Before my guide even gets to the grade 9 essays, it gives a summary of each chapter.
The notes in bold are all the knowledge you need for grade 9.
Because chapter 10 retells the whole novel, you can get grade 9 just from studying this chapter! (Obviously, you will want some other quotes, but, well, you might be reading this just a day before the exam).
Chapter 10: Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case
Jekyll’s Early Life
This is Jekyll’s brief autobiography. He explains that he was born with “a large fortune”, was hard-working, and sought to please. However, he sees a fault in his younger self as being interested in life, having “gaiety of disposition”. These pleasures in life are ones that he believes an ordinary man might be happy to be known for, but because he sought high social status, he keeps this frivolous side of his nature secret, which leads to “a profound duplicity of life”.
He next admits that the pleasures he sought out left him “plunged in shame” but he refuses to tell us what these are. He appears to be critical of religion, saying that at its “root” is “one of the most plentiful springs of distress”. This juxtaposition of the kind of imagery we find in praise of nature, coupled with “distress” suggests that religion takes what is natural and pure, like a spring, and makes us view it as corrupt and evil.
He describes this state as “man’s dual nature” and for himself “a dreadful shipwreck”. This realisation comes to him before he creates Edward Hyde. In other words, society’s views of pleasure and sin are at the “root” of Jekyll’s tragedy. Society creates man’s dual nature. Without Christian rules, he would be able to live freely, simply expressing his nature without fear of being judged.
Jekyll’s Science
He imagines that other scientists will follow and “outstrip me on the same lines”. We can see that his confession is also written for posterity: he wants his scientific discoveries to be developed, even though he does not leave behind a precise record of how to do so. He tells us that he doesn’t want to leave a proper scientific record of his experiments in case future scientists recreate another Edward Hyde, rather than a more angelic version of themselves.
He creates Edward Hyde so that he can experience pleasure, without being “exposed to disgrace and penitence”. It isn’t just that he does not want people to know what pleasures he seeks out, he particularly doesn’t want to feel guilty about them, and of course it is society’s repression which makes him feel this guilt and “shame”.
The Experience of Being Hyde
He explains that when taking the drug for the first time he risked death. The first time he took the potion he felt agonising pain, but he describes becoming Edward Hyde as “I came to myself as if out of the great sickness”. The symbolism suggests that Hyde, the pleasure seeker, is his more natural state, while Dr Jekyll, the product of society, is a kind of sickness. This is another attack on society’s moral values.
He describes the sensation of being Hyde in a very sensual language, as “not an innocent freedom of the soul”. The reader might well ask what the soul needs freedom from? Perhaps it suggests the soul needs freedom from Christianity, and the moral codes of 19th-century British society. He equates this with wickedness.
Although other people in the novel apparently react with horror at Hyde’s presence, they are unable to describe his face. Jekyll gives us a clue that it is attractive. He deliberately buys a large mirror, so that he can see himself in the form of Hyde. This is true, even though he feels that evil is written on Hyde’s face, while good is written on Dr Jekyll’s. Of course, this is a façade – he points out that Jekyll is not wholly good. The juxtaposition invites us to ask if Hyde is therefore wholly evil. Even though Jekyll states that he is, his description of Hyde calls this into question.
Jekyll supposes that Edward Hyde is younger and smaller than Dr Jekyll because Jekyll’s evil desires have been kept under check for so much of his life: they haven’t had time to grow.
Christianity vs Greek Paganism
Jekyll points out that his new identity is “natural and human”. Instead of God looking down on him, he imagines being judged by “the constellations” who would observe him “with wonder”. These are the pagan constellations of the Greeks, whose Gods did not have the same moral views as Christian theology. Just as all men are “commingled out of good and evil” so were the Greek Gods. In other words, standards of morality were very different then. Homosexuality was celebrated, as every male middle and upper class reader would know – they would have studied such stories in the original Greek while at school.
The idea of “pure evil“ embodied by Edward Hyde is a Christian construct. While Jekyll appears to agree with this view of Edward Hyde, his actions, and choice of imagery suggests that he doesn’t accept this Christian definition.
Stevenson needs Jekyll to conform to a Christian perspective in order to satisfy his Christian readers. However, his more astute readership will read a different story behind Dr Jekyll‘s words. As we shall see in this chapter, Dr Jekyll can only describe one truly evil act, the killing of Sir Danvers Carew. This is hardly “pure evil“, or the act of somebody “alone in the ranks of mankind”. If this were the case, Sir Danvers Carew’s murder would be only the first murder in history, never mind the only murder Hyde commits.
Is Jekyll Evil?
He imagines that if he had drunk the potion for the first time when he was in a different mood, the new identity created might have been “an angel instead of a fiend”. He points out that the drug just creates a different being, it doesn’t dictate the character or personality of that being: that is produced by the emotional state, or the moral state of the drinker. Some readers feel this is Jekyll’s delusion. They feel he has become corrupted by the evil of Hyde. Other readers believe that he is correct. Stevenson is pointing out that scientific progress is always progress: how people use it dictates whether it is good or evil.
Stevenson describes the secret pleasures of his life as “undignified” as though he struggles to find them horrifying, while society describes them as evil. He also suggests that they were more difficult to enjoy because he was “growing towards the elderly man”. This is another hint that the pleasures might be physically strenuous, needing a young man’s energy. Alternatively, they may require the cooperation of other young people, who would not be attracted to “the elderly” Dr Jekyll. This is another prompt that the secret pleasures are sexual, but also consensual. Hyde doesn’t have to pay for them. If he did, his age would not matter.
He describes furnishing a house in Soho for Hyde, and introducing him to his servants. He now describes the “undignified” pleasures as turning “towards the monstrous”. However, his language contradicts this kind of morality, referring to Hyde’s doing “his good pleasure”. Although he speaks of “any degree of torture to another” he is unable to give us any examples. Added to this, he gets tremendous vicarious pleasure from Hyde’s actions. Again we wonder if these are simply pleasures society rejects, but which at the level of the individual are entirely acceptable.
Jekyll explains that he did not feel guilt at these monstrous acts, because they were performed by Edward Hyde. On the one hand, this suggests that Jekyll is deceiving himself, because after all he created Hyde for the sole purpose of carrying out these monstrous acts. But on the other hand, his lack of guilt strongly suggests that he does not believe these acts were monstrous, but were instead “good pleasures”, simply judged as evil by a repressed, Christian society.
Is Society Worse Than Hyde?
Interestingly, he writes about the first incident of the novel, where Hyde bumped in to the young girl. He describes it as “one accident” but his principal memory is that “I feared for my life”. This again suggests that Hyde was not behaving in any evil manner at this point, and was instead a victim. It is at this point that Jekyll decides to open a separate bank account in Hyde’s name, so Jekyll will no longer have his name publicly traceable to Hyde on a cheque.
He explains that two months before the murder of Sir Danvers Carew he woke up for the first time as Edward Hyde after having taken the potion to go to sleep as Dr Jekyll. He claims that from this moment he realised that Edward Hyde would become stronger than Dr Jekyll, his wholly evil personality overcoming Jekyll’s which was “commingled” out of good and evil. However, we remember that he drew up the will long before this: becoming Edward Hyde was always part of the plan.
He reveals that over time he has had to take larger and more frequent doses of the drug in order to turn back into Dr Jekyll. He tells Utterson that in the form of Edward Hyde he is able to remember and experience everything Dr Jekyll experiences, and the same is true in reverse. However, when he is Edward Hyde he does not take any pleasure in being Dr Jekyll, because Dr Jekyll does not seek pleasure when he is in that form.
When he views himself as the doctor it is as “elderly and discontented”, while as Edward Hyde he felt “liberty, the comparative youth, the light step, leaping impulses and secret pleasures.” This is the full list in his comparison. Astute readers will notice the absence of evil. This is another clue that Jekyll’s life as Edward Hyde is not in fact full of evil deeds, but simply the freedom to pursue pleasures which are rejected by Christian society.
Did Jekyll Want to Kill Carew?
He manages to repress Hyde for two months, but because Hyde has been imprisoned inside Jekyll for so long, “he came out roaring”. He now describes how he killed Sir Danvers Carew, which he says was done with “so pitiful a provocation” and compares it to a child breaking “a plaything”. As we have seen earlier, this lack of a motive makes no sense. Sir Danvers Carew cannot have been the first person Hyde met on his walk. Nor is Hyde lying in wait, hoping to murder the first person who comes along. This strongly suggests a motive.
Jekyll’s description of the murder does not tally with the maid’s. Instead of clubbing him to death with a cane and stamping on his body, he describes it much more intimately as “with a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow”. Animals maul with teeth and claws, and the use of “tasting” to describe his delight similarly suggests different actions. In Victorian times mauling also held these sexual connotations (which you can hear on Audible, in episode 3 of Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets).
This doesn’t invite the reader to disbelieve the maid – after all, the cane is clearly the murder weapon, and half of it is left at the scene, and the other half in Edward Hyde’s house. Instead, the language suggests an alternative, sexual motive for the killing. To the Christian reader, the animalistic imagery simply suggests Jekyll and Hyde’s primitive nature. The Christian fear of science would argue science is propelling us towards an earlier, more savage, pre-Christian form of humanity.
To the more astute reader it is the suppression of homosexual desire which has led to this great rupture and violence, so that Dr Jekyll remembers the killing in sexual language. Of course, Jekyll cannot confess any of this to Utterson, who represents society’s repressed, Christian morality.
Why Doesn’t Hyde Continue Committing Crimes?
Next, Jekyll describes Edward Hyde as destroying his papers, while toasting the dead victim, gloating about his crime, and planning to carry out other murders in the future. Again, the astute reader will notice that he doesn’t commit any future crimes. Consequently, he does not appear in his actions to be motivated by evil, but by pleasure.
Although he describes feeling guilty at this murder, once he realises that he cannot be caught, simply transforming himself back into Dr Jekyll, he describes only feeling “joy”. He is struck not just that the murder was “a crime, it had been a tragic folly”. It was a mistake because it means that he can no longer risk transforming into Edward Hyde. His greatest regret is that he can no longer indulge in his pleasures, and not that he has ended Carew’s life. This involves the Christian narrative, which sees Hyde’s growing power as a warning that all men should be vigilant against their evil impulses. To give in even a little bit, will corrupt with greater power, as symbolised by Hyde’s return.
Dr Jekyll decides to spend the rest of his life doing good works in order to “redeem the past”.
He permanently locks the back entrance to his house and destroys Hyde’s key, as a way to ensure that he will never again take the potion to become Hyde.
However, Edward Hyde is finally able to overcome Jekyll’s resistance, without requiring the potion, after Dr Jekyll indulges in one of his secret pleasures “in my own person”, rather than in the form of Hyde. The symbolism here is that once he accepts himself for who he is, and owns these pleasures, Hyde takes over. He transforms into Hyde while sitting in Regents Park.
To the Christian reader this is clear evidence that he has abandoned Christian morality, with the consequence that his soul has been lost forever. He has forever become the evil Edward Hyde, and his soul will now go to hell.
To the astute reader Dr Jekyll’s fate is more complicated. The killing of Sir Danvers Carew, a member of Parliament, is now symbolic of an attack on the laws in society. This suggests that Edward Hyde is driven to crime through society’s criminalisation and condemnation of his more innocent pleasures. This suggests that true evil is created by society: it is the constant repression which has led to this violent outburst, rather than a growing evil.
Another possibility is that there is a more real motive which Jekyll has for killing Carew. We remember that Hyde is created solely for living out Jekyll’s desires. There is a strong hint that Jekyll has a particular reason for wanting to kill Carew, but he refuses to tell us what this is.
Unfortunately, Hyde no longer has access to Jekyll’s back door. Jekyll tells us that he is impressed with Hyde’s resourcefulness, especially under pressure. He comes up with a plan, writing to Poole to get a locksmith and to expect Dr Lanyon, and then writing to Dr Lanyon with instructions about how he should break into Dr Jekyll‘s laboratory and retrieve the drawer containing the ingredients necessary for the transformative potion.
He writes these letters at a hotel in Portland Street. Despite being angered by the driver of his cab, and wanting to attack him, he doesn’t. This is another puzzle given that he has recently murdered Sir Danvers Carew, yet he is able to resist even swearing at the driver. He only manages to snarl; he “gnashed my teeth“, hardly the act of the most evil human being to walk the planet. Stevenson mentions this to force us to question Jekyll’s Christian perspective on Hyde’s narrative.
While waiting for Lanyon to carry out his instructions, he cannot bear to remain in the hotel, and spends time travelling the streets in a cab. When the driver grows suspicious, he decides to get out and walk. He commits another terrible and astonishing crime. Yes, a woman selling matches tries to persuade him to buy. Being the most evil man who has ever lived, he … punches her in the face. However, this punch is apparently so feeble that she is able to turn around and run to escape him. Again, the more astute reader will try to find an explanation for this rather feeble anger. Yes, it is highly unpleasant, but evil? Why is it directed at a woman? Why does it cause so little harm? What does this tell us about the single act of rage which led to him murdering Sir Danvers Carew?
Does Jekyll Want to Kill Lanyon?
He very briefly explains going to Dr Lanyon’s and transforming into Jekyll. But he does not tell us how he tempted Lanyon, or how he wanted to attack his “unbelief”. This strongly suggests that, as Hyde, he carries out Jekyll’s revenge on Dr Lanyon. As Jekyll, he glosses over this, and doesn’t want Utterson to know how much control Jekyll appears to have over Hyde’s actions. It shows us that Jekyll is in the habit of hiding facts from Utterson. We are not being given the definitive truth. This also makes us doubly curious to know what he has concealed from us about the motive for killing Carew. Stevenson effectively challenges us to return to Jekyll’s motives and desires.
Jekyll also refuses to tell us what he said to Dr Lanyon, and what Dr Lanyon said to him after the transformation. He claims that he now feels “the horror of being Hyde”, although whether this is because being Hyde is evil, or whether being Hyde means being hunted by society and the police, is not clear.
However, the next morning, having awoken as Dr Jekyll, he transforms into Edward Hyde without the aid of drugs, while crossing his courtyard. Despite doubling the dose to return to Jekyll, Edward Hyde spontaneously appears six hours later. Jekyll realises that he can no longer go to sleep, because he will always wake up as Edward Hyde.
Jekyll now comes to see Hyde as “hellish” and “inorganic” as though to distance himself from the fleshy presence of Hyde’s body. He cannot bring himself to admit that he himself is Edward Hyde.
Hyde, on the other hand, is disgusted by Dr Jekyll’s “despondency” and lack of “life”. He attacks Jekyll by scrawling “blasphemies” in his books, attacking Jekyll’s Christian faith. This implies that he blames Christian morality for the “dislike” others feel for him. He burns Jekyll’s letters from his father, and his father’s portrait. In this way he symbolically attacks Dr Jekyll’s parent, the authority figure who has made him feel so guilty about the pleasures he has pursued in secret.
Does Hyde Want to Destroy Jekyll?
This also foreshadows Edward Hyde‘s decision not to destroy the documents that Henry Jekyll wants to leave behind for Utterson. So the astute reader will therefore have to work out Hyde’s motive. If Hyde wants to attack Dr Jekyll, then leaving these documents for Utterson must be another kind of attack. But how will this damage Jekyll? Perhaps he knows that Utterson will keep them secret, and so Jekyll’s work will be suppressed. He will never find fame or acceptance.
Dr Jekyll contrasts himself with Hyde’s “love of life” which “is wonderful”. This appears to be a much more real description of Hyde, addicted to the pleasures of living, than the description of him as the ultimate evil in mankind. Even before he is about to cease to be Dr Jekyll forever, he realises the great joy in being Edward Hyde. The tragedy now seems that Dr Jekyll has not been allowed to be himself by society, and has not been allowed to enjoy his pleasures openly. The tragedy is that society has forced him to create Edward Hyde to enjoy these pleasures.
Then a final tragedy is that he has to destroy Hyde’s “love of life”, when Hyde decides to commit suicide.
Jekyll now writes urgently, because he no longer has any supply of the salt necessary as the final ingredient in his potion. He describes trying to find this salt in every chemist, and realising that his original batch must have been contaminated with some unidentified impurity, which he can no longer recreate. This confession is therefore a note written before his inevitable death.
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