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Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: the characters
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Almost all the main characters are respectable, professional Victorian men. Hyde is everything they are not, or pretend not to be.
Jekyll and Hyde
Dr Jekyll: a wealthy, respected doctor who secretly enjoys pleasures he is ashamed of. He realises that "man is not truly one, but truly two".
Mr Hyde: small, ugly and violent. People feel instant disgust. Utterson describes him as "Something troglodytic". Jekyll calls him "pure evil".
Mr Hyde: small, ugly and violent. People feel instant disgust. Utterson describes him as "Something troglodytic". Jekyll calls him "pure evil".
Utterson and Lanyon
Utterson: a lawyer, loyal, reserved and rational. He investigates but tries to protect his friend's reputation.
Lanyon: a traditional doctor who calls Jekyll's ideas "unscientific balderdash". Seeing the transformation destroys him.
Lanyon: a traditional doctor who calls Jekyll's ideas "unscientific balderdash". Seeing the transformation destroys him.
Others
Enfield: Utterson's distant relative, who tells the story of the door.
Poole: Jekyll's loyal butler.
Sir Danvers Carew: the gentle, elderly MP Hyde murders.
Poole: Jekyll's loyal butler.
Sir Danvers Carew: the gentle, elderly MP Hyde murders.
Analyse Utterson's description of Hyde as "troglodytic".
- A troglodyte is a cave-dweller.
- The word suggests Hyde is primitive, like an earlier stage of human development.
- It links to Victorian fears, after Darwin, that humans might go backwards.
Answer: It presents Hyde as primitive and less evolved, linking to Victorian fears about degeneration.
Jekyll: respectable, secretly divided. Hyde: small, violent, "pure evil". Utterson: loyal, rational investigator. Lanyon: traditional scientist destroyed by the truth. Enfield, Poole, Carew.
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