyll endured. Although the good in him was more than the bad, the bad was powerful enough to make it difficult for Jekyll to be at ease. When Jekyll would use the potion to transform into Hyde, the setting would immediately transform into a darker and gloomier setting. The society that this story takes place in is significant to the story as a whole.
There is a dependence on society from both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dan Chaon notes in his essay, “Mr. Hyde could not exist without the modern city. He needs the anonymity of the masses, and he needs the newly gaslit streets, the flickering nighttime land-scape of pubs and brothels and beggars, the urban underworld that would later transform into the world of film noir. He needs and expanse of amoral territory to slink through...”(133). Chaon also brings in personal relationships to the idea of society. For Dr. Jekyll’s dependence, he says, “just as Jekyll needs a society in which his disaffection can go unnoticed, a world in which most neighbors are strangers.”(133). Hyde needed the physical attributions of society to be able to thrive. The gloomy and mysteriousness of the freshly developed cities made it easy for him to seem creepy and be able to act in the ways that he did. Dr. Jekyll, however, needed the personal attributions to be able to thrive. Because neighbors weren’t all extremely concerned with one another, he was able to go missing for long periods of times without a huge uproar. If Dr. Jekyll’s neighbors were concerned with his actions, he wouldn’t have had the chance to sneak around as Mr. Hyde or even begin to dabble in the
experiment.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s living accommodations, much like most people, reflect their personalities extremely well. Nabokov details this in his article. He states, “Just as Jekyll is a mixture of good and bad, so Jekyll’s dwelling place is also a mixture, at very neat symbol, a very neat representation of the Jekyll and Hyde relationship.”(14) Even Jekyll’s house represents the mixture of good and bad that he has. Because his house obviously has his living quarters, which are very high maintenance, but also contain Mr. Hyde’s living quarters, the reader gets an even fuller realization that the constant changing setting follows them both literally everywhere. Mr. Hyde’s entrance to his living quarters is hidden on the side of the house. This reflects Hyde’s habit of falling into the background and hiding, which also is a play on with his name. Hyde sounds just like hide, showing that Mr. Hyde was not to be in the light, but was to be kept and contained in the darkness forever.
Through the character duo of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, their characterization, actions and setting, Stevenson conveys that one cannot be who they are truly not. One’s surroundings will always reflect who they are, whether it is controllable or not.
Works Cited
Chaon, Dan. Afterword. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By Robert Louis Stevenson. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2003. 125-135. Print.
Howarth, Ian. “Curn appeal: first impressions count: [final edition]” The Gazette (2007): ProQuest Research Library. Web. 22 April 2013.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Introduction. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By Robert Louis Stevenson. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2003. 7-34. Print.
Singh, Shubh. “A study in dualism: The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Indian Journal of Psychiatry 50.3 (2008): 221-223. Proquest Research Library. Web. 22 April 2013.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 2003. Print.