🏆
Example Full-Mark Grade 9 Essay
Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as a threatening and
dangerous character.
Write about:
How Stevenson presents Mr Hyde in this extract
How far Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as threatening and dangerous in the novel as a whole
Read the following extract from Chapter One (The Story of the Door) of The Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question.
In this extract, Mr Enfield tells Mr Utterson about his encounter with Mr Hyde.
”Well, it was this way,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home from some place at the end of the
world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where
there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street, and all the folks asleep- street
after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church- till at last I got into
that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman.
All at once I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk,
and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten, who was running as hard as she was able down a cross
street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the
horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming
on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like
some damned Juggernaut. I have a view-holloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and
brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was
, perfectly cool, and made no resistance, but gave me one look so ugly that it brought out the sweat
on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon, the
doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the
worse, more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed there
would be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my
gentleman at first sight. So had the child’s family, which was only natural. But the doctor’s case
was what struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour,
with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the
rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with the
desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and killing being
out of the question, we did the next best. We told the man we could and would make such a
scandal out of this as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other. If he had
any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time, as we were
pitching it in red-hot, we were keeping the women off him as best we could, for they were wild as
harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with a
kind of black, sneering coldness- frightened, too, I could see that- but carrying it off, sir, really like
Satan.”
Example Full-Mark Grade 9 Essay
Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as a threatening and
dangerous character.
Write about:
How Stevenson presents Mr Hyde in this extract
How far Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as threatening and dangerous in the novel as a whole
Read the following extract from Chapter One (The Story of the Door) of The Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question.
In this extract, Mr Enfield tells Mr Utterson about his encounter with Mr Hyde.
”Well, it was this way,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home from some place at the end of the
world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where
there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street, and all the folks asleep- street
after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church- till at last I got into
that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman.
All at once I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk,
and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten, who was running as hard as she was able down a cross
street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the
horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming
on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like
some damned Juggernaut. I have a view-holloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and
brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was
, perfectly cool, and made no resistance, but gave me one look so ugly that it brought out the sweat
on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon, the
doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the
worse, more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed there
would be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my
gentleman at first sight. So had the child’s family, which was only natural. But the doctor’s case
was what struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour,
with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the
rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with the
desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and killing being
out of the question, we did the next best. We told the man we could and would make such a
scandal out of this as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other. If he had
any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time, as we were
pitching it in red-hot, we were keeping the women off him as best we could, for they were wild as
harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with a
kind of black, sneering coldness- frightened, too, I could see that- but carrying it off, sir, really like
Satan.”
