Reputation & Secrecy

Question 1

How is reputation and secracy shown in the novella

Answer 1

The hypocrisy of Victorian society is perhaps best captured by Stevenson in his representation of how the façade of gentlemanly reputation could only be preserved through underhand secrecy and deception.

Question 2

Reputation and secracy: Key quotations/references (chapter 1)

Answer 2

• ‘We told the man [Hyde] we could and would make such a scandal out of this, as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other.’ (Enfield)
• ‘No gentlemen but wishes to avoid a scene.’ (Hyde)
• ‘The person [Jekyll, as yet unnamed] that drew the cheque is the very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too.’ (Enfield)
• ‘I am ashamed of my long tongue.’ (Enfield)
• They were both [Utterson & Lanyon] thorough respecters of themselves and of each other.
• ‘Blackmail […] an honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth.’ (Enfield, on the situation he relates to Utterson)
• ‘Blackmail House.’ [door leading into Jekyll’s] (Enfield)

Question 3

Reputation and secracy: Key quotations/references (chapter 2)

Answer 3

• Humbled to the dust by the many ill things he [Utterson] had done.
• [Hyde’s] black secrets [are a fascination to Utterson]. (Ch 2)

Question 4

Reputation and secracy: Key quotations/references (chapter 5)

Answer 4

• ‘If it came to a trial [about Hyde], your name [Jekyll] might appear.’ (Utterson)
• ‘I was thinking of my own character, which this hateful business has rather exposed.’ (Jekyll)
• [Utterson felt] ‘a certain apprehension [about Jekyll’s] good name [being] sucked down in the eddy of the scandal.’

Question 5

Reputation and secracy: Key quotations/references (chapter 6-9)

Answer 5

• Much of his past was unearthed [Hyde’s, after the Carew murder], indeed and all disreputable: tales came out of the man’s cruelty. (Ch 6)
• If your [Poole] master is fled or dead, we may at least save his credit.’ (Utterson, Ch 8)
• ‘Remember your vows: what follows is under the seal of our profession.’ (Hyde to Lanyon before he transforms back into Jekyll, Ch 9)

Question 6

Reputation and secracy: Key quotations/references (chapter 10)

Answer 6

• ‘Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of…but I hid them with a morbid sense of shame.’ (Jekyll, Ch 10)
• [Jekyll admits he was] ‘an ordinary secret sinner.’ (Jekyll, Ch 10)
• ‘It came about that I concealed my pleasures.’ (Jekyll, Ch 10)