How is Dr Jekyll presented in Jekyll and Hyde?

How does Jekyll develop across the novella?

Jekyll is the most talked-about character in the novella (a short novel), yet for most of it we barely hear from him. The story is told mainly through his friend Utterson, a lawyer, and Jekyll only tells his own side in the final chapter. That structure keeps his secret from the reader, just as he keeps it from his friends.

In Chapter 1 he is a name nobody will say: Enfield calls the man who signed Hyde's cheque "the very pink of the proprieties", meaning a model of good behaviour. In Chapter 2 we learn that his will leaves everything to Hyde. In Chapter 3 he is charming but tense when Hyde is mentioned, and in Chapter 5, after the murder of Sir Danvers Carew, he sits close to the fire looking desperately ill. Chapter 6 gives him a little over two good months of charity and religion before he shuts himself away. By Chapter 8 he has vanished, and only Hyde's body is found.

Chapter 9 is Dr Lanyon's written account of watching Hyde drink a potion and turn into Jekyll. Chapter 10 is Jekyll's own statement, and it changes how we read everything before it. He admits he lived a double life long before the potion existed. The book ends with his words and never returns to Utterson, so the last voice we hear belongs to a man about to lose himself for good.

Which moments show Jekyll most clearly?

Chapter 3, the dinner party. Jekyll is "a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps". The description praises him, then slips in "slyish" and softens it at once with "perhaps". The word "smooth-faced" suggests a polished surface. Stevenson hints that something is hidden behind the respectable face, then lets the hint pass, just as Jekyll's friends do.

Chapter 3, the promise. Jekyll tells Utterson, "the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde." On a second reading this is dramatic irony (when the reader knows more than the character): by the end the changes happen without the potion, and Jekyll cannot stop them. His confidence that he is in control is exactly what destroys him.

Chapter 5, after the murder. Jekyll says he does not care what becomes of Hyde, adding, "I was thinking of my own character, which this hateful business has rather exposed." Character here means reputation. A man has been beaten to death, and Jekyll's first worry is his good name. Utterson is "surprised at his friend's selfishness", and so are we.

Chapter 10, the confession. Jekyll explains, "I concealed my pleasures", and says he "stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life". Duplicity means deceit as well as doubleness, so the word gives him away: the potion did not create his divided life, it made it easier. Most tellingly, when he first sees Hyde in the mirror he feels "a leap of welcome" and admits, "This, too, was myself."

What context matters for Jekyll?

Context is AO3, the assessment objective for linking a text to the time it was written. The novella was published in 1886, and these ideas help explain Jekyll.

Victorian respectability. A gentleman's reputation mattered enormously, and a doctor's career depended on his good name. Respectable men were expected to appear self-controlled and moral at all times. Jekyll describes his "imperious desire to carry my head high", and that pressure is why he hides his pleasures instead of either giving them up or living openly.

Science and evolution. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) argued that humans had evolved from earlier animal ancestors, which unsettled many Victorians' sense of what a person was. Jekyll is a scientist who goes beyond accepted limits: his old friend Lanyon dismisses his work as "unscientific balderdash". Hyde's ape-like violence gives the experiment a frightening edge, because it seems to release something older and more animal.

The divided city. Jekyll's house has two faces. The front, on a square, wears "a great air of wealth and comfort"; the back, where his laboratory opens onto a shabby side street, is the door Hyde uses. Victorian London kept wealthy and poor districts close together, and Jekyll's house puts that divide under one roof.

What might an exam question ask about Jekyll?

If you sit AQA, Jekyll and Hyde is on Paper 1, Section B. You answer one question, first on a printed extract and then on the novel as a whole. It is worth 30 marks, and this section has no marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. If you sit a different board, check how your paper sets the novel.

Two focuses worth practising: how Stevenson presents Jekyll as a man with something to hide, starting with the dinner in Chapter 3; and how Stevenson presents Jekyll's feelings about Hyde, and how they change.

A model paragraph on the first focus:

Stevenson presents Jekyll's respectability as a mask he has worn for years. In his confession he admits "I concealed my pleasures" long before the potion existed, so Hyde is the result of a double life rather than its cause. The phrase "a profound duplicity of life" gives him away: "duplicity" means deceit as well as doubleness, suggesting his real fault is hiding rather than wanting. Even after Carew's murder he worries about "my own character", meaning his reputation. A Victorian reader would recognise the type, a gentleman who guards his good name more carefully than his conscience.

Key quotations to learn

Six quotations that trace Jekyll from respected host to hidden prisoner:

• "with something of a slyish cast perhaps" (Chapter 3): a hint of slyness, softened at once.
• "the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde" (Chapter 3): confidence that proves false.
• "I was thinking of my own character" (Chapter 5): reputation put before a murdered man.
• "If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also" (Chapter 6): guilt, mixed with self-pity.
• "a profound duplicity of life" (Chapter 10): he lived double before Hyde existed.
• "This, too, was myself." (Chapter 10): the admission that Hyde is part of him.