"My devil had been long caged; he came out roaring." Everything Jekyll and Hyde!

Back by popular demand - Jekyll and Hyde!

I have made up another unique Miss Fowler special poem to help you to revise this text and here it is:
(Why not have a go at making up an even better one yourself with the quotes thrown in???)

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this book in 1886

About a doctor who found himself in a fix

He thought you didn't get character traits

From your mum or your dad

Because every man is commingled 

Of half good and half bad 

Jekyll was ambitious not a moral man right through 

He worked hard 

To create a potion to separate the two

His friend Dr Lanyon disapproved of this tool

He preferred his medicine traditional and thought Jekyll was a fool

Utterson is Jekyll's upright sensible lawyer friend 

He doesn't find out the truth until Jekyll's letter at the end 

He goes for a walk with his friend Enfield in chapter 4,

Where they see a blistered and distained old door 

This should have given them a hint that things were amiss 

This is symbolism where THAT actually means THIS 

So the door is Hyde and the stain is his sin 

(It also provides him with a handy way out and in)

Other motifs include the cruel London fog

That covers his misdeeds under the smog

Just in case things don't get any better

Jekyll has written everything down in a letter

That says Jekyll was successful in becoming wholly grim 

But the problem was that this badness started to dominate him 

To the point where his immoral, nasty evil side 

Took on its own persona that he christened Mr Hyde 

Who sneaked out of the back door (quite a convenient set up) 

To commit crimes without remorse due to his new DNA get up.

Eventually bad things have a way of catching up to you... 

And Hyde was suspected of killing a nice old man named Carew

So Hyde hid (get it?!) inside Jekyll, left the potion on the shelf

And tried to be religious, be sociable, his former good self

Unfortunately being naughty is a lot more fun to do

But people from society will judge and condemn you,

You just can't get away with it if you're from the upper class

So it wasn't long before Jekyll was reaching for his glass 

Hyde didn't appreciate being locked in a cage

And when he came out again he was bursting with rage 

He didn't want to be half when he could be whole 

And Jekyll was finding Hyde harder to control 

There are lots of settings in this Victorian story 

Such as alley ways, fog, London and a laboratory 

All of these tell the reader that it's going to be a gothic tale 

So we can foreshadow that Jekyll's good intentions will fail 

And when he cannot control the monster inside, 

He starts to inconveniently accidentally turn into Hyde, 

The potion he needs to make stronger and stronger, 

Or he'll remain his bad self for longer and longer 

Eventually just when you think Hyde might be winning the fight, 

Jekyll appeals to Lanyon in the middle of the night, 

Seeing him transform from hideous beast into his friend

Proved for Lanyon too much and he meets his end, 

Jekyll can't get the ingredients he needs for his task 

The butler Poole sees Hyde's face and assumes it's a mask

So he gets Utterson and they break down the door

Only to find Mr Hyde dead on the floor

Did guilty conscience kill him or was it Jekyll's last win? 

Was it the cowardly fear of being hung for his sin?

Whatever the motive, Don't forget Jekyll's letter 

Explaining what happened and how he wanted to be better 

And create a world where people are all wholly good and upright

But he played God and proved that suppression just isn't right 

So is Mr Hyde a symbol for all of our hidden desires? 

Does he mean inside us all we are hypocrites and liars? 

Or is he symbolic of Victorian fears of the other? 

Was Hyde just a sort of naughtier younger brother? 

So what was the overall lesson the reader learned? 

"Don't mess with human nature or you're going to get burned"

You already have your revision guides which have everything you could possible want and desire - plot summaries, character summaries, key quotes and practice questions.

Here are some more links in case you missed anything in class:

• Exam Help

Tips for tackling the essay in exam

• Exam prep - practice papers (extracts + whole novel questions)

Conflict
Duality
Duality again
Evil
Morality
Secrets

• Revision Booklet - everything from key quotes to plot to characters. REVISION BOOKLET

• Key QUOTES QUOTES

• More exam prep - revision notes

• Themes Themes and context

• Here is a powerpoint that will help you prepare in run up to exam: Power Point on Assessment Prep - Jekyll

Here are some notes on CONTEXT that will be useful:

Victorian Times – Context Page

• ·         Class division was prominent and the status quo was maintained by keeping the wealthy rich and the poor in a state of deprivation. Very wealthy upper classes with privilege and a huge gap between them and the poorest who were living in extreme poverty. Unequal wealth distribution.
• ·         Industrial revolution – changing times. More people moving from rural farm land into the cities where jobs and industry were growing. Rise in population and rise in child labour and unfair working conditions. No benefit system = very little help for poor, ill and old. No rights.
• ·         Higher crime rate as cities became overpopulated. Also disease and dirt spread.
• ·         Tension between religion and science 
• ·         Drugs and prostitution rife amongst the poor AND rich, although the wealthy had to try and hide their immorality by maintaining a public façade of morality and reputation.
• ·         Repression of numerous immoral desires eg homosexuality, extra-marital affairs, drug addiction.
• ·         Importance of reputation and status was paramount in society and dictated the way other people thought of you.
• ·         Fear of encountering the outside world especially from the rich who saw the outside world as diseased and dangerous. They were scared of anyone who was not like them; fear of the ‘other’ and of the unknown.
• ·         During Victoria’s reign there was huge expansion in the Empire. This led to England becoming globally powerful and the rise of Capitalism (desire for personal wealth and ambition to do well in business and make a profit through industry)