The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Ch 2

[Silver]

Please post your thoughts and questions here and be aware if you have not finished this chapter spoilers may be posted here.

[Silver]

We start to learn a little more about the mystery of "the door" and Mr. Hyde.

What is the significance of having the lawyer Mr. Utterson be the one to seek to try and uncover this strange mystery?

Does that fact that it is a lawyer who is revealing these strange events to us give the story more authenticity/believably?

Though Mr.Utterson is not the actual narrator of the story, does the fact that he is being used as the device to reveal these events to us create more of a reliable narrator?

[Linda2]

It was a common device in Victorian ghost stories, of which I've read many. Sometimes a journal was found, or a diary by a deceased victim, thereby giving us firsthand knowledge of the events. I don't know if does Stevenson think of lawyers as reliable.

[Silver]

Rochelle wrote: "I don't know if does Stevenson think of lawyers as reliable..."

That is a good point and I considered that many people might not think of lawyers as being reliable but I was thinking in the way Mr. Utterson is described in the first chapter he does not seem as some one who would be inclined towed the fanciful.

Perhaps being a lawyer, someone connected to the law, one might think him more likely to look at the facts of the case as it were and be less gullible towards exaggeration or superstition.

[Deborah, Moderator]

While Utterson doesn't seem fanciful, his morality is questioned by the fact that he lets others do as please. Perhaps he's been chosen because he turns a blind eye to bad behavior. Yet something seems to be drawing him into the mystery of Hyde.

We now know Jekyll has made provisions for Hyde - the key, telling the servants to obey him, and the will.

[Silver]

Deborah wrote: "While Utterson doesn't seem fanciful, his morality is questioned by the fact that he lets others do as please. Perhaps he's been chosen because he turns a blind eye to bad behavior. Yet something s..."

Perhaps his seemingly questionable morality is what makes him more apt to telling this story for the reader will know he is not judging Mr. Hyde or the events that unfold through his own personal moral lens. This might make him more able to see things objectively.

[Everyman]

Silver wrote: "What is the significance of having the lawyer Mr. Utterson be the one to seek to try and uncover this strange mystery?

Does that fact that it is a lawyer who is revealing these strange events to us give the story more authenticity/believably? "

The credibility issue is a good one that I hadn't thought of. My question was more why does Utterson have such a commitment to this question. Doesn't he have clients and business to attend to.

And Utterson certainly doesn't have the discretion that one expects of a lawyer, even in those times (Tulkinghorn, for example).

[Everyman]

Silver wrote: "Perhaps being a lawyer, someone connected to the law, one might think him more likely to look at the facts of the case as it were and be less gullible towards exaggeration or superstition. "

But when you think about it, he has to be a lawyer in order to have knowledge of the will, because Jekyll certainly wouldn't have told just anybody about the strange will. So isn't that really why he has to be a lawyer, rather than an issue of credibility?

[Silver]

Everyman wrote: "Silver wrote: "Perhaps being a lawyer, someone connected to the law, one might think him more likely to look at the facts of the case as it were and be less gullible towards exaggeration or superst..."

It is true that to know about the will he has to be a lawyer. But does one need to know of the will to tell the story? For example couldn't Dr. Lanyon look into the case because he is concerned for the strange behavior of his former friend Dr. Jekyll, he expresses his concerns to Mr. Utterson.

It is true the will is an important part of the mystery. But it might have been possible to have knowledge of the will come out without have Mr. Utterson as the driving force behind revealing the incidents of the story.

[Silver]

Everyman wrote: My question was more why does Utterson have such a commitment to this question. Doesn't he have clients and business to attend to."

That is a good point, I do wonder how it comes that Mr. Utterson can have so much free time on his hands being a lawyer.

[Silver]

Another random thought which just occurred to me. Mr. Enfiled is the one who first sparked Mr. Utterson's interest in Mr. Hyde. and Enfiled is the one who does introduce the whole story in his retelling of the strange event and yet now he seems completely insignificant to the whole story.

[Everyman]

Silver wrote: "It is true that to know about the will he has to be a lawyer. But does one need to know of the will to tell the story? "

Well, no, but isn't that why he cares so much? That he's worried about his friend because of the weird will provision? That's really what justifies his intense interest, isn't it? Without the will, would some guy having the key to a side door be enough to make him spend every spare hour pursuing the mystery?

[Everyman]

Silver wrote: "Another random thought which just occurred to me. Mr. Enfiled is the one who first sparked Mr. Utterson's interest in Mr. Hyde. and Enfiled is the one who does introduce the whole story in his rete..."

At least so far. He may come back into the story later, though it certainly doesn't seem as though he would be needed. But you're right, it's interesting that he's the one who started it all and now is nowhere to be seen.

[Silver]

Everyman wrote: "Silver wrote: "It is true that to know about the will he has to be a lawyer. But does one need to know of the will to tell the story? "

Well, no, but isn't that why he cares so much? That he's wor..."

I agree that the will is what is driving Mr. Utterson to care so much about finding the truth, I am just not convinced that the only significance of a lawyer being the one to convey the events purely because of the will.

[Everyman]

Silver wrote: "I am just not convinced that the only significance of a lawyer being the one to convey the events purely because of the will. "

I'm not convinced of that either, but nor I am convinced that there is another reason to have made him a lawyer.

[Wendel]

Stevenson needed a trustworthy narrator/perspective - according to the standards of his time. So he choose a male adult, with a respectable profession and a balanced personality (his nonjudgmental attitude is not meant to diminish his moral stance, rather the opposite, I think).

But a reliable narrator/perspective is not enough to make a story credible. For instance: Utterson’s interest in Hyde is understandable enough, but the length to which he takes it seems amazing. And what about the very idea of blackmailing someone to change his will?

The really interesting thing though, is that we care about this in some stories and not in others. Of course, absurdity is sometimes intended (like in Bras Cubas’ posthumous memoirs). But even when not, like in our case, we are often prepared to accept the most outrageous things.

Or is it only after we decided that we don’t like a story that we rationalize our aversion by pointing out improbabilities and contradictions?

[Silver]

Wendel wrote: "Stevenson needed a trustworthy narrator/perspective - according to the standards of his time. So he choose a male adult, with a respectable profession and a balanced personality (his nonjudgmental ..."

I do think that it does depend upon the story and as to whether or not we feel the author/narrator is asking us to take what they are telling us seriously/literally, or not.

Some stories are written in such a way where I the reader is intended to question the validity (and perhaps sanity/rationality of the one telling the story and in some cases were are being asked to question what we are being told and look for ways in which the narrator might be leading us astray.

But in other stories I think the reader is intended to take at face value what is being told to them.

I have to admit that the question of the unreliable narrator is one that has always fascinating me and weather or not we can trust (or are meant to trust) what is being told to us.

I think Mr. Utterson is meant to give this story validity.

[Frances, Moderator]

The narrator question seems to be a continuation of that tale within a tale/multiple narrators perspective that seemed common for sensational novels at the time-as if the author needs to authenticate the reliability/veracity of his tale.

How did Utters come to have so much time to pursue this mystery? Were Victorian professional men perhaps less busy than their modern counterparts? What of John Watson, able to abandon his medical practice at a moment's notice to go off with Holmes on an adventure?

This chapter gives us our first view of Hyde, and it is a somewhat chilling one. In realizing that he knows about the contents of the will, Utterson is presented with a motive for Hyde to injure Jekyll, and this starts to build up the sense of foreboding, that something is very wrong in that household and in the relationship between the two men. The earlier conversation with Lanyon alerts us that something has changed significantly in Jekyll.

It is hard to imagine reading this without already knowing the denouement, it must have been quite sensational when it came out.

I wonder if this was one of the first of those literary/cinematic phenomena where everyone is told not to give away the ending to those who haven't read it yet!