The Significance of Edward Hyde's Character in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

In the opening chapters of ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, not only does Stevenson portray Mr. Hyde through his descriptions, but he also creates juxtaposition between Mr. Hyde and his descriptions, making the reader feel confused about the character of Mr. Hyde as is Mr. Utterson during the first few chapters. For example, in ‘The Carew Murder Case’, the interior of Mr. Hyde’s house is described as “... furnished with luxury and good taste.” This shows juxtaposition between Mr. Hyde’s house and himself, as Mr. Hyde would never be described as ‘luxurious’ or a man with ‘good taste’. Also, I think that Stevenson wrote this intending to give the reader a feeling of annoyance towards Mr. Hyde just as Mr. Utterson would be feeling at this point. The fact that Mr. Hyde’s house is being described as ‘luxurious’ makes the reader feel that it’s unjust that someone as horrid as Mr. Hyde could be so easily concealed by the interior of his house to a stranger. Stevenson’s intentions here were to have the reader feel more resent and hate for Mr. Hyde and to, again, show a different form and method of mankind’s dual personality being concealed. There is a saying that keeping your secrets or real thoughts bottled up for too long will only cause agitation and will result in the bottle exploding and leaving nothing but destruction

Stevenson develops the idea that evil can be seen visibly through physical appearance, and is always the ugliest form of a human being. When Dr. Jekyll transforms into the 100% evil Mr. Hyde his mentality and mindset changes, but so does his appearance. Stevenson depicts the change from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde as a change that can be visibly seen. Mr. Hyde is much uglier than Dr. Jekyll, as well as more evil in nature. When Mr. Utterson first sees Mr. Hyde he considers him deformed and repulsive, “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky,

Mr Hyde is introduced surprisingly to the reader because of his iniquitous action performed on the little girl and this is very different from the way in which Mr Enfield and Mr Utterson are introduced. Mr Utterson and Enfield are introduced to be sincere gentlemen shown to have prestige in the society as Mr Utterson has a respected job of a lawyer and Mr Enfield is the ‘well known man about town’ whereas Mr Hyde is instantly portrayed as sadistic, merciless and ferocious. Mr Hyde “trampled over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground” therefore this ensures that the reader’s response to Hyde is negative because only a malevolent person would do this despite being mature. The fact that he trampled over the little girl without any reason suggests that he may attain pleasure from doing such hideous activities which would give Mr Hyde an image of being sadistic

Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a complex and tricky novel to fully grasp, but the reader can come to understand many parallels to their own lives. Stevenson’s creation has stood the test of time because of its power to astonish; even if one previously new the outcome. This power has made Jekyll and Hyde, a pair that will continue to provoke thought in many readers in generations to

Just as the emotions between a parent and toddler can change any second from loving to embarrassed and angry, the two main characters in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, struggle through a family-like relationship. Throughout the novel, the relationship between Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde changes from a close, family-like relationship to one of hatred toward the end of the book. Changes in the relationship between Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde can be seen in: observations by Mr. Utterson, Dr. Jekyll’s state of mind before and after the murder of Sir Danvers Carew, and Dr. Jekyll’s confession.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson uses very rich diction so that his audience can visualize every detail of the setting and characters. In Dr. Lanyon’s letter to Mr. Utterson describing how he came to know of Dr. Jekyll’s deception and secrets, he also describes Mr. Hyde. This was the first time in the novel that Mr. Hyde was descriptively described. The diction Stevenson used influenced not only the visual aesthetics of the reader but several themes and gives the reader foreshadowing. Dr. Lanyon first describes Mr. Hyde’s clothing as “enormously too large”, and goes into further detail by observing that his pants were too long for him and were “rolled up to keep them from the ground” and “the collar sprawl wide upon his shoulders” (Stevenson). Dr. Lanyon’s description also foreshadows the truth behind Dr. Jekyll’s secret because Dr. Jekyll was described as a large man, “a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty” (Stevenson). Mr. Hyde’s description also included Dr. Lanyon’s surmise that “there was something abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature” (Stevenson). In the last chapter, the letter from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Utterson, the audience gets a sense of shame and understanding from Dr. Jekyll. Stevenson’s diction strongly influences the reader’s perception of Dr. Jekyll’s letter. His use of words like “morbid sense of shame,” “driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life,” and “shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members” (Stevenson), imply the emotional impact that Dr. Jekyll’s experiments had on

At the time Stevenson was writing the novella, people were very judgmental of those who looked different. Back then, these 'deformed' people would have been shut away. These reactions from the late 1800s had a huge influence on the attitudes that Stevenson's characters had towards Hyde in the book.

“All human beings are commingled out of good and evil.” Robert Louis Stevenson was no fool when it came to understanding the duality of human nature evident within mankind. In his novella, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson is able to explore his interests concerning the dark, hidden desires that all human beings are guilty of possessing. In his story, a well-respected professional by the name of Dr. Jekyll experiments with the idea of contrasting personalities and successfully undergoes a physical separation of such identities—one which would soon wreak havoc upon his very existence. As a result of his success, Edward Hyde is born. Hyde, characterized as a miniscule and terrifying, apelike figure from the start,

This gives the impression that Hyde is a monster than comes out only when it is dark and nobody can see him. Whatever he is, he cannot be called human. In Victorian England, if a person looked ugly, criminal-like or ‘giving an impression of deformity’ they were considered to be ugly and criminal-like inside to. If you imagine a person reading this story when that was what was thought, the description of Mr Hyde would instantly label him as the bad character.

The reader gets quite a bad first impression of Mr. Hyde as he “trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming to the ground” (Stevenson 4), already foreshadowing more horrific events to be caused with his little remorse. The choice of his reaction of trampling calmly over a little girl demonstrates Mr. Hyde’s inhumane feeling as well as a possible joy of hurting others. After the first encounter with the unnerving Mr. Hyde, the protagonist of the story, Mr. Utterson, goes out of his way to cross paths with the man once more. As a result of the endless questioning, Utterson faces an animal that “snarled aloud into a savage laugh” (Stevenson 17) in a hurried craze. By having Hyde snarl, it connotes a more abhorring nature of the man, and describing his laugh as savage sends out warning signs of more incidents of pain to be caused by him. While Jekyll struggles to choose good or evil, Hyde does not struggle at all as he does not face any difficult choices, so he tries to take advantage of what he believes is his weaker side.

Physically, they looked differently. Mr. Hyde was an ugly man. According to Mr. Enfield, "he gave me one look so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running." Mr. Enfield goes on to describe him as having a deformity of some sort. Mr. Utterson also described him as being ugly. He said Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, and he also agree that he looked dwarfish. Mr. Hyde carried a displeasing smile with a husky voice. Mr. Utterson also labeled him as "the man seems hardly human; something troglodytic." He also carried a look of "Satan's signature upon his face." Lanyon, " his clothes... We're too enormously too large for him in every measure the trousers hanging on his legs... the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders." His physical appearance scared everyone he came in contact with.

In the story of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886), the character Dr Henry Jekyll develops an alter ego called Mr Edward Hyde while trying to seperate the two consciences he believes everyone has inside of them. This Mr Hyde ego is the evil half of Dr Jekyll and performs horrendous acts like murder feeling no guilt, but when Dr Jekyll regains control of the body they share he is overcome with regret. This wonder about multiple consciences was popular at the time of the story’s writing with double personality being “one of the most widely discussed clinical disorders” (Armstrong 189). This essay will discuss the ‘reverse transformation’ found in the novel and how it was influenced by the thoughts of society in the time it was written.

Hyde as a character whom cannot be recognized and whom no one knows the true identity of. In the chapter entitled “Search for Mr. Hyde”, Utterson encounters Mr. Hyde as he was entering the house of Dr. Jekyll. The first real description of Mr. Hyde goes as followed: “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice.(The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 11&12)”.

Every person who has ever seen Hyde understands the horror of his face. Hyde face is so horrifying it could paralyze you with fear. The way people who haven’t seen Hyde’s face can only actually describe it except to say that the man has an air of deformity without being deformed. I think when people say that they mean he wasn’t made to be on earth, almost like if he was made to be a non- human person. People see Hyde as the big bad wolf but 10x worse than the real thing. The way I see Hyde’s face is a faced pulled off from another face and reattached with all the wrong parts. I feel Hyde is a devil mixed with a demon of some sort. He probably has sharp teeth, a weird shaped head, a hunchback, bumps all over his face and hands, and an awful

As described in the book, Mr.Hyde is a smaller, younger, more energetic, and just basically a malevolent, villainous guy. He is frequently compared to a monkey or an ape, suggesting a certain animalistic and inhumanistic aura about him. Although no one can really pinpoint a particular deformity, they all agree that he has one – one that makes him a twisted, dark man who manages to inspire fear, disgust, and loathing even from afar. He is also described repeatedly as "timid yet bold."