AQA GCSE English Literature
Dr. Jekyll
‘Stevenson’s presentation of Dr. Jekyll allows the reader to feel sympathy for him?’
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion.
Read the following extract from Chapter 6 (Incident at the Window) of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract, Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield are talking to Dr. Jekyll through his window.
The court was very cool and a little damp, and full of premature twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, was still bright with sunset. The middle one of the three windows was half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of men, like some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.
"What! Jekyll!" he cried. "I trust you are better."
"I am very low, Utterson," replied the doctor drearily, "very low. It will not last long, thank God."
"You stay too much indoors," said the lawyer. "You should be out, whipping up the circulation like Mr. Enfield and me. (This is my cousin—Mr. Enfield—Dr. Jekyll.) Come now; get your hat and take a quick turn with us."
"You are very good," sighed the other. "I should like to very much; but no, no, no, it is quite impossible; I dare not. But indeed, Utterson, I am very glad to see you; this is really a great pleasure; I would ask you and Mr. Enfield up, but the place is really not fit."
"Why then," said the lawyer good-naturedly, "the best thing we can do is to stay down here and speak with you from where we are."
"That is just what I was about to venture to propose," returned the doctor, with a smile. But the words were hardly uttered, before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded by an expression of such abject terror and despair as froze the very blood of the two gentlemen below. They saw it but for a glimpse, for the window was instantly thrust down; but that glimpse had been sufficient, and they turned and left the court without a word.
Question:
‘Stevenson’s presentation of Dr. Jekyll allows the reader to feel sympathy for him.’
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion
Write about:
how Stevenson presents Dr. Jekyll in this extract
how Stevenson presents Dr. Jekyll in the novel as a whole.
[30 Marks]
A04 [4 Marks]
Excerpt from: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
AQA GCSE English Literature
Mr.Hyde
Starting with this extract, explore Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as a threatening and a dangerous character.
Read the following extract from Chapter 1 (Story of the Door) of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract, Mr Enfield tells Mr Utterson about his encounter with Mr Hyde.
“Well, it was this way,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home from some
place at the end of the world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and
my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen
but lamps. Street after street, and all the folks asleep – street after street, all
lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church – till at last I got
into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the
sight of a policeman. All at once I saw two figures: one a little man who was
stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or
ten, who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the
two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the
horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and
left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to
see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a view halloa,
took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where
there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly
cool, and made no resistance, but gave me one look so ugly that it brought out
the sweat on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl’s
own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his
appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened, according
to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But
there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at
first sight. So had the child’s family, which was only natural. But the doctor’s
case was what struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no
particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as
emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every time he
looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with the desire to
kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and
killing being out of the question, we did the next best. We told the man 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. If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook
that he should lose them. And all the time, as we were pitching it in red-hot, we
were keeping the women off him as best we could, for they were as wild as
harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the
middle, with a kind of black, sneering coolness – frightened, too, I could see that
– but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan.”
Question:
‘Stevenson’s presentation of Dr. Jekyll allows the reader to feel sympathy for him.’
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion
Write about:
how Stevenson presents Dr. Jekyll in this extract
how Stevenson presents Dr. Jekyll in the novel as a whole.
[30 Marks]
A04 [4 Marks]
Excerpt from: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
AQA GCSE English Literature
Mr. Utterson
Starting with this extract, how does Stevenson present the friendship between Jekyll and Utterson?
Read the following extract from Chapter 3 of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract, Mr Utterson has asked Dr Jekyll about his knowledge of, friendship and relationship with Mr Hyde.
The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes. ‘I do not care to hear more,’ said he. ‘This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop.’
‘What I heard was abominable,’ said Utterson.
‘It can make no change. You do not understand my position,’ returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner. ‘I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange — a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by talking.’
‘Jekyll,’ said Utterson, ‘you know me: I am a man to be trusted. Make a clean breast of this in confidence; and I make no doubt I can get you out of it.’
‘My good Utterson,’ said the doctor, ‘this is very good of you, this is downright good of you, and I cannot find words to thank you in. I believe you fully; I would trust you before any man alive, ay, before myself, if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn’t what you fancy; it is not so bad as that; and just to put your good heart at rest, I will tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde. I give you my hand upon that; and I thank you again and again; and I will just add one little word, Utterson, that I’m sure you’ll take in good part: this is a private matter, and I beg of you to let it sleep.’
Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire.
‘I have no doubt you are perfectly right,’ he said at last, getting to his feet.
‘Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for the last time I hope,’ continued the doctor, ‘there is one point I should like you to understand. I have really a very great interest in poor Hyde. I know you have seen him; he told me so; and I fear he was rude. But, I do sincerely take a great, a very great interest in that young man; and if I am taken away, Utterson, I wish you to promise me that you will bear with him and get his rights for him.
Question:
Starting with this extract, how does Stevenson present the friendship between Jekyll and Utterson?
Write about:
how Stevenson presents Jekyll’s relationship with Utterson in this extract;
how Stevenson presents and develops the changes in their relationship throughout the novel as a whole.
[30 Marks]
A04 [4 Marks]
Excerpt from: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
AQA GCSE English Literature
Dr. Lanyon
"Lanyon serves as a symbol of reputation in the novel"
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion
Read the following extract from Chapter 9 of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract, Dr. Lanyon has visited Dr Jekyll after reading his letter.
“Have you got it?” he cried. “Have you got it?” And so lively was his impatience that he even laid his hand upon my arm and sought to shake me.
I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang along my blood. “Come, sir,” said I. “You forget that I have not yet the pleasure of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you please.” And I showed him an example, and sat down myself in my customary seat and with as fair an imitation of my ordinary manner to a patient, as the lateness of the hour, the nature of my preoccupations, and the horror I had of my visitor, would suffer me to muster.
“I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon,” he replied civilly enough. “What you say is very well founded; and my impatience has shown its heels to my politeness. I come here at the instance of your colleague, Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a piece of business of some moment; and I understood ...” He paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria—“I understood, a drawer ...”
But here I took pity on my visitor’s suspense, and some perhaps on my own growing curiosity.
“There it is, sir,” said I, pointing to the drawer, where it lay on the floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.
He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his heart: I could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of his jaws; and his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed both for his life and reason.
“Compose yourself,” said I.
He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision of despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of the contents, he uttered one loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified. And the next moment, in a voice that was already fairly well under control, “Have you a graduated glass?” he asked.
I rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him what he asked.
Question:
"Lanyon serves as a symbol of reputation in the novel"
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion.
Write about:
how Stevenson presents Dr. Lanyon and the theme of reputation in this extract;
how Stevenson presents Dr. Lanyon and the theme of reputation in the novel as a whole.
[30 Marks]
A04 [4 Marks]
Excerpt from: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
AQA GCSE English Literature
Mr. Enfield
"Mr. Enfield serves as a contrast to Mr. Utterson's curiosity"
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion
Read the following extract from Chapter 1 of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract, Mr. Enfield recalls to Mr. Utterson how he came upon Hyde's lodgings in Soho
“From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather suddenly: “And you don’t know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?”
“A likely place, isn’t it?” returned Mr. Enfield. “But I happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other.”
“And you never asked about the—place with the door?” said Mr. Utterson.
“No, sir: I had a delicacy,” was the reply. “I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have to change their name. No sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.”
“A very good rule, too,” said the lawyer. “But I have studied the place for myself,” continued Mr. Enfield. “It seems scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes in or out of that one but, once in a great while, the gentleman of my adventure. There are three windows looking on the court on the first floor; none below; the windows are always shut but they’re clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally smoking; so somebody must live there. And yet it’s not so sure; for the buildings are so packed together about the court, that it’s hard to say where one ends and another begins.”
The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then “Enfield,” said Mr. Utterson, “that’s a good rule of yours.”
“Yes, I think it is,” returned Enfield.”
“But for all that,” continued the lawyer, “there’s one point I want to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the child.”
“Well,” said Mr. Enfield, “I can’t see what harm it would do. It was a man of the name of Hyde.”
Question:
"Mr. Enfield serves as a contrast to Mr. Utterson's curiosity"
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion.
Write about:
how Stevenson presents Mr. Enfield and curiosity in this extract;
how Stevenson presents Mr. Enfield and curiosity in the novel as a whole.
[30 Marks]
A04 [4 Marks]
Excerpt from: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Duality
Starting with this extract, write about how Stevenson explores the idea of duality.
Read the following extract from Chapter 10 and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract Dr Jekyll writes a statement to explain what he was like as a younger man.
Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversions to the dryness of a life of study. I would
still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified, and I
was not only well known and highly considered, but growing towards the elderly man, this
incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It was on this side that my new
power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doff at once the body of
the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at the
notion; it seemed to me at the time to be humourous; and I made my preparations with the
most studious care. I took and furnished that house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the
police; and engaged as a housekeeper a creature whom I knew well to be silent and
unscrupulous. On the other side, I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I
described) was to have full liberty and power about my house in the square; and to parry
mishaps, I even called and made myself a familiar object, in my second character. I next drew
up that will to which you so much objected; so that if anything befell me in the person of Dr.
Jekyll, I could enter on that of Edward Hyde without pecuniary loss. And thus fortified, as I
supposed, on every side, I began to profit by the strange immunities of my position.
Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and
reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first
that could plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a
schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in
my impenetrable mantle, the safely was complete. Think of it--I did not even exist! Let me but
escape into my laboratory door, give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught
that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away
like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the
midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be Henry
Jekyll.
Question:
Starting with this extract, write about how Stevenson explores the idea of duality.
Write about:
•how Stevenson explores the idea of duality in this extract.
•how Stevenson explores the idea of duality in the novel as a whole.
[30 Marks]
A04 [4 Marks]
Excerpt from: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Good vs Evil
Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents ideas about good and evil in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Read the following extract from Chapter 10 (Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case) of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract, Jekyll describes his experience of taking the potion for the first time.
I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature.
There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that which stands beside me as
I write was brought there later on, and for the very purpose of these
transformations. The night, however, was far gone into the morning – the
morning, black as it was, was nearly ripe for the conception of the day – the
inmates of my house were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and I
determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in my new shape
as far as to my bedroom. I crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked
down upon me, I could have thought, with wonder, the first creature of that sort
that their unsleeping vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the
corridors, a stranger in my own house; and, coming to my room, I saw for the first
time the appearance of Edward Hyde.
I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know, but that
which I suppose to be most probable. The evil side of my nature, to which I had
now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than
the good which I had just deposed. Again, in the course of my life, which had
been, after all, nine-tenths a life of effort, virtue, and control, it had been much
less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about
that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll.
Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly
and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be
the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay.
And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no
repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This too, was myself. It seemed
natural and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed
more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been
hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in so far I was doubtless right. I have
observed that when I bore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come
near to me at first without a visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was
because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and
evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.
Question:
Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents ideas about good and evil in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Write about:
• how Stevenson presents ideas about good and evil in this extract
• how Stevenson presents ideas about good and evil in the novel as a whole.
[30 Marks]
A04 [4 Marks]
Excerpt from: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Science vs Religion
"Stevenson wrote 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' to comment on the conflict between religion and science in Victorian society"
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion
Read the following extract from Chapter 10 and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract Dr Jekyll reveals the circumstances that led to his scientific discoveries.
I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.
Question:
"Stevenson wrote 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' to comment on the conflict between religion and science in Victorian society"
Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this opinion
Write about:
• how Stevenson presents the conflict between science and religion in this extract
• how Stevenson presents the conflict between science and religion in the novel as a whole.
[30 Marks]
A04 [4 Marks]
Excerpt from: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Context
Background and Context:
Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the masters of the Victorian adventure story, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. He was a sickly child, and respiratory troubles plagued him throughout his life. As a young man, he traveled through Europe, leading a bohemian lifestyle and penning his first two books, both travel narratives. In 1876, he met a married woman, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne, and fell in love with her. Mrs. Osbourne eventually divorced her husband, and she and Stevenson were married.
Stevenson returned to London with his bride and wrote prolifically over the next decade, in spite of his terrible health. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which Stevenson described as a “fine bogey tale,” also came out in 1886. It met with tremendous success, selling 40,000 copies in six months and ensuring Stevenson’s fame as a writer.
In its narrative of a respectable doctor who transforms himself into a savage murderer, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tapped directly into the anxieties of Stevenson’s age. The Victorian era, named for Queen Victoria, who ruled England for most of the nineteenth century, was a time of unprecedented technological progress and an age in which European nations carved up the world with their empires. By the end of the century, however, many people were beginning to call into question the ideals of progress and civilization that had defined the era, and a growing sense of pessimism and decline pervaded artistic circles. Many felt that the end of the century was also witnessing a twilight of Western culture.
With the notion of a single body containing both the erudite Dr. Jekyll and the depraved Mr. Hyde, Stevenson’s novel imagines an inextricable link between civilization and savagery, good and evil. Jekyll’s attraction to the freedom from restraint that Hyde enjoys mirrors Victorian England’s secret attraction to allegedly savage non-Western cultures, even as Europe claimed superiority over them. This attraction also informs such books as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. For, as the Western world came in contact with other peoples and ways of life, it found aspects of these cultures within itself, and both desired and feared to indulge them. These aspects included open sensuality, physicality, and other so-called irrational tendencies. Even as Victorian England sought to assert its civilization over and against these instinctual sides of life, it found them secretly fascinating. Indeed, society’s repression of its darker side only increased the fascination. As a product of this society, Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde manifests this fascination; yet, as a work of art, it also questions this interest.
Stevenson’s Influences for writing the novel:
1. Nature of Edinburgh – A dangerous place to be. The medical school paid good money for dead bodies. This lead to a rise in murders, especially in the poor.
2. Stevenson’s fascination of the dual nature of man. He was fascinated by stories of respectable men turning into savage criminals at night i.e. Deacon Broadie who was a cabinet maker during the day and a criminal at night. Stevenson’s family actually owned one of his cabinets.
3. Charles Darwin’s ‘Theory on Evolution’ turned organised religion upside down. Victorians no longer knew what to believe in and so looked to the supernatural for answers instead of God.
4. The onset of the industrial revolution meant mass migration to the cities. The ensuing poverty meant an increase in crime. Poeple were now unsettled and saw this as the dawning of a new evil age.
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Form
Use of Form in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The form of a text is the type of text you are reading. In Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson chooses to write in the novel form, uses the features of the Gothic genre, and uses different first-person perspectives
• The Gothic - a literary genre originating from the 18th century, which describes a sinister, grotesque or mysterious atmosphere. Such novels are often set in dark places or ruined buildings.
• Stevenson's choice of London as his setting suggests that the rapidly changing city was becoming to some of its inhabitants a strange and frightening place.
• First-person perspectives – a narrative which is told from a character's viewpoint using 'I'. In Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson uses three first-person narratives: Utterson, Dr Lanyon and Dr Jekyll.
Question
Why does Stevenson write in the different first-person perspectives? What does it allow the reader to do?
• Emotion - through the first person perspective, the reader gets a direct link to the character's thoughts and feelings. From this, the reader can easily detect what the character thinks and feels about a situation or another character.
• Direct link to the reader - the first person perspective allows the character to directly communicate to the reader, thus establishing a rapport.
When discussing form, think about what Stevenson wanted to achieve when writing in this form. If you notice anything unusual about it, it should be pointed out in your answer, as this will show you're really thinking about literary analysis.
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Structure
Use of Structure in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
When analysing structure, think about how Stevenson has ordered his text and put it together on several levels:
• Text level - this is how the text is constructed as a whole: the opening, middle and ending of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Within this, we look at how a character or a theme progresses and develops in the narrative.
• Sentence level - this is how the text is constructed at a sentence level. Within this, we look at sentence types, lengths and the ordering of events.
Text level
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is split into ten chapters and Stevenson has given each chapter a title.
1. Story of the Door
2. Search for Mr Hyde
3. Dr Jekyll was Quite at Ease
4. The Carew Murder Case
5. Incident of the Letter
6. Remarkable Incident of Dr Lanyon
7. Incident at the Window
8. The Last Night
9. Dr Lanyon's Narrative
10. Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case
Stevenson has created chapter titles to summarise the chapter's content, making it easier for the reader to navigate the text. From looking at the chapter titles, you can see how tension peaks during chapters 4-8 and then lessens from chapter 9 onwards as the narrative is resolved.
Question
Why does Stevenson create tension in chapters 4-8, the middle of his narrative?
• To keep the reader sustained and excited when reading.
• To make the reader question what is going to happen in the ending, where Stevenson resolves his story.
Sentence level
At sentence level you should consider how an author has created a sentence and to what purpose.
Below is an example section from the text. In this section, Dr Lanyon is describing the shock he's had - not mentioning anything about Dr Jekyll and his experiment.
"I have had a shock," he said, "and I shall never recover. It is question of weeks. Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes, sir, I used to like it."
Here’s how to break down and analyse this quotation, thinking about the sentence lengths, sentence types, sentence order and the punctuation used.
"I have had a shock,' (1) he said, (2) 'and I shall never recover (3) It is a question of weeks. (4) Well, life has been pleasant; I (5) liked it; yes, sir, I used to like it."
• (1) "he said" - the use of "he said" breaks up Lanyon's narrative and adds further impact to the fact "he shall never recover." This highlights Lanyon's negative state of mind.
• (2) "and I shall never recover" - this is a compound sentence. The use of the "and" links the two thoughts together. The end of the sentence is ambiguous because we don't know what Dr Lanyon is going to recover from.
• (3) "It is question of weeks" - a simple sentence highlighting his trauma.
• (4) "Well," - complex sentence. The use of "well" highlights a conversational tone - also that Dr Lanyon is looking at the past.
• (5) "Liked"/"used" - past tense. This highlights his recent change in heart and how he dislikes life now due to what he has seen.
Writing A Response
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
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