, Plot summary
1. Utterson hears the story of how Hyde,
Jekyll's friend, trampled on a girl.
2. Utterson meets Hyde and is shocked.
He wonders why his respectable friend (Dr
Jekyll) could befriend such a person.
3. A year later, Carew is murdered by
Hyde. Jekyll is deeply affected by this and
refuses to speak to anybody. Hyde goes
missing.
4. Utterson goes to speak to Dr Lanyon
(a mutual friend of him and Dr Jekyll)
because he is concerned about Jekyll.
Lanyon refuses to speak about Jekyll and
hands Utterson a letter that must only be
opened at the disappearance or death of
Jekyll.
In the middle of the night, Utterson is summoned to Jekyll's house where he breaks down
the laboratory door and discovers a dead man (Hyde in Jekyll’s clothes). Utterson reads
Jekyll's newly amended will and takes Jekyll's confession to read at home.
As Jekyll has disappeared, Utterson reads Dr Lanyon's letter which tells him the true nature
of Jekyll's experiments.
Utterson reads Jekyll's confession which reveals the true identity of Mr Hyde.
, Character Descriptions
Dr Henry Jekyll A respected doctor and friend of both Lanyon, a fellow
physician, and Utterson, a lawyer. Jekyll is a seemingly
prosperous man, well established in the community, and
known for his decency and charitable works. Since his
youth, however, he has secretly engaged in unspecified
dissolute and corrupt behaviour. Jekyll finds this dark
side a burden and undertakes experiments intended to
separate his good and evil selves from one another.
Through these experiments, he brings Mr. Hyde into
being, finding a way to transform himself in such a way
that he fully becomes his darker half.
Mr Edward Hyde A strange, repugnant man who looks faintly pre-human.
Hyde is violent and cruel, and everyone who sees him
describes him as ugly and deformed—yet no one can
say exactly why. Language itself seems to fail around
Hyde: he is not a creature who belongs to the rational
world, the world of conscious articulation or logical
grammar. Hyde is Jekyll’s dark side, released from the
bonds of conscience and loosed into the world by a
mysterious potion.
Mr Gabriel John Utterson A prominent and upstanding lawyer, well respected in
the London community. Utterson is reserved, dignified,
and perhaps even lacking somewhat in imagination, but
he does seem to possess a furtive curiosity about the
more sordid side of life. His rationalism, however, makes
him ill-equipped to deal with the supernatural nature of
the Jekyll-Hyde connection. While not a man of science,
Utterson resembles his friend Dr Lanyon—and perhaps
Victorian society at large—in his devotion to reasonable
explanations and his denial of the supernatural.
Dr Hastie Lanyon A reputable London doctor and, along with Utterson,
formerly one of Jekyll’s closest friends. As an
embodiment of rationalism, materialism, and scepticism,
Lanyon serves a foil (a character whose attitudes or
emotions contrast with, and thereby illuminate, those of
another character) for Jekyll, who embraces mysticism.
His death represents the more general victory of
supernaturalism over materialism in Dr Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
Poole Jekyll’s butler. Mr. Poole is a loyal servant, having
worked for the doctor for twenty years, and his concern
for his master eventually drives him to seek Utterson’s
help when he becomes convinced that something has
happened to Jekyll.
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