GCSE_Jekyll

Close analysis of Stevenson’s novel to support GCSE students. Ideas are my own and are not definitive. Not affiliated with any exam board or school.

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Sorry for the spam retweets everyone - just trying to get some tweets back to the ‘top’ for anyone referring to this account again. Maybe when I have a minute I’ll try to start working on it again!

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@amy_smith117 @Team_English1 The fog is interesting to track. When it actually comes into the houses and begins to ‘lie thickly’ it’s basically game over. It lifts when U approaches the home of Hyde and gets closer to the truth. The interplay with warmth and fire as a counter to fog is also fascinating.

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Normality can return - but we are reminded that ‘the glazed presses full of chemicals’ are at odds with this comfort just as late Victorian society would have to accept that the surge in scientific exploration would change their society forever. 9/9

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The cosy and welcoming room in which they find the body of Hyde is summed up in the phrase ‘the most commonplace that night in London’. This could bring the horror of Hyde to an end. 8/9

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THREAD A note on ‘London’: We are first introduced to a ‘busy quarter of London’ where the ‘thriving trade’ and beautiful shopfronts which look ‘like rows of smiling saleswoman’ might seem to be the Victorian urban ideal. 1/9

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When Utterson and Poole travel across the city to find Jekyll, they had ‘never seen that part of London so deserted’. This feels bleak. God has truly deserted mankind (the earlier ‘chocolate coloured pall lowered over heaven’ is a thinly veiled blaspheme that God is dead). 6/9

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@mrsmcteachey @GCSE_Macbeth Literally a year late in responding here (sorry - life took over) but she has gone to call for the doctor. Presumably someone was ill in the home. It speaks of the attitudes in Victorian society that a young child would be sent for a doctor late at night across a city.

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*hopes no one notices that I haven’t tweeted for 10 months*

Ch 3 has an odd title: ‘Dr Jekyll was quite at ease’. Was he? He doesn’t seem at ease. He’s evasive/defensive about the topic of the will and he physically manifests high levels of stress when hearing the name ‘Hyde’.

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Jekyll pleads with Utterson that in dealing with Hyde after J’s disappearance he will ‘bear with him and get his rights for him.’ A good question for classes might be to get them thinking about whether or not Hyde deserves ‘rights’...after all, he is not human.

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@KPS_English If you read it that Jekyll takes it, then he has possibly been redeemed at the last moment by caring for his fellow man...if H, then it adds weight to the argument that Hyde is fearful of the gallows.

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@KPS_English Jekyll in Chp 10 writes ‘Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find the courage to release himself at the last moment?’. This leaves it open for interpretation. It is almost certainly Jekyll’s voice which is the last one heard, shouting ‘for God’s sake, have mercy’. 1/2

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Sample essay with annotations. Might be useful for students heading towards Tuesday’s exam.

DISCLAIMER: the following materials are my own ideas for AQA English Lit and are in no way affiliated or influenced by the exam board. I am a teacher!

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2/2 as he cannot bear how irrational and mysterious this clause is. Utterson, long agitated by this clause, is even more upset now that he knows the nature of Hyde. The image of EH stepping into HJ's shoes becomes poignant when HJ dies in his own clothes, but in the form of Hyde.

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"in case of Dr. Jekyll’s 'disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months,' the said Edward Hyde should step into the said Henry Jekyll’s shoes without further delay and free from any burden or obligation". This is abhorrent to Utterson 1/2

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"Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., etc." Further dissociation encouraged by RLS here. This highly qualified Doctor, the "pink of the proprieties" seems a world away from the "damnable" Mr Hyde.

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On to Ch 2. Utterson, keeper of secrets, "opened his safe, took from the most private part of it...Dr. Jekyll’s Will". Another locked door/hidden secret. The will is "holograph" - made and signed by the owner. Signatures are significant later in the quote "Satan's signature".

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So much gothic symbolism in Chp 1, but worth considering the tantalising detective/murder mystery genre which is also established. "The fellow had a key; and what’s more, he has it still. I saw him use it not a week ago.” Thus begins Utterson's quest to find and challenge Hyde.

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Even though Enfield claims he can't describe Hyde, we get: "displeasing...down-right detestable...I so disliked...deformed somewhere...a strong feeling of deformity". RLS emphasises Hyde's unpleasant qualities by grouping these alliterative adjectives + verbs.

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“the buildings are so packed together about the court, that it's hard to say where one ends and another begins” Just like Jekyll/Hyde...

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Secrecy abounds in Ch 1. The compensation cheque Hyde brings out is signed with a name Enfield ‘can’t mention’. Who is Enfield protecting?