Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Analysis and Questions-The Murder of Danvers Carew

GCSE Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Chapter 4 Analysis Questions and Prompts. (The Murder of Danvers Carew).

Nearly a year later, in the month of October, 18—, London was startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more notable by the high position of the victim. The details were few and startling. A maid servant living alone in a house not far from the river, had gone up-stairs 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. And as she so sat she became aware of an aged and beautiful gentleman with white hair, drawing near along the lane; and advancing to meet him, another and very small gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was just under the maid’s eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the moon shone on his face as he spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognise in him a certain Mr. Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she had conceived a dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling; but he answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman. The old gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted.

It was two o’clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighbouring gutter — the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. A purse and a gold watch were found upon the victim: but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped envelope, which he had been probably carrying to the post, and which bore the name and address of Mr. Utterson.

1. Why does Stevenson’s narrator draw attention to the passage of time at the beginning of this chapter? The shift from one-time frame to another is a familiar convention of realism, yet this shift might also veil the actions of the supposedly dormant Hyde. If Hyde has been busy, yet undetected, what might this suggest about Hyde’s connivance and Jekyll’s self-control? Is Hyde likely to have stayed undetected because he confined his actions to places of criminality like Victorian Soho? Does such an environment provide Hyde with invisibility, yet restrict his desire for attention? Maybe this desire to publically commit a socially visible crime emanates from Hyde’s desire to destroy Jekyll’s hypocrisy and faux-respectability?
2. ‘London’ is personified in this chapter. Why is the city’s reaction so dramatic and intense? Is the use of hyperbole a means to differentiate between  ‘gentlemen’ and the outlaw and transgressor, Edward Hyde? Is the reader convinced by this contrast or does it smack of hypocrisy? How many Police actually pursue Hyde?
3. It might be interesting to check this crime against the subsequent horrors of the Jack the Ripper murders. Do you think there is something uncannily prescient about this novella?
4. Stevenson ensures that the witness to the murder of Danvers Carew is singularly incapable of understanding any possible subtext to the event. She is innocent and idealises the wandering aristocrat, thus protecting him from any possible accusations. Yet look at the use of the verb, ‘accosted’ is this necessarily an innocent verb?  
5. The use of the alliterative, ‘pretty politeness’ fascinatingly feminises Danvers Carew. Why? And with what effects? Is this a secret code for Danvers behaving flirtatiously with the ostensible ‘rough trade’ aka Mr Hyde?
6. The maid believes that poor Danvers was merely asking Hyde ‘his  way.’ In a novel so riddled with routes and direction through the city’s underbelly, it may serve as yet another euphemistic reference to a moral direction.
7. If Hyde does not steal money or the gold watch, then we wonder if the motivation for the murder is rather ambiguous, certainly ‘other’ to rational explanation. Is Hyde insulted by Danvers ‘ attempt at conversation? Does Hyde’s wickedness respond violently to vulnerability? He first ‘tramples’ on a young girl, now her tramples on a white-haired old gentleman. The symmetry is clear. Hyde wishes to destroy politeness and civility. The world of the gentleman is odious to Hyde. Maybe this antagonist stems from Hyde’s jealously of his Jekyll self. Therefore he seeks to alienate the gentlemen class forever?
8. When the body is examined and recovered, a letter to Utterson is found on Danvers, clearly linking him to the respectable lawyer. Furthermore, the murder weapon was gifted to Jekyll by Utterson. The web of connection and ambivalent intimacy is thus ever thicker, ever darker. Yet Utterson is never questioned about the murder and no one interviews Jekyll immediately about his dubious association with Hyde. Gentlemen protect their own class. It’s a secret club. Little wonder that the novel is lacking many female characters. This is a dangerously patriarchal or homosocial world. Children and wives have no place, no role to play.
9. Do we suspect that in the light of Danvers’ connection to Utterson, that Hyde’s encounter with the unfortunate victim might be premeditated? Is the murder deliberately contrived to look like a random attack, when in fact, Hyde has orchestrated the whole thing? And if this is true, then it must deepen the inner corruption of Hyde’s nemesis, Dr Jekyll!