BUILDING TENSION:

At the start of Chapter 2 we get the first paragraph concerning the will. It tells us that Hyde is a nasty man and we now think he is blackmailing Dr Jekyll.

The next thing to happen in this chapter is Mr Utterson’s ivsit to Dr Lanyon. We discover tha thte relationship between Dr Lanyon and Dr Jekyll has soured. We wonder why this has happened when they are supposed to be childhood friends. We are told that Lanyon now thinks of Jekyll as a ‘scientific heretic’.

Mr Utterson returns home and dreams of Mr Hyde and London. Mr Utterson couldn’t see Hyde’s face and the streets of London were unfamiliar and hidden by the fog. Children were harmed and Jekyll was stalked.

Mr Utterson continues to search for Mr Hyde and finally discovers him. We get a description of Hyde as a person. During the search period, Mr Utterson does nothing else, every spare minute goes towards finding Hyde. He has become obsessive and paranoid about Hyde. Hyde is described as grotesque and arrogant.

In chapter 3 Mr Utterson goes to speak to Dr Jekyll. Dr Jekyll is his usually cheery self until Hyde is mentioned, at which point he becomes snappish and changes the subject. We wonder why he will not be honest about his connection with Hyde.

RELEASING TENSION:

Mr Utterson reveals the truth to us as he finds Hyde in the locked room where Dr Jekyll was. This is not unusual as he is the ‘detective’ figure in the novel and so he should be the one who reveals the truth.

The truth that is revealed is that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are the same person. If you were not familiar with the story this may have been difficult to work out as a lot of the clues were covered up, especially by Mr Utterson.

The truth is revealed in the lab. This is noteworthy as the lab is where the whole story begins. It is where Dr Jekyll first created Mr Hyde.

The truth is revealed after Dr Jekyll commits suicide.

It is important that the truth is revealed after Jekyll’s death as the news about his connection with Mr Hyde can no longer harm his living reputation.

Hyde’s absence makes Jekyll ill and paranoid. When U goes to see him he becomes very agitated. We are told that he has hidden himself away in his lab. However eventually he becomes his old self again and he begins to socialise once more and throws parties.

Utterson is annoyed that Jekyll’s sociability is not maintained. He feels his friend has let him down in some way and he is frustrated that he has still not worked out what the connection between Mr H and Dr J is.

Lanyon has become incredibly ill too. He appears to be on death’s door. Something has given him a terrible fright. He has grown pale and has lost weight. He has aged and lost hair.

the mention of Dr J, Lanyon looks terrified and asks that U doesn’t talk about him. We are told his hand ‘trembled’ and that Dr J was now dead to him.

Lanyon’s reply to Utterson increases the mystery as we wonder what could have happened between Lanyon and Jekyll to cause such a break in the friendship. Utterson is confused as Mr Hyde doesn’t appear to be involved. He can only blame madness.

Our suspicions about Dr J have grown by the end of this chapter as he has locked himself away completely and refuses to see anyone.

The lines ‘the court was very cool and full of premature twilight, although the sky… was still bright’ suggests something bad was going to happen. There is a contrast between the summer sky of happiness and the dourness and secrecy of the street below. Stevenson uses the light here to alert us to the fact that something bad is about to happen.

Stevenson seems to want us to feel anxious for Dr J at this point. He appears at the window and something strange happens to him, causing him to disappear from sight. We know he has been cooped up for weeks. We are wondering what has gone wrong.

The chapter title ‘incident at the window’ implies an end has been reached – it suggests an event has happened. The end of the chapter, in which U and Enfield see something strange happen to Dr J, leaves us feeling uneasy. We are not told what has happened to Dr J and that leaves us with a sense that it is something really bad.

The first clear description we get of the lab is that it is a ‘dingy windowless structure’. The word choice dingy suggests it is dirty or badly lit. If it is windowless then that would tie in with the lack of light. We are told by U that the place gives him a ‘sense of strangeness’. One feels out of place in this building. We are told the place is ‘silent’ which adds to this sensation of discomfort. It is also messy – there are packing creates everywhere and chemical apparatus. The windows are barred with iron giving one a sense of captivity. And weirdly there is fog outside which feels as if it has penetrated into the house making it cold and gloomy. This is not a happy place.

Jekyll becomes very ill as a result of the murder. He sits in his cabinet looking ‘deadly sick’. When speaking to U he claims that he ‘will never set eyes on [Mr H] again!’ This is ironic as he looks at Mr H every day in the mirror as Mr H is Dr J. There is also ambiguity in what Dr J tells U. he assures us that Mr H will never be heard from again but cannot tell us why this is so. He also claims that a letter was dropped off addressed to him. When U checks these facts with the butler, Poole, he is told that no one dropped off a letter. U is convinced that Dr J has been hiding Mr H in the cabinet the whole time.

We know Jekyll has lost his confidence as he gives U the letter from Mr H. He wants U to decide what should be done with it and whether the police should be informed or not.

Utterson is still suspicious of the letter and takes it to Guest. Do his comments satisfy his suspicions or increase it? Guest the clerk is an expert on handwriting. He tells U that the handwriting of Mr H and Dr J is the same, it is only the slant of the letters that has changed. U’s suspicions are increased.

AT first the mood is romantic and peaceful and the setting seems beautiful. This is given to us through phrases like ‘the early part of the night was cloudless’ and that the night was ‘brilliantly lit by the full moon’. However this quickly changes when Mr Hyde meets Carew. An altercation breaks out between the two men and Hyde viciously attacks Carew. We are told that he behaves ‘like a madman’ and we then get the details of his assault on Carew – ‘clubbed him to the earth’. This is a harsh attack. We are then told Hyde ‘with ape-like fury trampled his victim underfoot, hailed down a storm of blows, under which bones audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway’. This is explicit, we can hear the bones cracking in the silence of the night and see clearly Carew as he dies.

Mr U doesn’t tell the police that he recognises the cane that was left at the murder scene as he knows it once belonged to Dr J and he wants to hide the connection between Dr J and MR H to protect Dr J’s reputation.
We get the duality of the street here as the fog on the streets means we see the streets as they truly are but also this other-worldy version. We are told that U ‘beheld a marvellous number of degrees and hues of twilight’. This tells us we are somewhere between daylight and nightlight. We are also told that Mr u feels like he is in some ‘city in a nightmare’. This simile tells us clearly that he does not feel safe here, it is almost dystopian or apocalyptic. There is also a list of all signs of poverty in the Soho district where Hyde lives – the gin house, the greasy spoon, the orphans and the prostitutes.

The theme of ‘correct reputations’ is illustrated in the description of the old woman. We are told she has an ‘evil face’ and a ‘face smoothed by hypocrisy’. Both of these characteristics are hugely negative – she is nasty and has double standards – but then we are told ‘but she had excellent manners’. So now we know that despite the fact she is bad it is forgiven because she can behave correctly which hides her bad faults.

Hyde’s room is surprising as he has expensive and lavish taste. The room is furnished in the same style as Dr j’s house.

All accounts of H agree that he makes a person feel uncomfortable and that something about him seems deformed and not quite right.

“Mr Utterson the lawyer was a man of rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow loveable.”
1. Utterson’s physical appearance is described as being of ‘rugged countenance’. This means he seems abrasive and rough and tough. We are also told that he never smiles. This would lead us to believe he is unemotional. All of this suggests he is a man who keeps himself to himself.
2. This idea of him as unemotional is reinforced by the description of his character when he is described as “cold” “dusty” and “dreary”. These are all words which have connotations of something that is old, hermitic, abandoned, worn and bored or boring. However there is one word that changes this opinion and depiction of him – the word ‘lovable’. This is in opposition to everything we’ve just been told and it reveals that many people actually like Mr Utterson. We find out this is because he is an intensely loyal friend and was often ‘the last good influence in the lives of down-going men’. He will stand by his friends to the very end, no matter what crimes or acts they have committed and he will continue to be a positive anchor in their lives.
3. Mr Enfield and Mr Utterson are described as two very different men. Mr Enfield is a man about town and we are told many saw it as “a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common.” Their friendship may be based on these differences, they complement each other. Where Mr Enfield is gregarious and boisterous; Mr Utterson is resigned and listening.
4. The reader’s impression of the street and the shops on it is that they are inviting. The shop fronts are pleasant and appealing. There is colour everywhere and the by-way is clear and clean.
5. Stevenson creates an eerie atmosphere at the door and its section in the street. The door is set in the gable end of a building which butts out into the street. This makes it obvious to everyone as it literally sticks out. However everything else about the building suggests that the owner would like to be unobtrusive. The windows are clean but the shutters are usually closed. This suggests that the owner would like to see out but doesn’t want others to see in. The gable leads into a court yard which adds a further element of trying to stay hidden. We are told there is ‘no bell or knocker’ which suggests the owner either expects no visitors or doesn’t want any. We are told that ‘bore in every feature the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence’. This suggests that it had undergone a long period of neglect. The place is so disused that tramps and children use the space.
6. By the time we get to Mr Enfield’s story the mood has been set. This mood is an unsettled one, we are expecting something strange or sinister to happen.
7. By the time we meet Mr Hyde, the reader, Mr Enfield and the doctor all have the same reaction towards him. Everyone encountering Mr Hyde experiences disgust and rage. We are told that Mr Enfield had taken ‘a loathing to my gentleman at first sight’. The word choice here evokes emotions of pure hatred and repugnance.
8. Hyde, we are told, is standing ‘with a kind of black sneering coolness – frightened too… but carrying it off really like Satan’ in reaction to the crowd. His ‘sneer’ shows us that he thinks he is above these people and this situation and that he doesn’t care for the little girl. He is also a little worried about what will happen but that is probably to do with the size of the crowd. The comparison with Satan shows us that the character Hyde is truly evil.
9. Mr Enfield’s attempts to get compensation for the girl do not clarify the situation, they instead deepen the mystery. This is because it is very strange that Mr Hyde could walk into a cellar door and come out with a cheque that will give him £100 when presented to the bank and in the name of Dr Jekyll. We wonder what the connection is between the two men.

1. Stevenson shows that Utterson is very disturbed by his new knowledge of Hyde as we witness him going home and worrying about it. We are told he sits down to his dinner ‘without relish’ – strange for a wealthy man who hasn’t eaten all day. After dinner he goes to his study and consults Jekyll’s will when usually he would read by the fire. He then dwelled on Mr Hyde all night causing nightmares in his sleep.
2. Utterson visits Lanyon to see if he knows who Hyde is.
3. Lanyon and Jekyll have not spoken in some time, it turns out as Lanyon feels Jekyll has become too fanciful for science. They have fallen out because of this disagreement of moral scientific judgement.
4. Setting and sound are used to illustrate Utterson’s obsession with Hyde. We are told he paces the streets of London in search of the man. The streets at night are ‘as clean as a ballroom floor’ – clean and deserted and pristine, the city ‘growls’ suggesting a warning of imminent danger and ‘sounds carried far’ highlighting how empty of life the London streets are and giving a sense of danger as Utterson is unwatched and therefore unprotected.
5. Utterson’s first meeting with Hyde shows them as both being stand-offish and wary. Hyde is incredibly taken aback by Utterson and Utterson is already predisposed to dislike Hyde as he thinks he is blackmailing Jekyll.
6. On cross-examining Poole, Jekyll’s butler, Utterson discovers that Hyde has full access to Jekyll’s house via the back door and visits regularly. This only confirms in Utterson’s mind that Jekyll is being blackmailed.

1. Hosts like to keep Utterson back at the end of an evening because he is a good advisor. He is also an excellent listener and people like to use him as a sounding board for their ideas.
2. Jekyll seems to be a warm and genial man. He is welcoming and seems quite upbeat.
3. However, when Utterson raises the topic of Hyde, Jekyll gets annoyed and tries to change the topic. This is one of the few times we see him snap.
4. Jekyll’s reaction to Lanyon is one of distrust and dismissal. He calls the man an ‘ignorant pedant’ because they have disagreed on points of science.
5. Utterson wants Jekyll to confide in him. Jekyll won’t but tells Utterson what he wants him to do – stick to the instructions in the will, especially the instruction that should Jekyll disappear then Hyde gets everything. Jekyll wants this to happen so badly he is pleading with Utterson. This increases the sense of mystery and secrecy because we now believe Jekyll is hiding something bad.
6. The title of the chapter is ‘Dr Jekyll was quite at ease’. There is some irony here as he begins the chapter relaxed but then by the end is distraught with thoughts of Mr Hyde. The chapter is an opportunity for the reader to meet Dr Jekyll, it allows Mr Utterson to interview Jekyll and it is so short to emphasise the change in Jekyll’s character.