Jekyll and Hyde: Setting

Question 1

London( soho)
(point)
(quotes)

Answer 1

Stevenson’s novel is an ‘urban gothic’ text; it is not set in a remote location like other 19th century gothic novels. Arguably Stevenson is exploring how the ‘monster’ of the text, is born out of repressed Victorian society.

Quotes
“Nocturnal city”-vice
“drowned city”-biblical allusion
“city of a nightmare”
“wider labyrinths of a lamp lighted city”- classical allusion to Theseus and the Minotaur. The metaphor presents London as a maze with a monster at its heart.
“haggard shaft of daylight”-Manichean imagery of twilight

Question 2

(mirror)
Jekylls cabinet/laboratory
(point)

Answer 2

Stevenson uses the imagery of the mirror, or the ‘Cheval glass’ to symbolise his central idea; a ‘monster’ lurks in all men, including Utterson and Poole, and ultimately the reader.

Quotes
“cheval glass”
Utterson and Poole look at it with “involuntary horror”
red baize door
“the wood was tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship”- practiced

Question 3

door to Jekyll’s lab and neighbourhood.

Answer 3

(quotes)
“neither bell nor knocker”- symbolically inaccessible ,like the repressed part of the human consciousness.
- associated with Hyde and secrecy, the reader does not know what is behind it and wont find out until the end.
“blistered and distained”- vice and corruption, represent the high levels of repression that the door and what is behind it has been neglected.
Street “shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood” “row of smiling saleswomen” “fire in a forest” coexistence of rich and poor in London

Question 4

Cavendish square

Answer 4

point
Stevenson uses the setting of Cavendish Square to represent the scientific mainstream, and as a foil to Jekyll’s scientific ‘heresies’; however, even this is corrupted by the ‘disgustful curiosity’ to gain power.

quotes
‘That great citadel of medicine’ ‘Scientific heresies’ – Lanyon is corrupted by ‘new provinces of power and knowledge’ as he has the ‘greed of curiosity’

Question 5

Fog in London

Answer 5

point
Stevenson uses the motif of fog as a visual metaphor for the secret world of vice of London.
quotes
‘great chocolate coloured pall lowered over heaven’- separation between god and people because of vice
‘The fog still slept on the wing of the drowned city’

Question 6

Hyde’s townhouse

Answer 6

point
Stevenson uses the setting of Hyde’s townhouse to blur the lines between the upper class world of good taste and money, and the corrupt and sinful world of London vice. Hyde represents upper class ‘degeneration’ as much as he does lower class atavistic regression.

quotes
‘good picture hung on the wall’ ‘a gift, Utterson supposed, from Jekyll’