Hyde

Question 1

“There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable.”

Answer 1

• He is described as ugly and Stevenson suggests he has the face of Satan. Everybody Hyde meets in the novel is affected with his ‘nightmarish’ appearance.
• This quote from Enfield shows that he is greatly appalled and disgusted by Hyde’s appearance, suggesting that he is other-worldly and doesn’t belong in the reputable society of Victorian London. The repetition of ‘something’ exaggerates how deformed Hyde is.

Question 2

“with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot,”

Answer 2

• Hyde murders Carew and tramples on a little girl causing her legs to break.
• The use of the simile ‘ape-like fury’ describes Hyde as an animal capable of rages, not a human. This shows that Hyde doesn’t care about his actions and has no control over his fiery, animalistic behaviour.
• throughout the novel Hyde is associated with apes.this perhaps a reference to Darwin’s theory of evolution which suggests that a man is descended from apes .
• Stevenson strongly suggests that Hyde is less evolved version of Jekyll.

Question 3

“The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh”

Answer 3

-animal imagery, Hyde is being compared to a dog.

Question 4

“trampled calmly over a child body regardless of her screams”

Answer 4

• use of juxtaposition suggests how Hyde is an sympathetic character throughout the novel and he doesn’t think things through.
• the fact that he “trampled calmly” over the girls body suggests how emotionless Hyde is and how he is related to violence in most of the novel.
• furthermore this suggests how Hyde is not afraid of his reputation being ruined because the fact that he had murdered and trampled over a girl suggests to the readers that Hyde is not a respectable member of the society and this would go against how a gentlemen should act behave properly in society.

Question 5

” it wasn’t like a man, it was like some damned juggernaut”

Answer 5

• the interesting simile here makes the readers imagine a hugely powerful man.
• the way Stevenson writes “it wasnt like a man” could perhaps introduce the idea of Hyde being linked to Darwinism at the time the novel was written.