Key Quote
“"If he be Mr Hyde... I shall be Mr Seek"”
Mr Utterson · Chapter 2: Search for Mr Hyde
Focus: “Seek”
Utterson's determined wordplay — transforming Hyde's name into a game of hide-and-seek — reveals the novella's pursuit narrative and the Victorian compulsion to uncover hidden truths.
Technique 1 — PUNS / ONOMASTIC WORDPLAY
The punpun — A play on words that exploits multiple meanings or similar sounds on 'Hyde/Hide' and 'Seek' creates an onomasticonomastic — Relating to names and their significance system of meaning: Hyde's very name encodes his function — he is the hidden self, the concealed identity. Stevenson makes naming itself a form of characterisation: to be called 'Hyde' is to be defined as that which is hidden, secret, and denied.
Utterson's determination to 'seek' positions him as the novella's rational investigator — a figure who believes that truth can be uncovered through empiricalempirical — Based on observation and evidence rather than theory inquiry. But the game of hide-and-seek is a children's game, introducing an element of naivety: Utterson does not understand that what he seeks is not merely a criminal but a fundamental truth about human nature that will shatter his comfortable worldview.
Key Words
RAD — STAGNATE
Utterson remains morally static throughout the novella: he is a good, loyal, rational man from beginning to end. His stagnation serves a structural purpose — as the fixed moral centre, he provides a stable perspective from which the reader can observe Jekyll's disintegration. But his inability to imagine the truth also makes his rationality a limitationlimitation — A restriction or constraint that prevents full understanding or action: the most respectable man in the story is the last to understand what is happening.
Key Words
Technique 2 — DETECTIVE NARRATIVE / GENRE SUBVERSION
Stevenson sets up a detective narrativedetective narrative — A story structured around the systematic investigation of a mystery with Utterson as the rational investigator. But the novella subvertssubverts — undermines this genre: the mystery's solution — that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person — cannot be reached through rational deduction because it defies rational possibility. The failure of the detective genre mirrors the failure of Victorian rationalismrationalism — The belief that reason and logic can explain all phenomena to account for the irrational depths of human nature.
The narrative structure itself withholds truth: the final revelation comes through Jekyll's written confession, not through Utterson's investigation. This structural choice suggests that some truths cannot be discovered from the outside — they must be confessed from within, because they exist in the hidden interior of the self.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
VICTORIAN INVESTIGATIONS
The 1880s saw growing public interest in the hidden underworld of Victorian cities: investigative journalisminvestigative journalism — Reporting that involves thorough research to uncover concealed truths, police reform, and the emerging science of criminology all reflected a desire to make the invisible visible. Utterson embodies this impulse — the respectable professional who investigates what lies beneath the surface.
MALE FRIENDSHIP & SILENCE
The novella is populated entirely by men whose relationships are characterised by profound reticencereticence — Reluctance to express emotions or reveal personal information. Utterson's loyalty to Jekyll is deep but unexpressed; the characters never discuss emotions openly. Stevenson shows that Victorian masculine culture's emphasis on stoicismstoicism — Enduring hardship without showing emotion; emotional self-restraint creates the very conditions that allow secrets like Hyde to flourish — what cannot be spoken cannot be confronted.
Key Words
WOW — THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE CLOSET (Sedgwick)
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's concept of the Epistemology of the ClosetEpistemology of the Closet — Sedgwick's theory about the cultural dynamics of secrets, concealment, and identity examines how Victorian culture created a structure of open secrets — things that everyone knows but no one acknowledges. The novella operates on this principle: Jekyll's 'secret' is elaborately hidden yet simultaneously suspected by everyone around him. The structure of concealment and investigation mirrors what Sedgwick calls the closet: a space of identity that is simultaneously hidden and visible, private and public. Stevenson's narrative — where respectable men desperately avoid naming what they suspect — captures the dynamics of a society that produces secrets through the very ferocity of its demand for transparency. The more aggressively Victorian culture policed respectability, the more elaborate the structures of concealment had to become.
Key Words