Ch 4 Quotes Flashcards
“a fog rolled over the city…the early part of the night was cloudless, and…brilliantly lit by the full moon.”
Pathetic Fallacy to build tension before the murder of Carew. Because we know that Jekyll struggles against the temptation to change into Hyde and eventually loses his ability to control the transformation, we can also think about fog as his internal battle against evil. From this perspective,the fog symbolizes Hyde, and Jekyll is the wind and moonlight fighting against it. The moon shines “brilliantly” here suggesting how Jekyll’s outward appearance is admirable and reputable for a man of Victorian Society
”an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition”
Carew is a model of respectability and moral conduct in Victorian Society. His death displays Hyde’s general disregard for conventional authority
“ape like fury”
simile - shows that Hyde is animal-like because he has no control over his emotions, which leads to his violent and animalistic behaviours. This dehumanising image of Hyde as an animal strips him of his humanity and highlights his lack of remorse. Because Carew has done nothing to deserve his murder, Hyde’s fury seems to be wild and arbitrary, which could suggest his attack is maliciously spontaneous. However, his attack could be driven by the fury he feels towards society who so often restricts him from just doing what he wants.The reference to the ‘ape’ implies there is something primitive about the violence and evil that Hyde exhibits, suggesting it is a natural part of human nature that is controlled, but not destroyed, by civilisation. Darwin’s theory of evolution led many Victorians to fear the idea of ‘devolution’, the idea that humans could devolve into a more primitive state without the influence of civilisation. Stevenson may be playing on these fears to make Hyde seem a more terrifying character. He may also be implying that all humans have inherited some level of savagery from the creatures we evolved from.
“a haunting sense of unexpressed deformity.”
Society is haunted by our unexplainable prospects of behaving maliciously,
