Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Part I

The story opens with Dr. Jekyll's friend and solicitor, Gabriel John Utterson, and Utterson's dis-tant kinsman, Mr. Enfield, taking a walk one Sunday. They find themselves passing a "certain sinister block of building" in the London district of Soho that "bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence." After stopping in front of a "blistered and distained" door on this block, Mr. Enfield recalls that one evening at three he was returning home through that section of the city when he saw a man run into a little girl. He notes that "the man trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground." Immediately, Enfield apprehended the man and brought him back to the child and to the group that was gathering around her. Enfield admits that the suspect "was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me." The rest of the crowd responded similarly. After ascertaining that the child was not severely harmed, Enfield directed the man to pay the family compensatory damages. The man then withdrew behind the same door at which Utterson and Enfield now find themselves and returned with a signed check. Both Utterson and Enfield comment on the mysterious air about the house. Enfield admits that he sometimes sees the man, whose name is Hyde, coming in and out of the door and that there is "something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable." He continues, "I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He gives a strong feeling of deformity." Utterson claims to know the man who signed the check for Hyde, but asks his friend not to speak about the incident in the future.

That evening, Utterson puzzles over a copy of Dr. Jekyll's will with the instructions that at his death, all of his possessions were to pass into the hands of his "friend and benefactor Edward Hyde." It further states that if Dr. Jekyll unexplainably disappears for any period exceeding three calendar months, Hyde should "step into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free from any burthen or obligation." Unable to comprehend Jekyll's motives for writing the will, Utterson seeks advice from one of his oldest friends, Dr. Lanyon, who admits that Jekyll "began to go wrong, wrong in mind" over ten years ago and that he has not seen much of him since. Lanyon claims that he never heard of Edward Hyde.

After that night Utterson begins to "haunt the door in the by-street of shops waiting to catch a glimpse of Hyde." One night, Utterson spots the "pale and dwarfish" man who gave "an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation." Hyde seems to know him and approaches the lawyer "with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness," speaking "with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice." Utterson concludes that "not all of these together could explain the unknown disgust, loathing and fear" he felt toward this man who seems "hardly human." He reads the stamp of "Satan's signature" upon Hyde's face.

The next day Utterson asks Poole, Dr. Jekyll's servant, about Mr. Hyde. When Poole admits that Jekyll instructed all the servants to obey Hyde, Utterson worries about his friend's safety. Two weeks later, when Utterson brings up the subject of his will, Jekyll tells him not to worry about him.

Part II

A year later, a maid sees from her window Mr. Hyde club an older man to death. After the police find a sealed envelope at the scene addressed to Utterson, they bring it to him the next morning. Later, Utterson identifies the body as Sir Danvers Carew. Utterson also recognizes the stick the murderer used as belonging to Jekyll. When Utterson and the police go to Hyde's residence, they discover the other half of the broken stick in his ransacked rooms. The next afternoon, Utterson finds Jekyll "looking deathly sick," and with a "feverish manner." Jekyll insists he is done with Hyde, who will never be heard of again, as evidenced by a letter he claims Hyde has written. Utterson has Mr. Guest, his head clerk and an expert at handwriting analysis, compare the letter from Hyde to one from Jekyll. When Guest finds "a rather singular resemblance" between the two, Utterson concludes that Jekyll forged the note to protect Hyde.

The police investigate Hyde's past and discover "tales [that] came out of the man's cruelty, at once so callous and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates, of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career." Now that the "evil influence" had been withdrawn, Jekyll enjoys "a new life." He comes out of his seclusion and renews his relations with his friends, charities, and his church. "His face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than two months, the doctor was at peace." Soon, however, he cuts himself off from his friends. In an effort to understand Jekyll's change of heart, Utterson meets with his friend, Dr. Lanyon, whom he finds seriously ill, with "some deep-seated terror of the mind." Lanyon insists he has had a shock from which he will never recover. He tells Utterson that Jekyll is ill as well and determines to "lead a life of extreme seclusion." After Lanyon dies a few weeks later, Utterson opens an envelope Lanyon gave him and finds a sealed envelope with the instructions "not to be opened till the death or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll."

Part III

One evening Poole arrives at Utterson's home and tells the lawyer that Jekyll has been shut up in his room all week. Poole is certain that there has been "foul play." When the two return to Jekyll's home and try to get him to come out of his room, Jekyll, in a changed voice, refuses. Poole tells Utterson that all week the person in the room has been begging for "some sort of medicine." Utterson breaks down the door and finds the dying Hyde "sorely contorted and still twitching." Jekyll is nowhere to be found. Utterson finds a note from Jekyll asking him to read Lanyon's letter as well as his own confession.

Lanyon's letter relates that one evening, he received a note from Jekyll exclaiming, "my life, my honour, my reason, are all at your mercy; if you fail me to-night, I am lost." Following Jekyll's instructions, Lanyon brought back to his home the contents of a drawer taken from Jekyll's study. The drawer contained a white powder, a vial of some chemical, and a book of entries recording a series of experiments. Lanyon then admitted a dwarfish man wearing clothes much too large for him, who mixed the powder and the contents of the vial. The man suggested that Lanyon watch him, for "a new province of knowledge and new avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you, here." Lanyon agreed, commenting, "I have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end." After the man drank the potion, he transformed into Jekyll. What Jekyll then related "sickened" Lanyon's soul.

Jekyll's confession begins with his description of his "profound duplicity of life" and the shame he felt over his own "provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man's dual nature." In an effort to rid himself of his evil side, Jekyll created a potion that transformed him into Mr. Hyde. Yet he had mixed feelings about this transformation. Part of him as Hyde "felt younger, lighter, happier in body" and more free than Jekyll ever had, while at the same time he recognized this new creature as "pure evil." Jekyll continued taking the potion until one night he found himself transforming without the drug and noted that Hyde was getting stronger. He then admitted that as Hyde he killed Carew "with a transport of glee" and so had his "lust of evil gratified and stimulated." When the transformations occurred more frequently, and Jekyll realized that eventually he would not be able to transform back into himself, he became Hyde one more time, knowing that he would then commit suicide to keep himself from the gallows.