Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: quotes + analysis Flashcards
“Utterson the lawyer”
- lawyers are respectable + uphold the law
[] supposed to be morally sound - upper echelon of society; supposed to behave properly
- Victorian ideals of behaviour and ideology
“when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye”
- “wine” = alcohol; respectable drink mentioned in the Bible
[] BUT when had too much of, causes drunkenness etc. - “beaconed” = light, outward signal to the world of some inner characteristic
- “eminently human” = something inherently human
- Hobbesian ideas; humans inherently bad and evil and this comes out when drinking alcohol for Utterson
“Mr Richard Enfield… the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack”
- “well-known man about town”
[] Enfield lives a hedonistic lifestyle very different to Utterson’s - probably frequents prostitute houses and brothels, drinks a lot etc. - representative of the more unconstrained sides of London (absinthe, high prostitution rates) - sins of the flesh
[] people like Enfield looked down upon by people of Utterson’s rank and social status and propriety
[] “well-known” = notorious for hedonism - “nut”
[] shell of a nut is very hard and tough to crack open, however the meat is very delicious, nutritious and often sweet
[] likewise, it is very hard to see why Utterson and Enfield are friends, but once finding the reason, it is very telling of their personalities
“chief jewel of each week”
- “jewel” = precious
- “chief” = primary
- their meetings every week were the highlight of their weeks
- UTTERSON AND ENFIELD ARE SO CLOSE BECAUSE THEY ARE SO DIFFERENT
[] Utterson can live vicariously through Enfield’s tales of hedonism, thus helping him maintain his repression, and Utterson keeps Enfield in check a little so his hedonism doesn’t spiral out of control
[] psychoanalytic reading; Utterson constantly maintains his persona dictated by his superego and desire for social acceptance as “good” and moral
[] to maintain persona must consistently repress repressed unconscious
[] to avoid repression causing emotional outbursts/dreams/hallucinations that release the repressed unconscious all at once, must slowly let repressed unconscious out in a controlled manner, and this is when he lives vicariously through Enfield, as his stories of hedonism satisfy the selfish and “evil” and societally shunned desires of the repressed unconscious
[] Enfield benefits from Utterson reminding him to be somewhat repressed despite his hedonism, as Freud posited that personas exist in order for social cohesion; if everyone acts in a way which others find acceptable, it is easier to reach agreements about things as well as get aid from others
“the shop fronts stood… with an air of invitation, like rows of smiling saleswomen.”
- “fronts”
- sibilance
- “smiling saleswomen”
[] smiling connotes friendliness, kindness and one being happy to see the other, but saleswomen smile to give this impression so that they get more customers and thus more profit - repressed unconscious desiring money (sin)
“blind forehead of discoloured wall”
“showed no window… neither bell nor knocker”
“black winter morning… nothing to be seen but lamps… all as empty as a church”
“the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground”
“He was the usual cut and dry apothecary… I saw that sawbones turn sick and white with the desire to kill [Hyde]”
“keeping the women off him as best we could for they were as wild as harpies.”
“the very pink of proprieties”
“I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgement.”
“something wrong with his appearance… he must be deformed somewhere”
“shifting, insubstantial mists”
“you and I must be the two oldest friends that henry Jekyll has”
“Such unscientific balderdash”
“there would stand by his side a figure… even at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding”
“the figure had no face… even in his dreams, it had no face”
“small and very plainly dressed”
“murderous mixture of timidity and boldness”
“troglodytic”
“ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high estate”
“bright, open fire… pleasantest room in London”
“Hyde go in by the old dissecting room”
“face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale… came a blackness about his eyes.”
“to put your good heart at rest… the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde.”
“October 18—”
date blacked out as is representative of human nature across time
“startled by a crime… more notable by the high position of the victim.”
“fog rolled over the city… early part of the night was cloudless… brilliantly lit by the full moon”
“aged beautiful gentleman with white hair… bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness”
“ill-contained impatience… brandishing the cane… broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth.”
“with ape-like fury”
“pall lowered over heaven… marvellous number of degrees and hues of twilight”
“muddy ways”
“[Hyde’s place] furnished with luxury and good taste”
“the few who could describe [Hyde] differed widely”
“it was the first time the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend’s quarters.”
“three dusty windows barred with iron”
“I was thinking of my own character, which this hateful business has rather exposed.”
“the two hands are in many points identical: only differently sloped”
“he had always been known for charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion… his face seemed to open and brighten”
“[Lanyon] declared himself a doomed man. ‘I have had a shock,’ he said”
“I wish to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll”
“preferred to speak with Poole… surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city, rather than… that house of voluntary bondage”
“They were both pale… ‘God forgive us, God forgive us,’ said Mr. Utterson.”
“wild, cold… with a pale moon, laying on her back as though the wind had tilted her”
“crushing anticipation of calamity”/”trees in the garden were lashing themselves”/”biting weather”
“huddled together like a flock of sheep”
“the housemaid broke into hysterical whimpering”
“Poole; this is rather a wild tale… it doesn’t commend itself to reason.”
“here with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer’s emotion had broken loose”
“do you think I do not know my master after twenty years?”
“The steps fell lightly and oddly… different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll.”
“the blow shook the building”
“the wood was tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship… not until the fifth that the lock burst”
“a good fire glowing and chattering… papers neatly set forth… the things laid out for tea”
“the most commonplace”
“sorely contorted and still twitching”
“the body of a self-destroyer”
“a pious work, for which Jekyll had several times expressed a great esteem, annotated, in his own hand with startling blasphemies”
“In my extreme distress of mind, I have a morbid fear of misdirecting you”
“charged your conscience with… the shipwreck of my reason.”
“simple crystalline salt of a white colour”
“phial… half full of a blood-red liquor, which was highly pungent… some volatile ether.”
“small… great muscular activity and great apparent debility of constitution”
“struck in me… disgustful curiosity”
“I took pity on my visitor’s suspense, and some perhaps on my own growing curiosity.”
“convulsive action of [Hyde’s] jaws”
“to brighten in colour… the compound changed to a dark purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery green”
“My life is shaken to its roots”
“fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellow men”
“the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition”
“Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities… I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame”
“severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature”
“perennial war”
“man will be ultimately known for… incongruous and independent denizens”
“a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements”
“the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together”
“when the attempt is mad to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure”
“sold a slave to my original evil… I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature.”
“much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll.”
“I was conscious of no repugnance… This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human.”
“Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit… I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend.”
“a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion”
“the Babylonian finger on the wall”
“Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost”
“My devil had been long caged; he came out roaring.”
“my better impulses thus buttressed and guarded by terrors of the scaffold.”
“clear, January day”
“vainglorious thought… I was once more Edward Hyde”
Hyde = “he”, Jekyll = “I”
“if I slept, or even dozed for a moment… always as Hyde that I awakened.”
“horror was knit to him closer than a wife”
“I am now persuaded that my first supply was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity which lent efficacy to the draught.”
