Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Key Quotations

CHAPTER 1

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“the street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood… with its freshly painted shutters [and] well polished brasses” (10)
“the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence” (11)
“The door was… blistered and distained” (11)
“trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming” (11)
“it [Hyde] was like some damned juggernaut” (12)
“I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight” (12)
“I saw that Sawbones [the doctor] turned sick and white with the desire to kill him” (12)
“as wild as harpies [mythological creatures which attacked humans]” (12)
“There was something wrong with his appearance… something downright detestable” (Enfield of Hyde) (15)
“Let us make a bargain never to refer to this again” (Utterson) (16)

CHAPTER 2

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind” (Lanyon) (19)
“the gross darkness of the night and the curtained room” (19)
“[Hyde] drew a key from his pocket, like one approaching home” (21)
“Mr Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of breath” (21)
“snarled aloud into a savage laugh” (23)
“Satan’s signature upon a face” (23)
“the door… wore a great air of wealth and comfort” (23)
“[Utterson] felt a nausea and distaste of life” (24)
“the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace” (25)
“[Utterson] was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done” (25)

CHAPTER 3

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“[Jekyll was] a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast” (26)
“an ignorant, blatant pedant” (says Jekyll of Lanyon) (27)
“there came a blackness about his eyes” (27)
“this is a private matter” (Jekyll) (27)

CHAPTER 4

The description of Sir Danvers Carew contrasts sharply with that of Mr Hyde. In fact it might be said that at this point the two men represent opposing sides of humannature. Complete the following table using contrasting quotations or examples from the chapter.

Sir Danvers Carew / Mr Hyde

CHAPTER 4

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“a crime of singular ferocity” (29)
“a fog rolled over the city in the small hours” (29)
“he broke out in a great flame of anger” (30)
“with ape-like fury… trampling his victim underfoot, and hailing down a storm of blows” (30)
“there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled” (30)
“[the policeman’s] eye lighted up with professional ambition” (31)
“a great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven” (31)
“[Soho was] like a district of some city in a nightmare” (32)
“She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy, but her manners were excellent” (32)
“haunting sense of unexpressed deformity” (33)

CHAPTER 5

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“dingy windowless structure” (34)
“three dusty windows barred with iron” (34)
“even in the houses the fog began to lie thickly” (34)
“[Jekyll was] looking deadly sick… a cold hand… a changed voice… feverish manner” (35)
“I swear to God I will never set eyes on him again” (Jekyll) (35)
“If it came to a trial, your name might appear” (Utterson) (35)
“I have had a lesson – O God, Utterson, what a lesson I have had!” (Jekyll) (36)
“The news boys… were crying themselves hoarse” (37)
“The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city” (37)

CHAPTER 6

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“Much of [Hyde’s] past was unearthed” (p. 40)
“a new life began for Dr Jekyll” (p. 40)
“[Jekyll] was busy, he was much in the open air, he did good” (p. 40)
“[Lanyon] had his death warrant written legibly upon his face” (p. 41)
“I have had a shock… and I shall never recover” (Lanyon) (p. 41)
“one whom I regard as dead” (Lanyon of Jekyll) (p. 42)
“I mean from henceforth to lead a life of extreme seclusion” (Jekyll) (p. 42)
“the packet slept in the inmost corner of [Utterson’s] private safe” (p. 43)
“that house of voluntary bondage” (p. 44)

CHAPTER 7

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“this was a back way to Dr Jekyll’s” (45)
“I am uneasy about poor Jekyll” (Utterson) (45)
“The court was… full of premature twilight” (45)
“[Dr Jekyll] was like some disconsolate prisoner” (45)
“the smile was struck out of [Jekyll’s] face and succeeded by an expression of… abject terror” (46)
“the window was instantly thrust down” (46)
“there was an answering horror in their eyes” (46)
“God forgive us!” (Utterson) (46)

CHAPTER 8

Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“It was a wild, cold seasonable night of March… The square was full of wind and dust… the thin trees in the garden were lashing themselves” (p.48)
“I want you to hear and I don’t want you to be heard” (Poole) (p.49)
“we heard him cry out upon the name of God” (p.50)
“This drug is wanted bitter bad” (p.51)
“if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face? If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat and run from me?” (Poole) (p.52)
“that masked thing like a monkey” (p.54)
“A dismal screech, as of mere animal terror, rang from the cabinet” (p.56)
“the body of a man sorely contorted and still twitching… the body of a self destroyer” (p.56)
“Utterson was amazed to find… a copy of a pious work… annotated with startling blasphemies” (p.58)

CHAPTER 9

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“[I] believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man” (Lanyon) (p65)
“disgustful curiosity” (p65)
“a certain icy pang along my blood” (p.66)
“a new province of knowledge and new avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you” (Hyde/Jekyll) (p67)
“you who have derided your superiors – behold!” (Hyde/Jekyll) (p68)
“he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with infected eyes, gasping with open mouth… the features seemed to melt and alter” (p68)
“pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death – there stood Henry Jekyll!” (p68)
“my soul sickened at it” (p68)

CHAPTER 10

Quotation / Significance (consider: plot, character, theme, motif, symbolism, language, setting, structure, narrative stance…)
“man is not truly one, but truly two.” (70)
“It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together – that in the agonized womb of consciousness these polar twins should be continuously struggling.” (71)
“I have been made to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on man’s shoulders; and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and awful pressure.” (71)
“my original evil” (72)
“Evil…had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay.” (72)
“This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human.” (73)
“Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.” (73)
“Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design of entering.” (76)
“I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep it.” (79)
“Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged.” (80)