The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The layout of Jekyll’s house in an important factor in the novel. Jekyll’s laboratory is described in detail in Chapter 7, Page 74 and in Chapter 8, Page 97. After leaving the main part of the house, the passenger walks through a yard to the laboratory building. This is mainly occupied by a long “theatre” or lecture hall for students, formerly used by a teacher of anatomy. At one end of the theatre, a set of stairs leads to Jekyll’s “cabinet” (inner laboratory or study), which is sealed off by a door covered in red baize (a felt-like material). Its windows look onto the courtyard where Utterson and Enfield see Hyde’s door and from where they talk to Jekyll during the “Incident at the Window.”

We visit the cabinet twice: in Chapter 5, and in Chapter 8 when Jekyll meets his demise. The cabinet is remote and cut off from the outside world, including the servants. It is the place where Jekyll spends most of his time; his inner sanctum, where he carries out his horrifying experiments. The theatre adjoining the cabinet is an eerie and deserted place, once “crowded with eager students” but now “gaunt and silent,” “dingy and windowless” (74). This symbolizes the fact that Jekyll hoards his research to himself and does not share it with humanity. The laboratory as a whole connects the worlds of Jekyll and Hyde. The door to the courtyard is itself a “back entryway” to Jekyll’s lodgings. Thus, the layout of Jekyll’s laboratory expresses the strange fusion of his two personalities and the secrecy he must maintain to carry out his plans. 

Street lamps appear as a motif in two places. First, in Chapter 1, as Enfield narrates his early morning encounter with Hyde: “…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…” (49). Then, in Chapter 7, as Utterson and Newcomen investigate the murder of Carew: “The dismal quarter of Soho…and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness…” (71). In both passages the street lamps convey the melancholy and sleepless atmosphere of the city at twilight, when evil and murder are likely to happen. They are also symbolize Utterson’s desire to shed light on the dark mystery of Jekyll and Hyde.