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Violence and the beast within in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — theme analysis
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde · Robert Louis Stevenson · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) — not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes
In one sentence. Hyde's violence is sudden, physical and animal, and it escalates; Jekyll explains it as what happens when a long-denied self is released.
This study ends with Robert Louis Stevenson. Build your reading of violence and the beast within in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, teach it, then defend it against Robert Louis Stevenson.
How violence and the beast within works in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
There are two acts of violence on the page: the trampling of the girl in Chapter 1 ('calmly') and the murder of Carew in Chapter 4 ('ape-like fury'). The verb 'trampling' links them. Between them, the manner changes from cold indifference to frenzy, and Jekyll explains the frenzy in Chapter 10: after two months of denial his devil came out 'roaring'.
“with ape-like fury” — Narrator, Chapter 4, The Carew Murder Case
Animal imagery for the most violent act in the book, carrying the post-Darwinian fear of the beast within.
Methods: animal imagery
Violence is also something the respectable characters threaten. In Chapter 1 the doctor and the girl's family surround Hyde, and Enfield says they kept the women off him because they were as wild as harpies; Utterson and Poole break the cabinet door with an axe. Stevenson lets the reader notice that the beast within is not only Hyde's.
Use this in an essay. Frame: 'Hyde's violence is the return of what respectability represses; the more completely it is denied, the more savagely it returns.'
The characters who carry violence and the beast within
An essay on violence and the beast within is built from the characters. Each line below is from that character's own study — follow it for the full analysis.
- Edward Hyde — trace the two tramplings and the 'roaring' devil.
More violence and the beast within quotations, from the The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde quote bank
Each is analysed in full — speaker, scene, techniques, structure, context and essay use — on the The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde key quotes page; the line here is what the words are doing.
“I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self”
Hyde is gradually replacing Jekyll as the dominant self. Full analysis →
“the man trampled calmly over the child's body”
Hyde's first act shows cold, indifferent cruelty to a child. Full analysis →
“It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut.”
Hyde as an unstoppable crushing force. Full analysis →
“Something troglodytic”
Utterson sees Hyde as like a primitive cave-dweller. Full analysis →
“hailing down a storm of blows”
The violence is like weather, sudden and beyond control. Full analysis →
“like a monkey”
The masked figure among the chemicals. Full analysis →
“My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring.”
Repression makes the release more violent. Full analysis →
Think you understand it?
Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.
Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?
- Teach it — Explain your reading of violence and the beast within in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
- Defend it — Hold your reading of violence and the beast within in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde against Robert Louis Stevenson in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
- Then the exam — exam-style practice, marked on Incandio.
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Carry on through The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
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- Next: Narrative, testimony and the unspeakable
- Grade 9 Notes: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — every character and theme, context, craft, theses and full essay plans on one page.
- The Complete Guide to Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — the whole text, chapter by chapter.
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde key quotes — every quotation in the bank analysed, by character and theme.
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde · All set texts · The 4ET1 specification
Every study of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
- Dr Henry Jekyll — character
- Edward Hyde — character
- Gabriel John Utterson — character
- Dr Hastie Lanyon — character
- Enfield and Poole — character
- Duality and the divided self — theme
- Reputation, secrecy and respectability — theme
- Science, religion and the supernatural — theme
- London: the city, the door and the fog — theme
- Narrative, testimony and the unspeakable — theme