Jekyll & Hyde Themes Quotations

Duality

‘The door, which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and

distained.’ (Hyde’s entrance)

‘and at the door of this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort..’ (Jekyll’s door)

‘He was wild when he was young’ (Utterson on Jekyll)

‘yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done.’ (Utterson,)

‘I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life.’ (Jekyll)

‘man’s dual nature..’ (Jekyll)

‘man is not truly one, but truly two.’ (Jekyll)

Hypocrisy

‘I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o’clock of a

black winter morning’ (where could the ‘respectable’ Mr Enfield have been?)

‘I saw that Sawbones turned sick and white with the desire to kill him.’ (a respectable

doctor with murder on his mind at the sight of Hyde)

‘an honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth.’ (Enfield

believes Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll for some misdemeanour in his youth)

‘And the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition.’ (police officer)

‘She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent.’ (old

woman)

‘A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman’s face. ‘Ah!’ said she, ‘he is in trouble!

What has he done?’ (old woman)

‘It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty.’ (Jekyll)

Horror/Terror

‘the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground.’

‘It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut.’

‘one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running.’ (Enfield)

‘he gives a strong feeling of deformity’

‘ape-like fury’ (pg 30)

‘the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway.’

‘Mr Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath.’

‘an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the very blood of the two

gentlemen below.’

‘the hair stood upon my head like quills.’ (Poole)

‘my mind submerged in terror.’ (Lanyon)

‘But the hand…was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor, and thickly shaded with a

swart growth of hair.’

‘terror woke up in my breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals’ (Jekyll)

‘I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow.’

‘I gnashed my teeth upon him with a gust of devilish fury.’

Weather/Setting

‘A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven’

‘The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like

carbuncles.’

‘Regent’s Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with Spring odours.’

‘The dismal quarter of Soho….like a district of some city in a nightmare.’

‘the street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest’

‘the by street was very solitary, and, in spite of the low growl of London from all around,

very silent.’

‘It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her back as

though the wind had tilted her’

Good and evil

‘a really damnable man’

‘fiend’

‘Satan’s signature upon a face’

‘If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.’ (Jekyll)

‘.-a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps.’

(Jekyll)

‘aged and beautiful man’ (Carew)

‘such an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition’ (Carew)

‘particularly small and particularly wicked-looking’

‘I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more

wicked, sold a slave to my original evil..’ (Jekyll)

‘Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.’ (Jekyll)

‘I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend.’ (Jekyll)

‘My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring.’

‘The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll.’

Secrecy/Enclosure

‘the windows are always shut’

‘gross darkness of the night and the curtained room’

‘a door covered with red baize’

‘three dusty windows barred with iron.’

‘the packet slept in the inmost corner of his private safe.’ (Utterson)

‘I concealed my pleasures’ (Jekyll)

Reputation

‘I had been safe of all men's respect’ (Jekyll)

‘I concealed my pleasures’ (Jekyll)

‘a load of genial respectability’ (Jekyll)

‘Sea of liberty’ (Jekyll)

‘if it came to a trial, your name might appear’ (Utterson to Jekyll)

‘the last good influence in the lives of down going men’ (description of Utterson)Enfield's perspective

‘the more it looks like queer street, the less I ask’ (Enfield)

‘Make his name stink from one end of London to the other’ (Enfield about Hyde)