Chapter 2 - Search for Mr Hyde Flashcards
Initial description of Lanyon when Utterson goes to meet him
“This was a hearty healthy dapper red-faced gentleman”
Lanyon explaining to Utterson why him and Jekyll no longer talk to each other
“Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in the mind”
“Hyde sat heavy on his memory” – following the story of the door Utterson’s mind becomes filled with Hyde
- alliteration is used to show the detrimental impact of Hyde’s character onto Utterson, and hence the society he represents
- personification ‘sat’, conjures image of Hyde as a parasitic creature infesting Utterson’s very being
- adjective ‘heavy’ reiterates the severe impact of Hyde onto Utterson overall, Utterson has an insatiable curiosity for the creature of Hyde
“If he shall be Mr Hyde (…) I shall be Mr Seek” – Utterson decides to try find out more about Hyde
- Homophone ‘Hyde’ shows that Hyde is a regression of mankind which hides within all of us, especially inside of Jekyll
- Makes it seem as if Hyde is hiding inside Jekyll and this is reinforced by Jekyll being Hyde’s “prisonhouse” and “cage” and “city of refuge”
- Hyde is used as a metaphor for the inner atavism inside every single human/organism
- “Seek” shows that Utterson is curious and has an insatiable appetite for information, foregrounds that he will be the detective of the novella
- links to context as Victoria society was full of famous detectives such as Holmes (if Utterson alludes to Holmes this reinforces how Utterson is stereotypical upper-class wealthy gentleman respected by society), and also as Victorians were curious and discovered many things like evolution, seeking out answers to the world around them as Utterson seeks out knowledge of Hyde
Utterson is restless due to his intense curiosity over Hyde
“his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness besieged by questions
Hyde’s reaction to being approached by Mr Utterson
“Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath.”
Hyde when talking to Utterson
“snarled aloud into a savage laugh”
Utterson’s description of Hyde
“Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish”
description of Hyde
“he gave an impression of deformity without any namable malformation”
Emotions felt by Utterson after meeting Hyde
“unknown loathing, disgust and fear”
Utterson exclaiming his fear for Jekyll over Hyde
“if I ever read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend!”
“a lover of the sane and customary sides of life” – description of Utterson, Hyde does not sit right with him
- Utterson represents Victorian society and its despise for the ‘transcendental’
- At the time, despite the emergence of romanticism, the industrial revolution prevailed and progressed, and with it the acceptance of faith in reason rather than in spirituality
- Utterson mirrors this blind acceptance of logic, and with it the forced repression of anything remotely spiritual
- Utterson hence contributes to the toxic, repressive atmosphere of the Victorian environment whilst also being confined and constricted within in it
- “sides” insinuates that there are multiple components of society/life, whilst on the one hand there is reason, logic and science there also exists the supernatural, unexplainable and more romantic ideas
- In a way science and reason is a metaphor for civility and development, and spirituality is a metaphor for regression and atavism
- “customary” reveals how ingrained logic/reasoning was in the Victorian environment, any other ideas were rejected and excluded, perhaps such as homosexuality
