Jekyll and Hyde: Utterson

Question 1

duality

Answer 1

Through the opening description of utterson,stevenson introduces the ideas of repression and duality,and the idea that everyone had a level of a double life: an interior and an exterior world.
“a man of rugged countenance… austere with himself… backward in sentiment,”
“enjoyed the theatre, but hadn’t crossed the doors of one for 20 years,”
“drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages,”

Utterson’s first name is “Gabriel”, Stevenson uses onomastic imagery and could be doing this to critique Christianity by saying that all goodness has duality.

Question 2

passive morality

Answer 2

Moreover, Stevenson uses Utterson to critique the passive morality of Victorian gentlemen and not being able to confront misdeeds due to the fear of a bad reputation.

accepts the fact that Enfield was “coming home from some place at the end of the world at 3am,”
“the more it looks like queer street the less I ask,”
motif of silence
Utterson “[ lets] his brother go to the devil in his own way…inclines to Cain’s heresy,”
Stevenson makes an apparent link to Christianity to critique it at the time because people pretended to be moral and good Christians however they only cared about reputation and like Utterson, not confronting vice.

Question 2

uttersons dream

Answer 2

Furthermore, Stevenson employs Utterson’s dream to present the external horror of London against the internal horror of the mind and its capabilities.
aware of the “great field of lamps in a nocturnal city,”
“labyrinths of a lamp lighted city”