Paper 1: Jekyll and Hyde Themes Flashcards
Duality
“i had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil and the other was still the old henry Jekyll”
“Jekyll was now my city if refuge; let but Hyde peep out”
“both sides of me were in dead earnest”
“if each, i told myself, could be housed in separate identities life would be relived”
Good vs Evil
“with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim”
“trampled calmly”
“my devil had been long caged, he came out roaring”
“my evil kept awake by ambition”
“i concealed my pleasures”
“polar twins”- oxymoron, highlights how different good and evil is cursed mankind.
Evolution
“the animal inside of me licking the chaps of memory”
““damned juggernaut”
“ape-like fury”
Repression / respectability
- a key theme in Victorian society as people believed they were heavily judged based on their actions. Their ‘reputations’ were very important to them.
“he was austere with himself; drank gin only when he was alone” - Utterson is very careful in terms of how he behaves to prevent any damage to his name.
“i am ashamed of my long tongue” - Enfield says he is ashamed of gossiping.
“i concealed my pleasures”
“my evil, kept awake my ambition” - the more Jekyll aims to repress Hyde the more keen he becomes to come out
“it was hyde after all and hyde alone, that was guilty” - Jekyll aims to make himself feel less guilty by repressing his conscience.
“my devil had been long caged, he came out roaring” through repression Hyde grows stronger.
Friendship
Science and Nature
“yet his attention had never before been so sharply and decisively arrested.” - Hyde’s unnatural appearance causes Utterson to become suspicious.
“Lanyon, at which he called my scientific heresies” - Jekyll is disappointed as Lanyon takes a religious approach towards his studied.
“the haunting sense of express deformity” - Hydes unnatural appearance inflicts suspicion instantly
“‘O God! i screamed and ‘‘O God! again and again; for there before my eyes - pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death- there stood Henry Jekyll”- Lanyon describes Jekyll’s unnatural transformation.
“but the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last overcame the suggestion of alarm”- Jekyll understood the risk experimenting himself but his desire for discovery overtook his worries.
Religion
- highly religious society
“like Satan” - Hydes violence towards the girl is compared to Satan or the devil
“if i ever read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend”
“whilst he had always been, known for charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion” - in his attempts to do more good he appears to become more religous through subtracting his evil self in order to compensate for Hydes satanic behaviour
“fallen upon his kness and lifted his clasped hands to god” - despite henry jekylls blasphemous behaviour he is still shown to rely and turn to God in his times of desperation, highlighting his reliance.
Violence
- gothic horror
“the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground” - semantic field, juxtaposition to evidence that he dos not care adding to his satanic features.
“the other snarled into a savage laugh” Hyde is primitive in his behaviour, like an animal , and is violent in the way he speaks to utterson.
“and then all of a sudden he broke out in a flame of anger”
“carrying on like a mad man”
“Mr Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to earth”
“with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim underfoot” - his violence towards sir danvers carew inflicts a sickening brutality as he acts ruthlessly.
