THE PLOT

STRUCTURE:

Paragraph 1:

Analyse the most important moment in the extract. Use a short quotation and zoom in on individual words.

Paragraph 2:

Stay with the extract but explore a second method: contrast, imagery, setting, narrative viewpoint or structure

Paragraph 3:

Link the same idea to elsewhere in the novella. Show that the printed extract is a part of a bigger pattern.

Paragraph 4:

Push Stevenson’s wider message and weave in relevant context: reputation, repression, science, religion, London, Gothic fear.

WHAT HAPPENS IN EACH CHAPTER:

  1. Enfield tells Utterson about a disturbing night in which Hyde trampled a child. Introduces Hyde immediately as a mysterious antagonist and the main villain of the novella. Links to violence and secrecy and good and evil.

“Trampled calmly over the child’s body”

“A damned juggernaut”

  1. Utterson reads Jekyll’s will, tracks Hyde, and begins to fear that Jekyll is in danger, trapped by Hyde in a difficult situation. Starts the mystery structure and begins to push along the narrative further.

“If he be Mr Hyde…I shall be Mr Seek.”

  1. Jekyll reassures Utterson but seems uneasy. He insists he can end his connection to Hyde whenever he chooses. Creates dramatic irony; Jekyll sounds in control, but he is not.

“The moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr Hyde”

  1. A maid witnesses Hyde murdering Sir Danvers Carew with a terrifying violence. Hyde becomes a wanted man and everyone is informed of his danger. His violence moves from private cruelty to public horror.

“With ape-like fury”

Link to first chapter when Enfield threatened to make Hyde’s name ‘“stink from one end of London to the other.”

  1. Jekyll appears changed after the murder and produces a letter from Hyde. Utterson and Guest suspect it is forged and start to doubt Jekyll. The mystery depends and Jekyll is becoming closer and closer related to Mr Hyde.

“Henry Jekyll forge for a murderer!”

  1. Lanyon falls mysteriously ill. Jekyll shuts himself away, briefly reappears, and then disappears again. Lanyon becomes evidence that the truth is too much for reason.

“I wish to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll.”

  1. Utterson and Enfield see Jekyll at the window. His face suddenly changes in terror and the window is slammed shut. A brief but unforgettable glimpse of Jekyll’s loss of control.

“The smile was struck out of his face.

  1. Poole leads Utterson to Jekyll’s house; the servants are terrified. The cabinet door is broken and Hyde is found dead in the lab in Jekyll’s clothes. The Gothic climax tuns suspicion into certainty.

“That thing was not my master”

  1. Lanyon explains how Hyde came to his house for chemicals and transformed into Jekyll before his eyes. The impossible transformation troubles Lanyon so much he dies.

“My life is shaken to its roots.”

  1. Jekyll confesses that he created Hyde to split good from evil within himself, but Hyde gradually took over. Stevenson finally reveals the novella’s central truth about human nature.

“Man is not truly one, but truly two”

“In the agonising womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling”