The Same Word
Here is the odd thing about this cast. Almost everyone who meets Hyde reaches for the same word, and then admits it does not fit. Deformity, in one form or another, shows up seven times in the ten chapters, and not one person can say what is deformed. So I will go through the characters by what each of them can see, and what they cannot. This is a full cast guide, so it spoils the secret.
Which Edition
I used the Project Gutenberg text, ebook number forty-three, ten chapters, about twenty-five and a half thousand words by my count. Stevenson’s story was first published in January eighteen eighty-six, as reported by Wikipedia and the Oxford Text Archive, as of November two thousand twenty-six. Every name count I give is mine, from the chapter text only.
Mister Utterson
Gabriel John Utterson, we learn late, is a London lawyer, lean, long and dusty, and the book says he never smiled. He drinks gin alone to punish himself for liking fine wine, and has not been inside a theatre in twenty years. He has a saying about his friends going wrong. He lets his brother go to the devil in his own way.
He is the true lead. His name appears one hundred and thirty-one times, more than any other character. He holds Jekyll’s will, he promises to protect Hyde, and he gets Lanyon’s sealed letter. What he cannot do is ask the obvious question. He is a man who chooses not to know, until a butler drags him into the night.
Doctor Jekyll
Henry Jekyll is a rich, large, smooth faced doctor of about fifty, who gives pleasant dinners, with a title of letters after his name. Everyone likes him. Lanyon calls his science balderdash, and Jekyll calls Lanyon a pedant.
What he sees, in his own statement, is that he has hidden his pleasures all his life, and his shame has split him into two natures. His trouble is not that he is wicked. It is that he cannot bear to be seen. Notice that he says Hyde alone is guilty, and that his conscience slumbers. That is the character flaw the whole book hangs on.
Mister Hyde
Edward Hyde is small, pale, and younger than Jekyll. He has a husky, whispering voice and a smile people dislike. He tramples a child, and later beats Sir Danvers Carew to death with a cane. He keeps two furnished rooms in Soho, and a bank account of his own.
What people see is a feeling. Enfield cannot describe him. Utterson, after meeting him, thinks of Satan’s signature. Lanyon feels an icy chill and a sinking pulse in his presence. Jekyll’s explanation is that Hyde is pure evil, with nothing good to balance him, and that is why people recoil. Hyde does appear in person only a few times, so the dread comes from what others say about him.
Doctor Lanyon
Hastie Lanyon is the other old friend, a hearty, red faced man with white hair, who lives in Cavendish Square. He disagrees with Jekyll on science. He thinks Jekyll has gone fanciful.
He is the only person, besides Jekyll, who sees the change with his own eyes, and it kills him. In a few weeks he goes from rosy to deathly pale. He will not write down what Jekyll told him, only that Hyde and Jekyll are the same man. He says he will die incredulous.
Mister Enfield
Richard Enfield is Utterson’s distant kinsman, a well known man about town. The two walk together every Sunday and hardly speak. He opens the book with the door story, and he has a rule. The more a thing looks like Queer Street, the less he asks. He also comes back for the window scene, and walks away just as shaken.
Poole
Poole is Jekyll’s butler, twenty years in the house. His name appears sixty-one times, and forty-three of them are in the chapter The Last Night. He is the one who says the voice is wrong, and the figure too short. He is not a scientist, just a man who knows where his master’s head comes to in a doorway. He swings the axe himself.
The Small Parts
Mister Guest is Utterson’s head clerk, a student of handwriting. He spots that the note from Hyde and Jekyll’s invitation have almost the same hand. Sir Danvers Carew is the white haired member of parliament who politely stops a stranger in a lane, and is beaten to death for it. Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard is happy because Hyde has left the cane and burned the cheque book. And Bradshaw, the footman, stands guard at the laboratory door.
There is also the old woman who keeps Hyde’s rooms. She has an evil face smoothed by hypocrisy, the book says, and perfect manners.
Side by Side
Jekyll and Hyde are described as opposites. Jekyll’s hand is large, firm, white and comely. The hand that he wakes up with, in chapter ten, is lean, corded, knuckly, dusky and hairy. Jekyll is tall and well made. Poole, who knows exactly where his master’s head comes to in a doorway, says the masked creature is more of a dwarf.
Jekyll says that Hyde is smaller because the evil side of him had been used less, and less developed. That is his theory, not a fact, and he says so. He also says that the two share memory, but not feeling. Jekyll has more than a father’s interest in Hyde. Hyde has more than a son’s indifference.
Who Knows What, When
Here is the order in which the cast learns the secret. Enfield knows the door story and never guesses. Utterson recognises the name Hyde from the will, on the first Sunday. Poole suspects, by the last night. Lanyon is shown it, and is destroyed by it. And Utterson, finally, reads it in two documents. The reader, if you pay attention to the cheque and the handwriting, can guess it a little earlier. But Stevenson holds the full proof back until the last pages.
Who Is Missing
Count the women in this book. A maid who sees the murder. A housekeeper. A cook and a housemaid in the hall, crying. A girl of eight or ten, trampled in the street. The book never gives one of them a name.
Here is my reading, and it is an opinion. This is a world of men with careers and a secret club of friendships. Forty-three uses of the word friend in ten chapters. Utterson, Enfield, Lanyon and Jekyll all keep quiet to protect a reputation. That is the real horror of the cast. Nobody asks, and people pay.
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