Jekyll + Hyde: Grade 8 Example Essay - Threatening Atmosphere
Here’s a high grade example essay for ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. It was completed by a student, but not in timed conditions - the topic is atmosphere, in particular the ways in which Stevenson creates an air of menace and threat throughout the novella. Teacher grading and feedback has been given below.
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QUESTION:
How does Stevenson use the setting to create a disturbing and threatening atmosphere?
THE ESSAY:
Despite the hints that the novella’s setting was influenced by Stevenson’s childhood home of Edinburgh, it was, in fact, set in Victorian London, a location that would have been very familiar to his readers. This made the terrifying atmosphere Stevenson created even more frightening, as the Gothic aspects and night time murders would have felt much too close to home for comfort for the readers. Through the use of mysterious, Gothic settings in darkness and fog, Stevenson creates a disturbing and uneasy atmosphere designed to terrify the reader.
Many scenes are set at night, in the darkness, which creates a sense of evil, mystery, and uneasiness. These nighttime scenes are often ones in which Hyde appears, as if he is so monstrous that he rids the world of light. When Utterson and Enfield are talking to Jekyll through his window in chapter eight, the courtyard is “full of premature twilight”. This makes the audience uneasy, because as they are now used to associating Hyde with darkness, this foreshadows his appearance. Despite the sky high above being still light with sunset, Jekyll’s courtyard is already dark, reflects the darkness that is Hyde lurking inside the laboratory. This symbolic suggestion that physical darkness is infectious, infusing everything around it, is Stevenson presenting the idea of corruption to his readers. In addition, the oddness of this early darkness adds to the theme of mystery, which increases the reader’s fear. The noun “twilight” is often used metaphorically to imply that someone is losing strength and approaching the end. Thus, “premature twilight” is used as a double entendre: while the courtyard is full of the early coming of night, it also contains Jekyll’s demise and untimely dying, foreshadowing his death at the end of the story, which scares the readers. “Twilight” also signifies a period of obscurity and ambiguity, as it is the time of day in which you can make out shadows, but not clear details, which adds to the mysterious, uncertain atmosphere. The noun comes partly from the Old English word ‘twi’ added to the English word ‘light’. So literally translated, “twilight” means twolight, which reflects the theme of duality - and this theme plays a large role in creating a disturbing atmosphere. Moreover, something that occurs “prematurely” occurs unnaturally early, as the natural order is disrupted, reflecting the theme of the unnatural. Jekyll has gone against nature, so this is reflected in the unnatural darkness surrounding his house, again strengthening the threatening atmosphere of this setting. Furthermore, settings are sometimes filled with light, used to emphasise how disturbing darkness is. For example, in this extract, the hall of Jekyll’s house that Poole and Utterson enter is “brightly lighted up” with a “fire” and earlier on in the story, Utterson sits in a room “gay with firelight”. The adjectives “brightly” and “gay” create a cosy, happy atmosphere, greatly contrasting with the awful storms outside to underline the threatening atmosphere outside. Moreover, these scenes juxtapose the scene in Chapter 8 when Poole and Utterson break into Jekyll’s cabinet. In all the scenes is a cosy room with a fire burning, but the tranquil safety of Utterson and Jeykll’s cosy room underscores the horrible difference between the rooms: the shocking revelation of a “twitching” corpse in Jekyll’s laboratory, which helps this setting create a disturbing atmosphere. The last contrast these settings create is the sharp contrast between the happiness and homeliness of them, and Hyde’s lodgings, once again creating a disturbing atmosphere in the setting of the latter. Additionally, the light hints to us about the characters - “fire” is symbolic of warmth, light, goodness and spirituality. This often religious symbolism would be easily inferred by the Christian Victorian society, and thus reflects the goodness of those around it, for example Utterson. His room creates a safe space away from the dangers of London’s streets, which shows Utterson’s environment as a reflection of his character - warm, pleasant and welcoming.The fires also reflect Utterson and Jekyll’s status - having such “gay” rooms, and having firewood to burn highlights their middle-class status.
Throughout the novella, there are Gothic settings, which creates a disturbing atmosphere. The novella, despite having many elements of the emerging genre of detective fiction (such as the solving of a mystery led by one well-educated, loyal and secretive figure investigating on his client’s part and the use of contrived devices like red herrings and misdirection to confuse the reader) is also largely based on the Gothic genre (with fog, darkness, damsels in distress, disturbing dreams, a monster, and a strong theme of death). However, it has one main difference to the norm of this genre: instead of being set in a faraway land or solitary country-house, the novella is set in Victorian London, which would have been the home of many of the readers. This creates an even more terrifying atmosphere when the pleasant London streets described at the start give way to the Gothic, “dismal quarter of Soho… with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers”, where Hyde takes up residence, showing not only the squalid conditions of the poor, by contrasting them with the living quarters of most characters in the book (highlighting the theme of duality, often explored in Gothic literature, foreshadowing that this novella is Gothic, and thus, terror is to come, creating a disturbing atmosphere), but also that a monster could be living just around the corner. This would make the readers terrified of even their own home, in their everyday life. In the description of Soho, the adjectives “dismal”, “muddy”, and “slatternly” create a semantic field of uncleanliness . The Victorians believed that the external appearance of a person reflected their internal psyche (the Theory of Physiognomy), thus, for them, Soho’s uncleanliness reflected the uncleanliness of the inhabitants inside it, and the exterior uncleanliness of these inhabitants in turn reflected the uncleanliness of their souls. One of these inhabitants was Hyde, and therefore this Gothic setting once again underlines how devilish he is (as uncleanliness would have been seen as socially unacceptable to the Victorians), which adds to the disturbing atmosphere. The intense Gothic aspects of the Soho setting continues throughout the novella - for example, in Chapter 4 , when Newcomen and Utterson travel to Soho to visit Hyde’s lodgings, they see “a great chocolate covered pall lowered over heaven”. Here, the description of the setting alludes to death (a Gothic theme): “pall” is the coffin coving in funerals, and the reference to “heaven” being covered suggests the death of morality - it implies that the things that happen in Soho are so sinful that they must be hidden from heaven. These religious allegories would have been very clear to the Christian, God-fearing Victorians, and would have terrified them greatly - thus, this setting would have created a very disturbing atmosphere for them. Similarly, in the extract, Stevenson once again uses the Gothic style of unnatural and sinister settings. For example, during Poole and Utterson’s walk to Jekyll’s house, the “thin trees were lashing themselves along the railing”. The use of the adjective “thin”, making the trees seem helpless and feeble, and the idea of nature being wrecked, creates a frightening atmosphere as the idea that the innocent, weak, respectable and holy (nature was respected by Victorians as it provided remedies that saved lives, and they also saw it as holy, because they believed it was God’s handiwork) could be destroyed was terrifying. This setting also foreshadows the plot; the trees destroying “themselves” reflects the later suicide of Hyde. This creates tension, meaning this setting creates a threatening atmosphere. Furthermore, the verb “lashing”, alongside other intense verbs in the extract such as “biting” and “strangling”, create a semantic field of violence (often created by Gothic settings), once again adding to the disturbing atmosphere.
Fog is a recurring setting element that Stevenson uses throughout his novella in the more horrific scenes to accentuate an uneasy atmosphere. For example, when Carew is murdered by Hyde, “a fog rolled over the city”. This foreshadows Hyde coming and makes the fog seem even scarier because it’s always associated with frightening scenes. The novella is set in Victorian London, 1886, in the period of high industrialism that followed the Industrial Revolution of the prior century. At this time, there were a huge number of factories and citizens - the population had increased from 1-6 million in the last century - all producing thick smog which rose from their dumped sewage and coal-fired stoves. Therefore, Stevenson’s Victorian readers would have encountered this perpetual fog in their day-to-day lives, so by using it as a backdrop to horror and criminal acts, Stevenson would have created a disturbing atmosphere that would have made readers frightened of their own city. However, despite being more prominent and threatening in the scarier scenes, it is always present, almost like another character in the story. It hangs disturbingly over London: in every chapter, it “still slept on the wing, above the drowned city”, where life continued “through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds”. Here, the third person omniscient narrative voice allows Stevenson to shift his focus to a broad view of the fog across London, which enables him to move away from the story and reinforce the idea that more generally, the whole of Victorian society is being corrupted. The adjective “drowned”, and verbal nouns “muffle” and “smother” all have connotations of death, hinting that the fog is a deathly substance. This also creates pathetic fallacy - here, the weather is reflecting a dangerous, threatening mood. The fog “slept” in the sky: this implies Gothic connotations of misdirection and disturbing dreams, which, as mentioned previously, further contribute to the uneasy atmosphere. Furthermore, the fog is described as “fallen clouds”. This references the angel Lucifer, who fell from heaven and became Satan. The Christian Victorian society would have understood this religious imagery and would have thus seen the fog as something evil. Thus, every setting - as the fog is ever present - creates a threatening atmosphere for the readers. In addition, the fog is not only present in the outside settings, but in the interiors too. As Jekyll starts to increasingly lose himself and become Hyde, fog starts to penetrate and “lie thickly” in his house. This hints at how Jekyll is being taken over by fog metaphorically - this fog is Hyde. Thus, by likening Hyde to fog, it foreshadows how he too will “lie” in Jekyll’s house, hinting at his suicide. Thus, even the interior settings produce an uneasy atmosphere.
Stevenson uses settings filled with darkness, fog and Gothic connotations to evoke a threatening atmosphere by hinting at the horror that is to come. Darkness and uncleanliness reflect Hyde’s nature, and so when these devices appear, the audience expects him and the horror he brings: in Jekyll’s courtyard, the physical darkness demonstrates the corrupting darkness of Hyde, while in Gothic Soho, the external uncleanliness reflects the uncleanliness of his internal psyche. Stevenson also used settings that held terrifying religious connotations for his predominantly Christian audience, with nature - God’s handiwork - being destroyed as the story reaches its climax, and fog falling from the sky, referencing Satan’s fall from heaven.
FEEDBACK:
AO1 L4-L5 10/12
• Thoughtful, developed response to task and whole text.
• Apt references integrated into interpretation(s).
• Clear, explained response to task and whole text.
• Effective use of references to support explanation.
AO2 L4-L5 10/12
• Examination of writer’s methods with subject terminology used effectively to support consideration of methods.
• Examination of effects of writer’s methods to create meanings.
• Clear explanation of writer’s methods with appropriate use of relevant subject terminology.
• Understanding of effects of writer’s methods to create meanings.
AO3 L4 4/6
• Clear understanding of ideas/perspectives/ contextual factors shown by specific links between context/text/task.
AO4 4/4 100%
24/30 80%
NOTES:
Individual thoughts / ideas good
Good awareness of AOs
Pretty good essay - avoid moments of informality / fragmentation
Avoid repetition of ideas - repeating phrases too much creates a sense of stopping and starting, need more flow
AO2 - a little more precise form + structure, language is good
AO3 - weakeset, work on integrating context in
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