Context: Life in Victorian Britain

Victorian London

Foggy streets: Symbolic of the hidden secrets and duality of human nature.
- “A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven…“ Stevenson uses pathetic fallacy to imply danger and fear.
Jekyll’s House: Its well-kept, comfortable side is a metaphor for Jekyll’s respectable persona, whereas the sinister, crumbling laboratory reflects Hyde’s destructive nature.
- “A certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable…“ represents Jekyll’s dark, hidden secrets.

Victorian society’s struggle between Rationality and Spirituality: This is reflected in Jekyll’s scientific experiments leading to Hyde, a creature embodying pure evil.
- “man is not truly one, but truly two” strengthens the theme of duality.
Repression: Victorian society had strict moral codes, and those who deviated were shunned or feared.
- “I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked…“ represents Jekyll’s realization of his hidden evil side.

Jekyll’s first transformation: The struggle and horror Jekyll experiences symbolize inner unrest and conflict.
- “The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea…“ emphasizes the painful nature of the transformation.
Hyde’s dominance: As Jekyll continues to indulge in his transformation, Hyde’s influence only grows stronger.
- “my devil had been long caged, he came out roaring” indicates that Hyde is no longer under Jekyll’s control.

Jekyll and Hyde: Represent the public vs private self. Respectable Jekyll succumbs to his darker desires represented by Hyde.
- “All human beings… are commingled out of good and evil.” signifies everyone has a dual nature, whether seen or not.
Contrasting image: Jekyll’s physical appearance as a tall, smooth-faced man of fifty contrasts with Hyde’s ‘displeasing smile’ and ‘decidedly negative light’, again showing the disparity between the two personalities.
- “a hearty, healthy dapper, red-faced gentleman…with every mark of capacity and kindness” is used to describe the well-respected Jekyll, whilst Hyde is described as “pale and dwarfish, giving an impression of deformity without any namable malformation.”