Chapter 8: The Last Night
🔎 Poole, Jekyll’s butler, begs Utterson to accompany him to Jekyll’s
laboratory as he is worried that Jekyll has been murdered since Jekyll
has been awfully quiet. However, when they break the door down,
they find Hyde’s body on the floor wearing Jekyll’s clothes and realise
he has just killed himself with poison. Utterson and Poole believe that
Hyde has killed Jekyll and then himself, but cannot find Jekyll’s body,
concluding that he has fled.
“ “God grant there be nothing wrong.” “Amen, Poole,” said the lawyer.”
The guttural plosives in their speech show the tension of the situation right
before Poole and Utterson break into Jekyll’s laboratory.
This carries forward the theme of religion versus the supernatural and
science as Poole and Utterson are here asking God for help when, in
essence, the problem is of supernatural and scientific nature rather than
religious.
“Your master, Poole, is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both
torture and deform the sufferer.”
The verb “deform” refers to Mr Hyde, who is known to be “deformed”.
Chapter 8: The Last Night 1