The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone.”

Enfield explains why he declines to get involved in Hyde’s case. Once you ask a question, it becomes like a stone rolling down a hill; he does not want to be judgmental or ruin people’s reputations. This quote, too, is ironic since both he and Utterson will become involved in the case of Jekyll and Hyde. 

“But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me.”

Dr. Lanyon broke his friendship with Jekyll because the latter became involved with outré scientific theories. This professional and intellectual conflict between the two men becomes a central motivating force for Jekyll. 

“It was a night of little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and besieged by questions.” 

Although Stevenson’s dialogue can be florid, his narrative often has a terse quality. This is a good example, describing Utterson’s state of mind as he returns home after meeting Hyde, still confused about the relationship between Hyde and Jekyll. 

“If he be Mr. Hyde, I shall be Mr. Seek.”

With a pun on Hyde’s name, Utterson resolves to track down Hyde and discover the secret that ties him to Jekyll. This decision of Utterson’s puts in motion the rest of the plot.

“God bless me, the man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say?” 

Utterson reacts to Hyde’s appearance and manner after meeting him at night outside his house. He implies that Hyde physically resembles an ape and that this in turn implies a crude, primitive personality. His comment suggests the popular influence of Darwinian biology (see Themes). 

“O, my poor old Henry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.”

Here Utterson expresses in strong terms his deep suspicions about Hyde’s character and the damaging effects of his relationship with Jekyll, a good friend of Utterson’s. His suspicions turn out to be very prescient as we learn later about Hyde’s murderous ways.

“I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange—a very strange one.”

Jekyll evasively avoids discussing Hyde when Utterson questions him about the will. The use of “strange” echoes the novel’s title and creates intrigue and suspense in the reader when we might not yet suspect the nature of Jekyll’s transformation.

“When that masked thing like a monkey jumped from among the chemicals and whipped into the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice.” 

Poole describes how he felt when catching a glimpse of his master one day, again employing the troglodytic image evoked earlier by Utterson (see Quote 6). Hyde in his physical being gives a strong impression of something barbaric, animal-like, and dangerous. 

“Have you got it? Have you got it?” 

Hyde feverishly asks Lanyon if he succeeded in extracting the drawer with his chemical powders that will help him change back into Jekyll. Lanyon tells us that he was near “hysteria” because he feared not being able to change back.

“And now, you have so long been bound to the most narrow and material views, you who have denied the virtue of transcendental medicine, you who have derided your superiors—behold!” 

As he transforms into Jekyll in front of Lanyon’s eyes, Hyde taunts the physician. He declares that his (Jekyll’s) brand of science is superior to Lanyon’s down-to-earth, rational scientific views. Here we have Jekyll’s perceived triumph over his intellectual adversary.

“I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life.”

As a young man, Jekyll felt a pull between his sober, respectable nature and a more frivolous side. These two sides were always at war. Thus, in a sense, the conflict between Jekyll and Hyde already existed inside his soul and would become externalized by drinking the potion. 

“And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome.” 

Jekyll feels a strange sense of joy at beholding Hyde because, although evil, he is at least single-minded and free from conflict. He is totally committed to one way of being and comfortable in its own skin, something Jekyll has not felt before. Perversely, Jekyll envies this sense of freedom that Hyde possesses. 

“…all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good or evil; and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.” 

This elaborates on the previous quote. The reason Hyde inspires such revulsion in people is not simply his physical ugliness, but the metaphysical evil that emanates from him spiritually—an evil that is complete and without any redeeming aspect.

“Think of it—I did not even exist!”

Jekyll/Hyde rejoices in the freedom that his dual identity grants him. He can do whatever he wants and switch into his other self when he gets in trouble, thus evading responsibility and guaranteeing total impunity. 

“And thus conscience slumbered.” 

The insidious aspect of Jekyll’s transformation is that, although Hyde’s actions are atrocious, he exists in his own world so that Jekyll feels less motivated to do something about him. Jekyll does not feel guilty for what Hyde does, since he is a different person.

“All things therefore seemed to point to this; that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse.” 

The more frequently Jekyll transforms into Hyde with the chemical potion, the more thoroughly he turns into Hyde body and it becomes progressively more difficult to go back to Jekyll. Jekyll has become habituated to evil. 

“Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; Hyde had more of a son’s indifference.” 

Jekyll has a conscience and a sense of moral responsibility that Hyde, as pure evil, does not have. The quote suggests that Jekyll, as the “father” or originator of Hyde, has priority and perhaps a greater degree of reality. Stevenson is perhaps suggesting that good and evil are not equal forces, but that evil is merely the parasite of good; good has the ultimate power. 

“The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God.”

As Hyde changes back into Jekyll, Jekyll drops on his knees before God in remorse and gratitude. Jekyll’s life passes before him, and he realizes with joy that he will no longer desire to transform into Hyde because the enormity of his crimes have made him hunted by the law. This is one of a handful of references to religion in the book and serves as a powerful emotional peak.

“…with what willing humility I embraced anew the restrictions of natural life! with what sincere renunciation I locked the door by which I had so often gone and come, and ground the key under my heel!”

Following on the last quote, Jekyll now feels free from Hyde’s power and devotes himself to the good life. He is certain that the temptation to become Hyde is gone for good, but this turns out to be sheer complacency.

“…as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence.” 

As the initial thrill of his conversion wears off and Jekyll becomes used to his new life, his senses become dulled and he falls into a rut. He had indulged his evil desires so long in the person of Hyde that they are bound to return. He compares his passions to hungry dogs anxious to escape their chains. 

“It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.” 

Jekyll has this thought after transforming himself in the presence of Lanyon and being then “condemned” by him. This represents a stage forward in his moral progress. He is no longer afraid of punishment, but disgusted at the sheer moral ugliness of being Hyde. 

“This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life.” 

Jekyll is shocked by the fact that Hyde, who is his own “creation” and depends on him for his existence, has taken on a life of his own, is in a sense as real as he is and threatens his own life. 

“But his love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him…I find it in my heart to pity him.”

Jekyll is amazed at Hyde’s will to live and his zest for new adventures. On the other hand, Hyde fears that Jekyll will commit suicide and thus end his own life, so Jekyll also feels a strange pity for him. This is another quote that sums up the bizarre attached-yet-separate nature of Jekyll and Hyde.