Jekyll and Hyde Quotes Flashcards
(14 cards)
I concealed my pleasures. I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life
concealed is the show of self-control and respectability in Victorian England
concealed and duplicity show a semantic field of deceit
Duplicity means both deceitful and split identity
Plunged in Shame
Dreadful shipwreck
Christian morality leaves him with a heavy, drowning quality
metaphor of Shipwreck shows a loss of identity due to the restriction of ideology
Outstrip me on the same lines
‘Angel’ instead of a ‘fiend’
Αlter ego may be better than Hyde when research is furthered
Wants to be remembered for good, but needs Utterson to keep the legacy- subtly attacking Christian society for hindering that scientific progress (Utterson is Christian and Christians don’t like the idea of this recreation of humans)
JOHN HUNTER
I came to myself as if out of a great sickness
myself- shows he is still considering Hyde as himself
Hyde is a ‘cure’ to Jekyll’s ‘elderly and discontented’ nature
Seeking pleasure is a more natural state
Christian society has turned this state into sinfulness
Not an innocent freedom of the soul
Soul is free from fear of sin
Innocent freedom is an oxymoron- innocence implies submission to moral boundaries, while freedom implies the ability to indulge in immoral acts without shame.
Freedom is therefore here the release from christian society. The innocence spoken about is what happens when you adhere to a Christian society’s rules, something which has already been seen to be something Stevenson disliked
Natural and human
More natural than Jekyll
Context of original Sin- sinfulness is natural due to this original sin which we all have- pursuing your pleasures is not necessarily an evil thing
Elderly and discontented
Younger, lighter, happier in my body
Liberty, the comparative youth, the light step, leaping impulses and secret pleasures
Jekyll shows a resentment of his good self, which proves his downfall was already in motion. He actively hates the man he is expected to be
Comparative asyndetic tricolon creates a euphoric rhythm
Volitional self-liberation to become Hyde from Jekyll in order to experience this ‘better’ existence
Paratactic sentence structure shows the many pros of being Hyde, and lists them (short, simple sentences without conjunctions)
Love of life vs lack of life
Dichotomy of Jekyll’s life and Hyde’s is growing ever-present. While his ‘full statement of the case’ is at best half the story, little slips of admiration still occur in his depiction of Hyde as an evil character
Suicide would be an act of courage
His courage to ‘release himself’
Suicide is a sin in christianity, so it being ‘courageous’ actively goes against Christian teaching
Describing death as a release shows that Jekyll does not believe in hell, because if he did, he couldn’t describe the idea of committing suicide as being a release
The murder of Carew was a ‘tragic folly’
Jekyll meaning I kill- Stevenson actually meant for the je to be pronounced like the french, but it was mispronounced in the first film edition
‘Folly’ here shows that it was the lack of good planning for the murder which was the mistake, not the actual sin
I kill shows that maybe it was Jekyll who was killing rather than Hyde
With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow
Unscientific balderdash
Describes the murder of Carew in a sexual nature, which hints to this motive for his murder
Lanyon didn’t like Jekyll’s experiments, and so Jekyll killed him by turning into himself to prove they worked
(Indulges in pleasures) in my own person
After the murder of Carew, he cannot turn back into Hyde as he may be seen
Accepting himself for who he is, Jekyll pleasures himself in his own persona
Only after this (in fact in the paragraph thereafter) does he actually lose control of Hyde
Friend and benefactor
In case of Dr Jekyll’s absence, ‘Edward Hyde should step into Henry Jekyll’s shows without further delay’
Benefactor shows that Hyde does good for Jekyll
Before Jekyll could even turn into Hyde, Jekyll has already killed himself off to allow Hyde to take over
Step into the shoes suggests he wants Hyde to become Jekyll
Without further delay- in a rush for this to happen
Context of Stevenson
A few months after writing the novel, Stevenson rejected Jekyll’s society by moving to Samoa, just like Jekyll escapes by turning to Hyde
No Christian view- Samoa is tribal; Stevenson has moved here to become primitive once more. Entirely comfortable living with these people.
