1. The document provides context about Charlotte Bronte's poem "Parting" and discusses two portraits of her with different facial features. 2. It then analyzes John Singer Sargent's portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife, noting Stevenson's comments on how eccentric it looked. 3. The final paragraphs summarize the plot of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", including the dual identity of the characters, the mystery introduced early on, and how the solution is not revealed until near the end.

1. ELIT 46C: Class 7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yI8HLZJETA
“Parting” by Charlotte Bronte
First published in The Poems of Currer, Ellis, and
Acton Bell
LEFT: Charlotte with her square face and
concave nose in Branwell's 'Pillar
Portrait'
RIGHT: Charlotte with an oval face and
convex nose in George Richmond's
portrait

4. John Singer
Sargent, “Robert
Louis Stevenson
and His Wife”
(1885)
RLS on the portrait:
“too eccentric to be
exhibited. I am at one
extreme corner; my wife, in
this wild dress, and looking
like a ghost, is at the
extreme other end… all this
is touched in lovely, with
that witty touch of
Sargent’s; but of course, it
looks dam [sic] queer as a
whole.”

5. Setting
The story is set in 1870s, London. The city, the buildings,
and the people (servants, working-class and educated) are all
historically consistent.
The descriptions suggest the author may have walked
streets like these, with foot traffic at any and all hours as
people of nearly class go about their lives. Houses and buildings
like those he describes are certainly true to the time.
The fantasy element in the story, the nature of Dr. Jekyll's
research with mineral salts, is actually historically consistent, as
the science of pharmacology was expanding at that time.

6. The Plot
Robert Louis Stevenson said that the plot of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde came to him in a nightmare; when he woke, he wrote the first
draft in three days.
Stevenson introduces the mystery of the evil Mr. Edward Hyde early in the
novel, but he does not provide a solution to the mystery until the very end.
The reader’s first encounter with Hyde is second hand, via a story told to
Gabriel John Utterson, a lawyer friend of Dr. Henry Jekyll, by Richard
Enfield, who saw Hyde trample a child.
Utterson begins to investigate because Jekyll recently has changed his will
to leave all of his money to Hyde. He fears that Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll
and may be planning to murder him.

7. Point ofView
 The story is told from several perspectives. It opens
in the third person, with the focus largely on the
perceptions of Mr. Utterson.
 There are several important letters that help to reveal
the horrible truth about Mr. Hyde, one of great
importance by Dr. Lanyon.
 The last thirty or so pages are Jekyll's “Full Statement
of the Case.” This way, the author manages to
conceal the dual identity of Jekyll and Hyde from the
reader until near the end of the plot.

8. Historical Context
Benthamism: a philosophy of Jeremy Bentham
Benthamism (utilitarianism) became an important ideology in Victorian society. The
central philosophy was the belief in "the greatest happiness for the greatest number”:
that is, self-interest should be one's primary concern and that happiness could be
attained by avoiding pain and seeking pleasure.
Evangelicalism
Another important movement in the Victorian Age was Evangelicalism, a form of
Protestant reverence. It focused on the day-to-day lives and the salvation of its
adherents. Evangelicalism set strict rules of conduct for its practitioners so that they
might find atonement for their sins.
London at the End of the Nineteenth Century
Michael Sadler describes London in the latter half of the nineteenth century in
his Forlorn Sunset (1947):
London in the early sixties was still three parts jungle. Except for the
residential and shopping areas [. . .] hardly a district was really "public" in the
sense that ordinary folk went to and fro ... There was no knowing what kind
of a queer patch you might strike, in what blind alley you might find yourself,
to what embarrassment, insult, or even molestation you might be exposed.

9. Social
Concerns
 It is difficult for 21st Century readers, familiar with the
Jekyll/Hyde dual identity, to understand the shock of those
in Stevenson's time who had no notion of the
phenomenon. They believed, until near the end of the
story, that there are really two different people involved in
the various acts of Jekyll/Hyde.
 That the main characters are all gentlemen (with the
exception of Jekyll's servant Poole), is significant. This
distinction makes it possible for Hyde, who dresses well
and who is economically solvent, to be as independent and
free in his actions as he is.

10. Jekyll and Hyde as a gothicnovel
Helene Moglen has argued that the Gothic as a genre is about
the relation of Self and Other:
--specifically about fear of and desire for the Other.
--doubling as a key theme
How do we see this
Self/Other dynamic at work in
novels or stories we have read
so far?

11. Whoisyourfavoritefemale
characterinJekyll&Hyde?

12. a young girl trampled by Mr. Hyde.
a few of her indignant female relatives
the maid who witnessed Jekyll’s murder of Carew
Hyde’s Soho landlady
the cook and maids in Jekyll’s household
the woman who walks up to Hyde offering him “a box
of lights”

13. • Male homosociality: social relationships between men.
• The London that we see in this novel is an almost entirely male
world, and all of the affection that exists in it is affection between
men.
“[Utterson’s] friends were those of his own blood or those
whom he had known the longest [...]. Hence, no doubt, the
bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant
kinsman, the well-known man about town. It was a nut to
crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or
what subject they could find in common. It was reported by
those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that
they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with
obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For all that, the
two men put the greatest store by these excursions,
counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set
aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of
business, that they might enjoy them unaccompanied” (para
2).

14. Andrew Lang: Robert Louis Stevenson “looked ... more like a lass than a lad.
...Mr. Stevenson possessed, more than any other man I ever met, the power
of making other men fall in love with him. I mean that he excited a passionate
admiration and affection, so much so that I verily believe some men were
jealous of other men's place in his liking.”
John Addington Symonds, one of the most “out” Victorian homosexuals,
named Stevenson on a list of men who "have been, all of them, more or less
sealed of the tribe of W[alt] W[hitman]."
RLS wrote of his own marriage
that he had become “as limp
as a lady’s novel… the embers
of the once gay R.L.S.”

15. • “Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures” (Henry
Jekyll: “Full Statement”)
But do other people know? (Or think they know?)
• “Black mail, I suppose; an honest man paying through the
nose for some of the capers of his youth. Black Mail House is
what I call that place with the door, in consequence. […] No,
sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer
Street, the less I ask” (Enfield “Story of the Door”).
So what does Enfield think is going on here?

16. •In this period, the idea of “blackmail”
would have carried a strong
connotation of male-male sexual
relations.
•One of the regular uses of blackmail
was to threaten to expose gay men or
prosecute them for sodomy.
•J&H was published the year after
Parliament passed the Labouchere
Amendment, which criminalized
“gross indecency” (not just sodomy)
between men. It was nicknamed “the
blackmailer’s charter” because it
increased the ways in which gay men
could be blackmailed.
• The Norton doesn’t encourage you
to read this word with its
connotations of sexual deviancy—
especially homosexuality.
• But the Oxford English Dictionary
notes that “queer” was being used
to refer to homosexual men in the
late 19C.
• And even if it wasn’t in
widespread use, it’s likely
that this valence of the
word “queer” would have
been clear to gay men
(and RLS certainly knew
enough of them).

17. Enfield? Why does Stevenson choose to start his novella with
Utterson and Enfield's conversation about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Utterson? What does he see in his insomniac visions?
but now [Utterson’s] imagination also was [. . .] enslaved; and as he lay
and tossed in the gross darkness of the night and the curtained room [. .
. ] he would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep,
dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room
would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper
recalled, and lo! there would stand by his side a figure to whom power
was given, and even at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding.
(Search for Mr. Hyde)
The servants?
Poole: “There was something queer about that gentleman”
(“The Last Night

19. Also, beginnings of homophobic
inquisition and persecution.
• 1870-71: arrest (and subsequent trial) of
Ernest “Stella” Boulton and Frederick
“Fanny” Park
• charged with outrage to public
morals and sodomy
• juridical inspection of the anus to
determine if they were sodomites.
• 1885: Labouchere Amendment
criminalizes “gross indecency”
• 1890:Cleveland Street brothel (gay
brothel) raided. Scandal includes
member of the royal family.
• 1895: OscarWilde trial
This period is also the
development of scientific
approaches to sexuality—
especially homosexuality.
• 1869: the word
“homosexual” is first coined (in
German).
• 1870 (according to Foucault):
recognition of a person or an
identity, rather than a practice.
• 1886: Krafft-Ebing
popularizes the terms
“homosexual” (and
“heterosexual”).

21. Consider the Discussion Questions and your QHQs

22. 1. What was Dr. Henry Jekyll trying to discover? Is there any justification at
all for Jekyll's undertaking the daring experiment?
2. What societal and behavioral expectations contribute to Jekyll's original
search? What expectations make it harder for his friends to determine
what is happening?
3. Several prominent readers, Henry James, for example,
found the device of the drugs confounding and
somewhat difficult to accept. Does this aspect of the
plot seem unacceptable? Is there another way in which
Stevenson could have solved the problem of
transformation?
4. Although Hyde actually commits only one murder, does
the author successfully create a sense of pervasive evil
in this character?

23. 5. What do we learn of Poole, and the other servants?
What role do they play in the story, beyond the
superficial one of keeping house for Dr. Jekyll? Why
do the servants wait eight days before Poole brings
Mr. Utterson to see what has become of Dr. Jekyll?
6. What kind of a man is Mr. Utterson? What does he
learn about himself, as he learns more about Jekyll
and Hyde?
7. Apart from the transformation itself, clearly in the
vein of science fiction, is there any other aspect of
the narrative that seems to strain credulity? For
example, are the behaviors of all the characters
realistic?
8. Is the tone of the story maintained satisfactorily all
the way through the text? Could more have been
done to intensify it?

24. 1. Is Utterson truly a reliable narrator?
2. Q: After the murder occurred, the witnesses all agreed that “… [Mr. Hyde]
was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity…” Why are the evil
aspects in his appearance the only thing that witnesses can remember of
Mr. Hyde?
3. Q: Why does the potion lose its efficacy over time?
4. Q: If that is the case and it is a psychological/mental change, why is there a
physical description of their differences?
5. Q: What happens after the letter? Why does it just end there? Where is
Utterson's response/reaction?
6. Q: How does the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-- and Utterson's
investigations into it-- reflect Victorian views on the public and private
spheres of life?
7. Q: At the end, was Hyde actually a being that was completely separate in
his nature; was Hyde completely devoid of Jekyll?