Search for Mr Hyde.
This chapter follows on from the revelations surrounding Mr Hyde’s unsavoury and callous behaviour as witnessed by Enfield on his night walk. The title implies that Utterson takes it upon himself to find out the truth about the elusive ‘hiding’ Hyde as some form of noble quest to protect and save his best friend.
We visit Utterson at home where his spirits are ‘sombre’ underlining the uneasy impact of Hyde’s performance. ‘Home’ is a place of rituals and habits. It is not a place of joy or even contentment. The repression of a Victorian gentleman is evident in the private world as much as the public in the case of Utterson. However these behaviours fail to reassure Utterson though on this particular Sunday evening and instead of reading ‘some dry divinity’ presumably designed to steer his thoughts in the direction of virtue rather than pleasure, he visits his ‘safe’ where he re-examines the will of Henry Jekyll which Utterson finds an ‘eyesore’ both as a professional lawyer and as a friend. The term ‘eyesore’ reveals the visual disturbance brought about by the will and reflects the effect of Hyde on those who come into visual contact with him too. This abhorrence is also due to the apparently insane terms of the will that if Jekyll disappears for longer than three months then ‘ the said Edward Hyde should step into the said Henry Jekyll’s shoes without further delay.’ Note the closeness of the terms to the actuality of Hyde literally inhabiting the body of Jekyll!
Furthermore, Jekyll is a very wealthy man and the idea that all his fortune should be given to a character who is now established as something approaching ‘a fiend’ profoundly unsettles Utterson. We suspect that he feels usurped by his rejection. Afterall, Jekyll and Utterson had been best friends before the interloper, Hyde arrived on the scene. This ‘presentiment’ of Utterson recalls the simile used to describe Hyde in the previous chapter: ‘really like Satan.’ Both these labels underline Hyde’s excessive malignity and even his supernatural powers. Others are repulsed yet fascinated by Hyde’s violent charisma.
Utterson‘s temporary removal of the disturbing will from the safe so he can scrutinise its contents once more, gives literal and metaphorical expression to his friendship with Jekyll. The safe provides the reader with a backstory which affects the narrative surrounding the interloper, Hyde. ’Blackmail’ had been mentioned in the opening chapter, now we learn that Utterson believes the will has been created out of a sense of ‘disgrace.’ Once again we witness the destabilising effect of Hyde on Victorian society. If Utterson has confined his pleasures to the ‘fire’ of the Victorian hearth, then we can see that he suspects his friend Jekyll of far more dangerous and expensive pleasures that have to be paid to avoid the everlasting shame of a ‘scandal.’
Lanyon.
Dr Lanyon is another old friend of both Jekyll and Utterson. His appearance is ‘hearty, healthy, dapper…prematurely white’ once again setting up a contradiction in his character. The alliteration is ironic and foreshadows the untimely death of Lanyon once he is forced to witness the ‘fanciful’ outcome of Jekyll’s outlandish science.
When we look at the contradictions or divisions in the way Lanyon is presented we see that on the one hand, he is a man who clearly enjoys life and yet on the other the pursuit of science has affected the medical man negatively. His ‘theatrical manner’ also suggests a camp exterior and might again hint at some link to homosexuality. If he is theatrical it might also underline his changeable nature and the psychological complexity of these wealthy Victorian gentlemen forced to inhabit such repressive, constraining roles.
Lanyon’s dismissal of Jekyll’s fanciful scientific experiments as ‘ balderdash’ ironically reassures Utterson, as the latter assumes that any estrangement between the scientists emanates from a difference ‘on the point of science.’ Such reassurance proves false as the narrative progresses and unveils the depth of the inextricable ‘wrong’ that Jekyll has fallen into.
Utterson returns home to sleep and the narrative takes on a nightmare aspect, drenched in anxiety about Hyde’s power over Jekyll and of unresolved longing for something that is obliquely censored as ‘gross darkness’ even within the dream.
We recognise that the violating aspects of his nightmare: seem sexually charged and emotionally wanton, ‘ great, dark bed’ . The sexual anxiety around the ‘bed’ is embodied in the elusive yet dominant, predatory figure of Hyde himself. His friend’s ‘strange preference’ is even renamed ‘bondage’ underlining the dominance of Hyde and the submission of Dr Jekyll to some sort of deviance. In The Victorian Age, deviance and degeneracy were frequently linked to otherness whether in terms of criminality, sexuality or evolutionary regression.
If sleep is a sanctuary and a place for recuperation, then as in Macbeth, the presence of something untoward and dangerous, deprives the protagonist of such a refuge. Denial is unsuccessful. Action is required to ‘see’ the reality of what Hyde is and represents. Utterson has identified a mission of purpose in his life. ‘ if he be Mr Hyde…I shall be Mr Seek.’ Such a purpose energises Utterson and perhaps links to the ‘rugged’ aspect of his demeanour and appearance mentioned in the opening line. Remember that ‘rugged’ has connotations of heroic toughness and something bleak and uncompromising like a rocky landscape with yet some bleak beauty. ( Think of Brontë’s Wuthering Heights with the rugged Byronic protagonist, Heathcliff.) it might even suggest that Utterson is being painted as an urban ‘Gothic’ hero inspired into action by the unsettling figure of Hyde. If this is so, then the irony is once again made clear. Rational, decent Utterson is attempting to rescue his best friend from the evil clutches of Hyde and restore him to a safe friendship. Yet as we learn later, Hyde is Jekyll’s creation and Utterson is too scared to take the heroic ‘axe’ to the laboratory door in order to confront the truth on the other side of the door. In fact the attempt at rescue is carried out by the faithful servant Poole, rather than the impotent ‘rugged’ Utterson whose desire not to admit the truth appears overwhelming.
The meeting between Hyde and Utterson in this chapter emphasises the otherness of the former through the serpentine reference to his ‘hissing intake of the breath.’ Such breathing underlines the strangeness of Hyde and his resentment of Utterson. This resentment is mutual and the reader senses a battle for the possession of Jekyll’s soul between Hyde’s demonic energy and Utterson’s rationality. ‘We have common friends’ says Utterson emulating a formal approach to Hyde which the latter reacts to ‘with a flush of anger’ indicating how possessive he feels towards Jekyll and how ‘savage’ he is willing to become in order to alienate Jekyll from everyone he knows.
Utterson feels ‘loathing’ towards Hyde mirroring Enfield and the ‘sawbones’ in the first chapter. Is this because of the ‘troglodytic’ appearance of Hyde implying some evolutionary degeneracy or is this repulsion due to Hyde’s appearance linking to the acute anxieties around homosexuality?
Significantly when Utterson calls on Jekyll’s respectable front door, ‘ which wore a great air of wealth and comfort’ he is informed that Dr Jekyll is not at home which imbues a sense of unsettling ‘ menace’ within the previously appealing hallway of Jekyll. Once again, the reader is aware of the contaminating effect of Hyde- indeed Utterson feels ‘nausea and distaste’ even within the previously admired hall. Hyde thus threatens the very fabric of respectable Victorian society encapsulated in the sanctuary of home warmed by the symbolic sign of the ‘bright open fire’ which now appears to contain an uncanny’ menace’ in its ‘flickering.’
The chapter closes with Utterson recalling how ‘wild’ Jekyll had been as a young man and even exploring the possibility of some ‘Jack-in-the-box’ misdemeanour of his own. These remembrances engender a ‘spark of hope’ as he believes that Hyde’s past will contain ‘black secrets’ which can be used against him to stop him ‘stealing like a thief to Harry’s bedside.’ Look at the familiarity implied by the user of the nickname ‘Harry’ and the intimacy also implied by the reference to Jekyll’s bed yet again. Whatever Utterson suspects about the relationship between Jekyll and Hyde, the lawyer is too discreet to admit openly even to himself. This marked degree of secrecy demonstrates the deep anxiety experienced by Utterson over the exact nature of the relationship; even implying one would suspect, a sexual connection between the doctor and the disturbed young man.
