Key Quote
“"I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse"”
Dr Jekyll · Chapter 10: Henry Jekyll's Full Statement
Focus: “slowly”
Jekyll confesses that the transformations are becoming involuntary — Hyde is no longer a choice but an identity consuming him, revealing the addictive nature of moral transgression.
Technique 1 — TEMPORAL ADVERBS / GRADUAL DISSOLUTION
The repeated adverb 'slowly' emphasises the gradual nature of Jekyll's moral dissolution — evil does not arrive suddenly but incrementally (bit by bit, in small steps). This challenges the Victorian assumption that moral corruption is a dramatic event (a single 'fall') and instead presents it as a process of accumulation, like a disease progressing through stages.
The verb 'incorporated' (literally 'made into one body') is etymologically precise: Hyde is being absorbed into Jekyll's physical form. This corporeal (relating to the body) language suggests that moral corruption is not merely spiritual but physical — evil changes what you ARE, not just what you DO. The body becomes the site of moral transformation.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
Jekyll's regression has become involuntary: the transformation no longer requires the potion but happens spontaneously, suggesting that Hyde is not a separate entity but Jekyll's authentic (genuine, true) self emerging. The 'original and better self' is being consumed by the 'second and worse,' implying that the veneer of respectability was always thinner than Jekyll believed.
Key Words
Technique 2 — ANTITHETICAL LEXICAL PAIRS
The antithetical (opposing) pairs — 'original'/'second', 'better'/'worse' — create a binary structure that mirrors the novella's central duality. But the sentence's meaning undermines this neatness: the boundaries between 'original' and 'second' are dissolving. Stevenson uses the form of binary opposition to describe its collapse — the structure of the language contradicts its content, mirroring Jekyll's disintegrating identity.
The qualifier 'and better' reveals Jekyll's self-deception: even in confession, he insists on categorising his respectable self as morally superior. Stevenson invites the reader to question this: was Jekyll's 'original' self truly better, or was his respectability merely the suppression of desires that Hyde now expresses? The novella never resolves this question, leaving moral judgment suspended (held in uncertainty).
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Context (AO3)
ADDICTION & LOSS OF CONTROL
Jekyll's description mirrors the language of addiction: initial voluntary use becomes compulsive need, until the substance controls the user. Victorian society was grappling with opium and alcohol addiction in the working and professional classes. Stevenson — who used cocaine medicinally — understood the dynamics of substances that promise liberation but deliver enslavement.
THE DOUBLE LIFE
Many respectable Victorian gentlemen led double lives: maintaining public respectability while secretly visiting brothels, opium dens, or engaging in illegal activities. The West End/East End divide in London physically separated respectability from vice. Jekyll's transformation literalises this cultural phenomenon — the 'double life' becomes a double body.
Key Words
WOW — HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY (Connell)
R.W. Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity describes the dominant form of manhood that society enforces — rational, controlled, heterosexual, authoritative. Jekyll embodies hegemonic masculinity perfectly: he is a respected doctor, a bachelor of means, a pillar of the community. But this performance requires the suppression of desires that do not fit the model. Hyde represents what hegemonic masculinity excludes — aggression, desire, irrationality — and his emergence suggests that rigid gender performance is inherently unsustainable. Stevenson's novella can be read as an argument that the more rigidly a society enforces ideals of masculine respectability, the more violently the repressed elements will eventually erupt.
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