How is Utterson presented in Jekyll and Hyde?

How does Utterson develop across the novella?

Utterson is our guide. The novella (a short novel) is told in the third person, but mostly from his point of view, so we learn things when he does. That turns him into a kind of detective, and his blind spots become ours.

In Chapter 1 he walks with his distant relative Enfield and hears the story of the door. In Chapter 2 he rereads Jekyll's strange will and waits by the door until he meets Hyde. Chapter 3 has him pressing Jekyll, who makes him promise to help Hyde if anything happens. In Chapter 4 he identifies Carew's body and leads the police to Hyde's rooms. Chapter 5 is his crisis: his clerk, Mr Guest, notices that Hyde's handwriting matches Jekyll's, and Utterson locks the evidence away.

After that he mostly waits. The dying Lanyon leaves him a sealed envelope, marked not to be opened until Jekyll's death or disappearance, and he obeys. In Chapter 8 he and Poole, Jekyll's butler, break down the door of Jekyll's room and find Hyde dead. The last two chapters are documents he reads, and the book never shows his reaction. We are left, like him, alone with the truth.

Which moments show Utterson most clearly?

Chapter 1, the first description. Utterson is "lean, long, dusty, dreary", and yet "somehow lovable". The alliteration (repeated opening sounds) of the l and d words makes him sound dull and dry, then "yet" turns the sentence: he is not exciting, but there is warmth underneath. He also says "I let my brother go to the devil in his own way", a nod to Cain in the Bible, who asked whether he was his brother's keeper. Utterson does not judge people, which makes him a loyal friend and a reluctant investigator.

Chapter 2, the pun. "If he be Mr. Hyde," Utterson thinks, "I shall be Mr. Seek." The pun (a play on words) turns the name Hyde into a game of hide-and-seek, and marks the moment Utterson becomes a detective. There is a little humour in it, which makes his later horror land harder.

Chapter 5, the forgery. When he realises that the letter signed by Hyde is in Jekyll's handwriting, Utterson thinks "Henry Jekyll forge for a murderer!" and his "blood ran cold in his veins". Yet he locks the note in his safe instead of taking it to the police. He is shocked, but his first instinct is still to protect his friend's name.

Chapter 8, the last night. Even beside Hyde's body, Utterson advises Poole to say nothing about Jekyll's papers: "If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save his credit." Credit here means reputation. To the very end, Utterson protects appearances.

What context matters for Utterson?

Context belongs to AO3, the assessment objective about the world a text comes from. The novella was published in 1886, and Utterson is a portrait of the respectable Victorian professional man.

Victorian respectability. For a gentleman, reputation was everything, and a scandal could ruin a man's career and his family's name. Men of Utterson's class were expected to be discreet, which meant not asking awkward questions and not repeating what they knew. Utterson is admirable by those standards, and Stevenson uses him to show where they lead: to silence around a friend who needs help, or needs stopping. He is "a lover of the sane and customary sides of life", uneasy with anything strange.

The divided city. Utterson moves between two Londons. He visits Lanyon in Cavendish Square, "that citadel of medicine", but his search also takes him to Soho, which in the fog seems "like a district of some city in a nightmare". Victorian London kept great wealth and deep poverty close together, and Utterson's journeys show how near the respectable world was to the one it preferred not to see.

The first readers. In 1886 nobody knew the twist. Because the story follows Utterson, Victorian readers shared his guesses about blackmail and illness, and his shock at the end. Today "Jekyll and Hyde" is an everyday phrase, so it helps to remember that Stevenson built the book as a mystery.

What might an exam question ask about Utterson?

On AQA's Paper 1, Section B, you answer one question on your 19th-century novel: first a printed extract, then the novel as a whole, for 30 marks. There are no marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar in this section. Because Utterson is the book's point of view, he is also useful evidence in questions about secrecy or friendship.

Try planning answers to these two focuses: how Stevenson presents Utterson as a determined investigator, starting with his first meeting with Hyde in Chapter 2; and how Stevenson uses Utterson to present the values of respectable Victorian men.

A model paragraph on the second focus:

Stevenson uses Utterson to show that respectability can shelter wrongdoing as well as good manners. In the first chapter Enfield proposes "a bargain never to refer to this again", and Utterson agrees at once, treating silence as a gentleman's duty. The habit hardens as the stakes rise. When Guest shows him that Jekyll's handwriting matches Hyde's, Utterson locks the note in his safe rather than going to the police. Even in Chapter 8, beside Hyde's body, his instinct is to "save his credit". Utterson is loyal and decent, but his loyalty is to reputation as much as truth, and that silence is exactly what let Jekyll hide.

Key quotations to learn

Six quotations that show Utterson's character and the values he stands for:

• "lean, long, dusty, dreary" (Chapter 1): alliteration that makes him sound dull and dry.
• "I let my brother go to the devil in his own way" (Chapter 1): he does not judge or interfere.
• "I shall be Mr. Seek" (Chapter 2): the pun that makes him a detective.
• "a lover of the sane and customary sides of life" (Chapter 2): he trusts the ordinary and distrusts the strange.
• "It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it" (the narrator, Chapter 6): honour holds him back, but he still wants to know. To mortify here means to hold down.
• "we may at least save his credit" (Chapter 8): protecting a reputation to the last.