Setting in the novel
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
NB all extracts are taken from the 2002 Penguin Classics edition
Using the following extracts, answer these questions:
1. Where does it appear in the novel?
a. Page number?
b. What has happened just before?
c. What happens just after?
2. Where is it set?
a. Actual place
b. What’s it like
(pleasant/unpleasant/comfortable/dangerous)?
How do we know this?
3. What’s the mood and atmosphere?
a. Weather – pathetic fallacy?
b. Character’s/narrator’s feelings about it?
4. Select language
a. Pick out some examples of language techniques, e.g. adjective, metaphor, simile,
interesting verb, alliteration etc. and explain what effect it has.
b. The extract is too long for your essay – which short chunk might you use, and why?
Chapter 1: Story of the door
‘Well, it was this way, returned Mr Enfield: ‘I was coming home from some place at the
end of the world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through
a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after
street, and all the folks asleep — street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession
and all as empty as a church — till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens
and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman.
Chapter 2: Search for Mr Hyde
That evening, Mr Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre spirits and sat
down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to
sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the clock of
the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would go soberly and
gratefully to bed.
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Setting in the novel
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Chapter 2: Search for Mr Hyde
With that he blew out his candle, put on a great coat and
set forth in the direction of Cavendish Square, that
citadel of medicine, where his friend, the great Dr
Lanyon, had his house and received his crowding patients.
‘If anyone knows, it will be Lanyon,’ he had thought.
The solemn butler knew and welcomed him; he was
subjected to no stage of delay, but ushered direct from
the door to the dining room where Dr Lanyon sat alone
over his wine.
Chapter 2: Search for Mr Hyde
Round the corner from the bystreet, there was a square
of ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part
decayed from their high estate and let in flats and
chambers to all sorts and conditions of men: mapengravers, architects, shady lawyers and the agents of
obscure enterprises. One house, however, second from
the corner, was still occupied entire; an d at the door of
this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort,
though it was now plunged in darkness except for the fanlight, Mr Utterson stopped and knocked.
Chapter 4: The Carew Murder Case
A maidservant living alone in a house not far from the
river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a
fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part
of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid's
window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. It
seems she was romantically given for she sat down upon
her box, which stood immediately under the window, and
fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say, with
streaming tears, when she narrated that experience)
never had she felt more at peace with all men or thought
more kindly of the world.
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Setting in the novel
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Chapter 4: The Carew Murder Case
It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great
chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and
routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr
Utterson beheld a marvellous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would
be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown,
like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be
quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling
wreaths. The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy
ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had
been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the
lawyer's eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of his mind,
besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the companion of his drive,
he was conscious of some touch of that terror of the law and the law's officers, which
may at times assail the most honest.
Chapter 5: Incident of the letter
The doctor had bought the house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon; and his own
tastes being rather chemical than anatomical, had changed the destination of the block
at the bottom of the garden. It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in
that part of his friend's quarters; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with
curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness as he crossed the
theatre, once crowded with eager students and now lying gaunt and silent, the tables
laden with chemical apparatus, the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing
straw, and the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola.
Chapter 7: Incident at the window
‘It was impossible to do the one without the other,’ returned Enfield. ‘And by the way,
what an ass you must have thought me, not to know that this was a back way to Dr
Jekyll's! It was partly your own fault that I found it out, even when I did.
‘So you found it out, did you?’ said Utterson. ‘But if that be so, we may step into the
court and take a look at the windows. To tell you the truth, I am uneasy about poor
Jekyll; and even outside, I feel as if the presence of a friend might do him good.’
The court was very cool and a little damp, and full of premature twilight, although the
sky, high up overhead, was still bright with sunset. The middle one of the three windows
was half way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of
mien, like some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr Jekyll.
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Setting in the novel
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Chapter 8: The Last Night
It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale
moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted
her, and a flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny
texture. The wind made talking difficult, and flecked the
blood into the face. It seemed to have swept the streets
unusually bare of passengers, besides; for Mr Utterson
thought he had never seen that part of London so
deserted. He could have wished it otherwise; never in his
life had he been conscious of so sharp a wish to see and
touch his fellow-creatures; for struggle as he might, there
was borne in upon his mind a crushing anticipation of
calamity. The square, when they got there, was all full of
wind and dust, and the thin trees in the garden were
lashing themselves along the railing. Poole, who had kept
all the way a pace or two ahead, now pulled up in the
middle of the pavement, and in spite of the biting
weather, took off his hat and mopped his brow with a red
pocket-handkerchief.
Chapter 8: The Last Night
The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness that had succeeded, stood
back a little and peered in. There lay the cabinet before their eyes in the quiet
lamplight, a good fire glowing and chattering on the hearth, the kettle singing its thin
strain, a drawer or two open, papers neatly set forth on the business table, and nearer
the fire, the things laid out for tea: the quietest room, you would have said, and, but for
the glazed presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace that night in London.
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Setting in the novel
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Now answer this essay question
Starting with this extract, how does Stevenson make setting significant in the novel?
Write about:
• how Stevenson describes the setting in this extract
• how Stevenson presents settings elsewhere in the novel.
As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little and showed him a
dingy street, a gin palace, a low French eating house, a shop for the retail of penny
numbers and twopenny salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many
women of many different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a morning glass;
and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as brown as umber, and
cut him off from his blackguardly surroundings. This was the home of Henry Jekyll’s
favourite; of a man who was heir to a quarter of a million sterling.
An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face,
smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent. Yes, she said, this was Mr.
Hyde’s, but he was not at home; he had been in that night very late, but had gone away
again in less than an hour; there was nothing strange in that; his habits were very
irregular, and he was often absent; for instance, it was nearly two months since she had
seen him till yesterday.
‘Very well, then, we wish to see his rooms,’ said the lawyer; and when the woman began
to declare it was impossible, ‘I had better tell you who this person is,’ he added. ‘This is
Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard.’
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