Chapters 1-4: Mystery and Terror
Chapter 1: The Story of the Door
The novella opens with Mr Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield taking their regular Sunday walk. They pass a sinister door in a side street — “the door, which was equipped with neither bell nor knocker.” This door is the back entrance to Dr Jekyll’s house, and it immediately establishes the novella’s central symbol: a boundary between the respectable and the hidden, the public and the private.
Enfield tells Utterson about a disturbing incident he witnessed. Late one night, he saw a small, deformed man trample over a young girl at a street corner. The man showed no remorse. Enfield and a doctor confronted the man, who calmly went through the sinister door and returned with a cheque signed by a reputable person — Dr Jekyll. The attacker was Edward Hyde.
Hyde’s trampling of the girl is the novella’s first act of violence. Enfield describes it with horror: Hyde was “like some damned Juggernaut” — an unstoppable, inhuman force. The victim is a child, making Hyde’s callousness especially shocking. Stevenson uses this scene to establish Hyde as someone who inspires instinctive disgust before any explanation is given.
Chapter 2: Search for Mr Hyde
Utterson is deeply troubled by Enfield’s story, particularly because he is Jekyll’s lawyer and has recently read Jekyll’s will. The will states that in the event of Jekyll’s “disappearance or unexplained absence,” all his possessions should pass to Edward Hyde. Utterson suspects blackmail — that Hyde has some dark secret about Jekyll and is using it to extort money and the inheritance.
Utterson declares: “If he be Mr Hyde, I shall be Mr Seek.” This pun reveals Utterson’s determination to investigate, but also establishes the detective-story structure of the novella. The reader, like Utterson, is drawn into the mystery of Hyde’s identity and his connection to Jekyll. Stevenson withholds the truth until the final two chapters, building suspense through delayed revelation.
When Utterson finally meets Hyde outside the sinister door, he is repelled. Hyde gives “an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation.” Nobody can describe exactly what is wrong with Hyde’s appearance, yet everyone who sees him feels an instinctive revulsion. Enfield earlier described “Satan’s signature upon a face.” Stevenson deliberately makes Hyde’s horror indefinable — this is more unsettling than a specific deformity because it suggests something fundamentally wrong at the level of the soul.
Every character who encounters Hyde struggles to articulate what makes him so disturbing. Enfield says he is “not easy to describe” and that there is “something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable.” Utterson notes “an impression of deformity” without being able to name the specific defect. This technique serves Stevenson’s purpose brilliantly: if Hyde’s evil were visible in a simple way (a scar, a limp), the reader could contain and categorise it. By making the horror ineffable, Stevenson implies that Hyde’s wrongness is spiritual rather than physical — and that recognising evil is an instinct, not a rational observation.
Chapter 3: Dr Jekyll Was Quite at Ease
Utterson visits Jekyll to voice his concerns about the will. Jekyll dismisses Utterson’s fears, insisting: “the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr Hyde.” This is dramatic irony — the reader eventually discovers that Jekyll will lose precisely this power. Jekyll asks Utterson to promise that he will carry out the terms of the will if anything happens. Utterson reluctantly agrees, bound by professional duty and personal loyalty.
At this point, Jekyll appears calm, in control, and entirely the respectable Victorian gentleman. The contrast with what comes later makes this chapter essential for understanding Jekyll’s tragic arc: he genuinely believes he can manage the situation. His confidence is his hubris.
Chapter 4: The Carew Murder Case
Nearly a year later, Hyde commits a far more terrible crime. A maidservant witnesses the murder of Sir Danvers Carew from her window. She describes how Carew — an elderly, white-haired gentleman — politely addressed a small man she recognised as Hyde. Without provocation, Hyde attacked Carew with “ape-like fury,” beating him to death with a heavy cane and stamping on the body. The cane broke in two under the force of the blows.
The Carew murder is a turning point. Hyde’s violence has escalated from trampling a child to beating an elderly man to death. The phrase “ape-like fury” connects Hyde to animalistic regression and Darwinian fears. Sir Danvers Carew was a Member of Parliament — Hyde’s victim is not just any person but a pillar of the establishment, making the crime an attack on respectable society itself.
The maidservant is one of only a handful of women in the novella; the others are the girl Hyde tramples and the old woman who keeps his Soho rooms. She is “romantically given,” and she watches the murder from her window by the light of a full moon. Her perspective is emotional and atmospheric — she describes the scene as beautiful before it turns horrific. Stevenson uses her viewpoint to create a dreamlike quality that intensifies the horror. The maid faints after watching the murder, recovering only to call the police. Her marginality in the story reflects the novella’s focus on the exclusively male world of Victorian professional life — a world where women are either victims or peripheral witnesses.
After the murder, Utterson takes the police to Hyde’s rooms in Soho. The contrast is striking: the two rooms Hyde uses are furnished “with luxury and good taste,” yet they have been hurriedly ransacked, with clothes thrown on the floor and a pile of ash in the fireplace where papers have been burned. Even Hyde’s lodgings reflect the duality at the heart of the novella — elegance and chaos existing in the same space.