Chapter 8 Key Quotations Flashcards
Poole’s description of the events:
“Foul play”
Eerie description of the night:
“It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March”
Suggests supernatural, otherworldly forces are at work:
“a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her”
- “Pale” suggests the sense of penetrating fear that permeates the setting; perhaps this reflects Utterson’s own fear.
Furthers the idea of the eerie, gothic depiction of the supernatural with the clouds:
“a flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture”
- Creates a highly abnormal, otherworldly atmosphere.
Utterson’s sense of fear:
“crushing anticipation of calamity”
- “crushing” and “calamity” create a semantic field of destruction, furthering the feelings of fear and unexplained apprehension
- Perhaps the fact that the rational Utterson feels this way implies that the setting is truly frightening
Hostile weather:
“biting weather”
- Animalistic, ruthless description; the hostility of the weather intensifies the fear that Poole and Utterson feel, creating more mystery and suspense for the reader.
Foreshadowing of death:
“flecked the blood into the face”
Theme of suffering/punishment - foreshadows Jekyll’s own death:
“the thin trees in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing”
- “Lashing” exemplifies the hostility of the setting, powerfully foreshadowing a dramatic event, intensifying the horror of the setting and therefore the gothic fear felt by Utterson.
Servants’ anxiety:
“huddled together like a flock of sheep”
- “Huddled” perhaps depicts their insecurity, “sheep” suggests their vulnerability, exemplifying the atmosphere of extreme tension.
Hyde’s animalistic/dehumanising depiction:
- “digging among the crates”
- “cry out like a rat”
- “that thing was not my master”
- “that masked thing like a monkey jumped”
Poole’s sense of inherent fear upon witnessing Hyde:
- “the hair stood upon my head like quills”
- “it went down my spine like ice”
London echoing the extreme tension and suspense:
“London hummed solemnly all around”
- “hummed” creates a sense of ominous monotony that furthers the sense of tension hanging in the atmosphere.
Hyde/Jekyll’s suffering:
“Weeping like a […] lost soul”
Dying body of Hyde:
“sorely contorted and still twitching”
- “Contorted” and “twitching” exemplifies a sense of deformation, depicting the horrifying scene in the cabinet, intensified by “sorely”.