Jekyll and Hyde: Characters

The divided self

One man, two natures.

Dr Jekyll

• A respected London doctor, about 50, wealthy and well-liked, who hides a darker second life.
• Convinced that every person is really 2 people (1 good and 1 evil), he brews a potion to separate them.
• It turns him into Edward Hyde.
• At first he can change back at will and enjoys Hyde's freedom from guilt; over time the change comes unbidden, even in his sleep, and he loses control of it.
• When he runs out of the chemical needed to make the antidote, he writes a full confession and ends his own life rather than become Hyde for good.

Mr Hyde

• The evil half of Jekyll, set loose by the potion.
• Younger, smaller and paler, and somehow deformed in a way nobody can quite put into words.
• Everyone who encounters him feels an inexplainable disgust and fear. Stevenson uses him to stand for pure evil with no good.
• He grows bolder and stronger the more Jekyll gives way to him: he tramples a young girl in the street, then beats the elderly MP Sir Danvers Carew to death.
• He is found dead in Jekyll's oversized clothes on the last night, having poisoned himself.

Other characters

Mr Utterson

• A loyal London lawyer and Jekyll's old friend.
• The calm, respectable man through whose eyes we follow most of the mystery.
• Troubled by Jekyll's will, which leaves everything to the sinister Hyde, he sets out to discover who Hyde really is.
• His rational detective work drives the first 8 chapters and slowly uncovers the link between Jekyll and Hyde.
• On the last night Utterson breaks down the lab door with Poole and finds Hyde's body inside.

Dr Lanyon

• A cheerful doctor and old friend of Jekyll's, until the two fell out over Jekyll's experiments (he dismissed them as unscientific nonsense).
• Stands for conventional science, opposing Jekyll's reckless meddling with nature.
• He is drawn into fetching chemicals for Hyde, then witnesses Hyde drink the potion and change into Jekyll.
• The shock destroys him: he takes to his bed, refuses to speak of what he saw, and dies within weeks, leaving a sealed account behind.

Mr Enfield

• Utterson's distant relative and a well-known man about town (a gentleman who dislikes gossip).
• He opens the novel by telling Utterson how he watched Hyde calmly trample a young girl and then pay her family to keep it quiet.
• Him mentioning the strange door is what sets Utterson on Hyde's trail.
• He appears once more, walking with Utterson when they glimpse Jekyll at his window, his face suddenly frozen with horror.

Mr Poole

• Jekyll's loyal butler, who has served the household faithfully for many years.
• On the last night he is so frightened by the change in his master that he goes to Utterson for help.
• He has realised that the figure shut inside the laboratory is no longer Jekyll, but someone smaller who hides and calls out for medicines.
• Together he and Utterson break down the door with an axe and find Hyde dead inside.