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✓ Scientific Development (Duality, Curiosity)

SETTING: Jekyll’s house has a lab connected to it

“Dingy windowless structure”

“Old dissection room”

IDEA: The idea that Jekyll’s science is ridiculous

Lanyon’s dismissal of Jekyll’s Science “ such unscientific balderdash” “i wish to see or hear no more of Dr Jekyll (...) whom i regard as dead”

Lanyon dies from the horrors of Jekyll’s science in chapter 6 as he “had his death warrant written legibly upon his face” and in “less than a fortnight he was dead” after his mind was “submerged in terror” after witnessing the transformation of Hyde into Jekyll

EVENT: Lanyon is skeptical of the chemicals in Jekyll’s room and frightened by the transformation

“I loaded an old revolver (...) for self defense”

“Sprung” to his feet

“Leaped” back against a wall

“Arms raised to shield” himself

His “Mind submerged in terror”

Lanyon is left in the distressed state of some feeble animal

SETTING; Jekyll was clearly up to some sort of experiment by the state of his room and belongings

Powders that were of “Jekyll’s private manufacturer”

A “pungent” “phial” filled with “blood red liquor”

In a ‘diary’ of Jekyll’s with “several hundred entries” the phrases “double” and “total failure!!!” were repeated throughout

IDEA: Jekyll represents the outcast of society as he was experimenting with science to please his duality and to contribute to helping society to enquire against religious restrictions

His “scientific discoveries” and beliefs were that “man is not truly one, but truly two”

Despite having “risked death” and suffered “racking pangs” he was determined for his two sides to be “housed in separate identities”

Despite feeling “younger, lighter, happier” he knew that he had failed as his new self had not an “innocent freedom of the soul” as he had just created a man “tenfold more wicked” as he describes he “sold a slave to my original self”

✓ Duality (Science, Repression, Appearance, Curiosity, Secrecy, Deceit, Violence)

SETTING; duality of Jekyll’s house and Hyde’s house

The back of Jekyll’s house reflects the Hyde that he hides. It is described as a ‘dingy windowless structure’ with a ‘blistered’ door that promoted ‘sordid negligence’ . This reflects hyde as being odd and out of place. The cabinet is described as ‘gaunt’

The front of jekyll's house represents the ‘Jekyll’ that he shows to society. It has a ‘great air of wealth and comfort’ being one of the most ‘pleasantest rooms’ in London’. This shows Jekyll’s personality and being welcoming. The fact that it has a great deal of ‘wealth’ shows Jekyll's position in society.

Hyde lives in Soho which is described as being poor with ‘many ragged children’ with being in a ‘dingy’ street. We associate hyde's personality as being dark, however his ‘furnished with luxury and good taste’ rooms juxtaposes the area he lives in and comes as quite a shock to us as the reader, which instantly causes skeptical about how he was able to afford all this wealth.

IDEA,EVENTS; Jekyll plans to separate his …

• English Literature
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Jekyll and Hyde

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The duality of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

An essay planning and writing frame for exploring duality in  The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde .

This pair of worksheets includes a table to complete with evidence and explanations, as well as an essay scaffold to support students in writing a full essay response.

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Theme & Key Quotes: Secrecy

Theme & key quotes: secrecy, theme: secrecy.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is shrouded in secrecy, from Jekyll’s hidden experiments to Hyde’s unknown origins and crimes. This is a reflection of the dual nature of man’s character as portrayed in the book.

“You must suffer me to go my own dark way” - This quote by Dr Jekyll to Utterson shows his desire to keep his activities secret, even from his closest friend. This emphasises the theme of secrecy.

“Mr Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath” - This quote illustrates Hyde’s secretive and furtive nature.

“The door was shut against the lawyer” - This phrase not only signifies the physical door but also the metaphorical door shut on Utterson, and us as readers, stopping us from discovering the truth until the end.

Secrecy of Jekyll’s Will

Dr Jekyll’s will is a vital ‘secret’ in the novel. The will is unusual as it benefits Mr Hyde, a man met with disgust and mistrust from all who meet him. Its peculiar and unknown aspects cause intrigue and suspicion.

“Case of Disappearance” - This chapter title itself has connotations of secrecy, and stands for both Hyde’s physical disappearance as well as metaphorically disappearing from the social scene.

“Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books” - This reference to Hyde’s secretive behaviours within Jekyll adds a tangible, eerie secrecy within Jekyll himself.

The theme of secrecy is intertwined with the other themes of the novel, it is important to consider how this secrecy is linked with the broader dual nature, scientific rationality versus supernatural, public versus private, and violence. In your response, explain how characters’ secretive behaviours, the secretive nature of the society and era in which the book is set and secretive narrative unfolds to establish the broader themes of the novel.

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Dr jekyll and mr hyde setting essay.

Choose a novel in which setting is an important feature.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is a novel in which setting plays an important feature. In the book Dr Jekyll represents good and Mr Hyde represents evil, yet they are technically the same person and come to symbolise the good and evil in all of us. The novel is set in London but draws heavily on Stevenson’s knowledge of his hometown Edinburgh to create a chilling setting which emphasises the themes of good and evil.

Setting is most important as a symbol for the characters of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Jekyll owns a fancy town house with a tumble down lab on the back. The town house is described as having an ‘open fire’ in the front hall. This represents Jekyll as it is warm and inviting and hugely welcoming – all things that match Jekyll’s character. The fact that he can build a fire in his front hall and not just his main rooms suggests he is wealthy and likes to display his wealth. Again it is a symbol for the man himself. We are also told that the street on which his house sits is filled with similar houses – his though is the only one kept clean and tidy and whole, the rest have become slightly messy. This is in keeping with Jekyll’s character as we know he is concerned with his reputation and making himself look good to other people which his house certainly does. Hyde on the other hand is a secretive creature who doesn’t so much lurk in the shadows as lives only in the night. He doesn’t hide from other people but he doesn’t really interact with them either, or encourage interactions. The lab door sums up his character perfectly. Unlike the main house it juts out on an alley street, its windows are covered and the door bears no knocker and hasn’t been cleaned for entry. The windows emulate Hyde’s private nature, he doesn’t want people prying into his business. The lack of a knocker shows he doesn’t want or expect guests. The untidiness of the doorway similarly keeps people from visiting. The text also describes the lab as a ‘sinister block of buildings’ – there is something off about them, just like we are told there is something off or ‘deformed’ about Hyde’s appearance. Setting here, in the form of the house, serves to reinforce the characters of Hyde and Jekyll and further highlights the theme of good versus evil.

The Victorian London setting is important because it is what pushes Jekyll into making Hyde. Stevenson had apparently considered setting his tale in Edinburgh, with its sordid, poverty-stricken old town and glossy, illustrious new town making clear allusions to Jekyll and Hyde’s personalities again. However, in high London society a man’s reputation was everything and he had to behave. It is far easier to explain Jekyll’s actions against the backdrop of London society than Edinburgh’s. Jekyll is repressed by his lifestyle as a rich doctor, it is only as Hyde that he can do what he actually wants and so he creates Hyde. The setting is important here because it is what forces Jekyll’s hand into making an alternative persona for himself.

Setting is important in the initial chapters where Utterson’s dream makes the minotaur and his maze a metaphor for Hyde and his London. We have already had descriptions of Hyde as a ‘juggernaut’ something huge and threatening. This image is built up further with his comparison to the minotaur, a monstrous beast that was used to control and terrorise the Greek town of Minos. Hyde similarly terrorises the occupants of London as he will trample and destroy any who get in his way – the little girl and Sir Carew. London’s twisting medieval streets and fogged new streets become the maze in which the minotaur was kept. You never know when the minotaur or Hyde might appear to hurt you. Setting then becomes a metaphor for the playground of evil.

Setting is also important as Stevenson often uses dramatic epithet to show a change in the mood of a scene to show that something is about to happen. We are often told about the ‘rolling fog’ in the streets of London. It hides Hyde literally and cloaks the shady characters of the night. In the final chapters of the novel the fog becomes a horrible storm, rain lashes and the streets are empty. This adds a sense of foreboding as we know something is going to happen the streets are too physically quiet of people as if something bad is about to happen. Utterson is then escorted by Poole to Jekyll’s house and we finally discover that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. Setting here was used to suggest and hint that the plot was about to take a turn for the worst.

22 thoughts on “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde setting essay”

Hello, Ms Davidson. I have found your essay about the setting in ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ as I searched for ways to help two Yr11 students with their impending GCSE English Literature exams. What you have written is eminently readable, and so I hope it is OK by you that I copy and paste it into a Word document for the boys to read. I will, of course, acknowledge you as the author, and refer to the name of the website. Kind regards.

I’m happy to have been some help!

Ms Davidson

I also found this really helpful and shared with my class.

Really helpful and understandable thankyou x

I’ve got an upcoming exam and these points are amazing! I hope you do not mind me taking some revision notes from this amazing essay

That’s what its here for! Revise away!

just like the book

Thank you so much for your insightful essay. My students will appreciate alternative points of view which you have laid out so clearly. Thank you and I will acknowledge your essay in my discussions of the novel.

Glad it was helpful!

Rahhhhh this is mad as a student I was reading this to aid with revision and this was absolutely amazing I never knew setting was so important thanks

Happy to help!

Incredibly helpful! Thank you!

i needed to write a book report, and was looking at examples. this one was by far the most helpful! thanks!

Glad it helped!

Pretty lit 🔥🔥🔥

Are you Ruth Davidson, the Scottish politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from 2011 to 2019, and has served as Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Edinburgh Central since 2016?

If I was that would have been extremely impressive to be moonlighting as an English teacher! We simply share a last name that is popular in Britain.

Thank you so much, your points are fantastic, they helped me a lot. Best regards

You’re welcome!

Cheers my g

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Duality in “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”

Analysis of Jekyll and Hyde Duality in Stevenson's Novel

• Categories: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Words: 2426 |

13 min read

Published: Jul 17, 2018

Words: 2426 | Pages: 5 | 13 min read

• Edley, N., & Wetherell, M. (2001). Jekyll and Hyde: Men's constructions of feminism and feminists. Feminism & Psychology, 11(4), 439-457. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959353501011004002)
• Doane, J., & Hodges, D. (1989, October). Demonic Disturbances of Sexual Identity: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr/s Hyde. In NOVEL: a Forum on Fiction (Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 63-74). Duke University Press.(https://www.jstor.org/stable/1345579)
• Rose, B. A. (1996). Jekyll and Hyde Adapted: Dramatizations of Cultural Anxiety (No. 66). Greenwood Publishing Group. (https://www.worldcat.org/title/jekyll-and-hyde-adapted-dramatizations-of-cultural-anxiety/oclc/32921958)
• Becchio, C., Sartori, L., Bulgheroni, M., & Castiello, U. (2008). The case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: a kinematic study on social intention. Consciousness and cognition, 17(3), 557-564. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810007000207)
• Lacey, N. (2010). Psychologising Jekyll, demonising Hyde: The strange case of criminal responsibility. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 4, 109-133. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11572-010-9091-8)

Should follow an “upside down” triangle format, meaning, the writer should start off broad and introduce the text and author or topic being discussed, and then get more specific to the thesis statement.

Cornerstone of the essay, presenting the central argument that will be elaborated upon and supported with evidence and analysis throughout the rest of the paper.

The topic sentence serves as the main point or focus of a paragraph in an essay, summarizing the key idea that will be discussed in that paragraph.

The body of each paragraph builds an argument in support of the topic sentence, citing information from sources as evidence.

After each piece of evidence is provided, the author should explain HOW and WHY the evidence supports the claim.

Should follow a right side up triangle format, meaning, specifics should be mentioned first such as restating the thesis, and then get more broad about the topic at hand. Lastly, leave the reader with something to think about and ponder once they are done reading.

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Jekyll and Hyde essay plan

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

11 December 2011

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