‘He was austere with himself; drank gin when alone, to mortify a taste for vintages…’
If Utterson spends time alone resisting his taste for vintages with the displaced pleasure of gin, then it is a matter of interest to know what being ‘austere with himself’ really implies?! Especially in a world of the unutterable? I really wonder!!
For ‘Mortify ‘does have certain deep seated sensory connotations: I wonder if the list of Utteron’s activities avoids disclosure of any sexual release? For whilst Dickens’ Oliver Twist presents characters eating or asking to eat,( and even oysters which aphrodisiacs) no one eats anything in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Even a glass of alcohol is a solitary activity, isolating the activity from even any Christian heritage or association. No community or intimacy.This is a homosocial world where drinking like eating remain aspects of a domestic world far removed from the predatory insomniac wandering of Mr Hyde and his reluctant disciples? What do they really want to eat? Each other one guesses?!
Can you imagine Mr Hyde coming for tea? Or even breakfast for that matter? !
Thankyou Simon!