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Analysing Stevenson's use of language is essential for achieving top marks — AO2 (analysing language, form, and structure) is the most heavily weighted Assessment Objective. This lesson examines the key language techniques and imagery patterns in Jekyll and Hyde.
One of the most important imagery patterns in the novella is the animalistic language used to describe Hyde.
| Quote | Chapter | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| "with ape-like fury" (4) | 4 | Directly links Hyde to primates — Darwinian regression |
| "like a monkey" (8) | 8 | Hyde's movements are animalistic, subhuman |
| "it cried out like a rat" (8) | 8 | Hyde reduced to vermin — the lowest form of animal |
| "hissing" (8) | 8 | Serpent imagery — connects to Satan and the Fall |
| "troglodytic" (2) | 2 | Literally "cave-dwelling" — a primitive, pre-civilised being |
| "hardly human ... something troglodytic" (2) | 2 | Hyde exists on the boundary between human and animal |
The animal imagery serves several functions:
Examiner's tip: When analysing animal imagery, always connect it to Victorian context. For example: "Stevenson's description of Hyde's 'ape-like fury' directly engages with post-Darwinian anxieties about degeneration — the fear that civilised man could regress to a bestial state. The adjective 'ape-like' positions Hyde as an atavistic throwback, embodying the primitive self that Victorian respectability sought to suppress."
Stevenson creates a pervasive Gothic atmosphere through his descriptions of London.
Fog is one of the novella's most powerful symbols:
"a great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven ... the fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city" (4)
| Element | Symbolism |
|---|---|
| Fog | Obscures truth — mirrors the secrecy and concealment |
| "chocolate-coloured pall" | Death imagery ("pall" = funeral cloth) — the city is dying |
| "drowned city" | London is suffocating under its own fog / hypocrisy |
| Shifting visibility | Truth appears and disappears like the fog |
The novella operates on a darkness/light binary:
| Light | Darkness |
|---|---|
| Respectability, reason, order | Evil, secrecy, the unconscious |
| Jekyll's front door (open, lit) | Hyde's door (dark, sinister by-street) |
| Daytime scenes (Chapter 3) | Night scenes (Chapters 1, 4, 8) |
| Lanyon's drawing room | Jekyll's locked laboratory |
Hyde operates almost exclusively at night — he tramples the child at 3 a.m., murders Carew in the evening, and Poole describes hearing him prowling after dark.
Examiner's tip: The darkness is not just atmospheric — it is thematic. When Stevenson plunges a scene into darkness or fog, he is signalling that truth is being obscured and that the characters are entering morally dangerous territory.
One of Stevenson's most distinctive techniques is describing Hyde through what cannot be described:
| Quote | Chapter | Technique |
|---|---|---|
| "something displeasing, something downright detestable" (1) | 1 | Repetition of "something" — vagueness |
| "I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why" (1) | 1 | Contradiction — strong feeling, no explanation |
| "gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation" (2) | 2 | Paradox — deformed yet not specifically so |
| "not all of these together could explain the ... disgust, loathing and fear" (2) | 2 | Accumulation of negatives |
| "He is not easy to describe" (1) | 1 | Direct statement of indescribability |
Pathetic fallacy (when the natural world reflects human emotions or events) is used throughout:
| Scene | Weather / atmosphere | What it reflects |
|---|---|---|
| Hyde tramples the child | 3 a.m., dark, empty streets | Moral darkness, absence of civilised society |
| Carew's murder | Fog, moonlight, maid falls unconscious | Obscured truth, violence hidden from view |
| Utterson's nightmares | "curtained room" imagery | The locked, dark spaces of the unconscious |
| The last night (Ch 8) | "wild, cold" night, wind | Nature itself is in turmoil |
The two doors of Jekyll's house are one of the novella's central symbols:
| Feature | Jekyll's front door | Hyde's back door |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Respectable square | Sinister by-street |
| Appearance | Grand, welcoming | "blistered and distained", no knocker |
| Who uses it | Jekyll, respectable visitors | Hyde |
| Symbolism | The public, respectable self | The hidden, shameful self |
The fact that both doors lead to the same building is the key: Jekyll and Hyde inhabit the same body, just as respectability and vice inhabit the same Victorian society.
| Technique | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Simile | "like a monkey" (8) | Direct comparison to animals — dehumanises |
| Metaphor | "my devil had been long caged" (10) | Evil as a trapped animal — repression imagery |
| Personification | "the fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city" (4) | Makes the fog seem alive, oppressive |
| Biblical allusion | "really like Satan" (2) | Links Hyde to absolute, biblical evil |
| Sibilance | "hissing" (8) | Snake-like sound — sinister, serpentine |
| Accumulation | "disgust, loathing and fear" (2) | Piling up of emotions — overwhelming effect |
| Paradox | "deformity without any nameable malformation" (2) | Contradictory — mirrors the impossibility of Hyde |
| Euphemism | "I concealed my pleasures" (10) | Jekyll cannot name his desires — even in confession |
| Dramatic irony | Jekyll: "I can be rid of Mr Hyde" (3) | The reader knows/suspects this is wrong |
| Juxtaposition | "aged and beautiful gentleman" vs "ape-like fury" (4) | Stark contrast between innocence and savagery |
"with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim underfoot and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered" (4)
| Word/phrase | Analysis |
|---|---|
| "ape-like" | Animalistic — degeneration, Darwin, the beast within |
| "fury" | Uncontrolled, savage emotion — the opposite of Victorian restraint |
| "trampling" | Echoes the child-trampling in Ch 1 — escalation of violence |
| "hailing down" | Suggests a storm — pathetic fallacy, nature unleashed |
| "storm of blows" | Metaphor — violence as natural disaster, beyond human control |
| "bones were audibly shattered" | Visceral, physical detail — forces the reader to hear the horror |
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