Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield are out for their usual Sunday walk in the park.
These two men are distant relatives and have little in common.
On this particular walk, Enfield is reminded of an incident he had been in the other night.
On that night, he had encountered a man that had trampled a young girl.
A crowd quickly formed, and they demanded the man pay compensate the girl for her injuries.
The man agreed and proceeded to enter the warehouse, then returned with 10 british pounds
in coins, and a check for 90 pounds which was signed by a well known London scientist.
This deformed man turns out to be named Mr. Hyde
In Chapter 2, Mr. Utterson goes home and looks at the will of a friend who’s name is Dr.
Jekyll.
In this will, Dr. Jekyll is instructing Utterson to give his assets to a man named Mr. Hyde
if Jekyll dies or disappears.
Confused about what Jekyll’s relationship is with Mr. Hyde, Utterson goes to Dr. Lanyon
to figure it out.
However, he learns that Lanyon and Jekyll haven’t been talking due to Jekyll’s research.
That night, Utterson has a nightmare where he see’s Mr. Hyde run over a child, and
then in the next moment he’s at Jekyll’s bed telling him to get up.
This motivates Utterson to stake out the building where Enfield saw the girl get run over in
the hopes that he’d run into Mr. Hyde.
Mr. Utterson sees Mr. Hyde, and asks to see his face.
When Mr. Hyde complies, Utterson is horrified.
At the end of the conversation, Mr. Hyde gives Utterson his personal address.
This implies Hyde believes Jekyll will die soon as after his death Mr. Utterson will
need to have Hyde’s address to transfer Jekyll’s assets.
Later, Mr. Utterson visits the house of Dr. Jekyll.
We learn that Utterson has known the warehouse is actually Jekyll’s laboratory.
Next, Utterson meets Mr. Poole, who is Jekyll’s butler.
The butler tells Utterson that Mr. Hyde has a key to the laboratory, and that the servants
have been instructed to follow Mr. Hyde’s orders.
Utterson figures this is proof that Dr. Jekyll is being blackmailed by Mr. Hyde.
In chapter 3 Jekyll throws a party, and Utterson stays late to talk with him.
Utterson says that “he’s been learning about Mr. Hyde which catches Dr. Jekyll off
guard.
Dr. Jekyll has Utterson promise that he’ll enforce his will.
In chapter 4, which is about 1 year later, it’s early in the morning when a maid sees
a man beat to death.
She identifies the attacker as Mr. Hyde.
The victim turns out to be Sir Danvers Carew, a prominent member of Parliament.
Utterson leads the police to Hyde’s address, where they find a burnt checkbook and the
murder weapon.
The police figure out that Hyde still has an open account at the bank.
They plan to stake it out and wait for Mr. Hyde to come close the account -- but he never
shows.
In chapter 5, after the murder of Sir Danvers, Utterson goes to Jekyll’s laboratory to
figure out if he knows the whereabouts of Mr. Hyde.
Jekyll claims that Mr. Hyde is gone for good.
Jekyll shows Utterson a letter from Hyde that claims he plans to escape and that Jekyll
shouldn’t worry about him anymore.
Utterson takes the letter and asks Jekyll who wrote his will.
Jekyll admits that it was dictated by Mr. Hyde.
Utterson figures that Jekyll just narrowly escaped being murdered.
Utterson takes the letter and goes to Mr. Guest, who’s a handwriting expert.
Mr. Guest states that the letter Jekyll said was written by Mr. Hyde actually Jekyll’s
handwriting.
This confuses Utterson because he can’t understand why Jekyll would write a letter
for a murderer?
In Chapter 6, with Mr. Hyde gone, Dr. Jekyll’s health improves dramatically.
So much so, that Dr. Jekyll hosts a dinner party and Utterson and Lanyon both go to it.
But a few days after the party, Utterson mysteriously can’t reach Jekyll anymore.
Utterson talks with Jekyll’s butler, and the butler says that his master isn’t receiving
guests.
So Utterson decides to visit Lanyon to figure out what happened since the party.
It turns out, Lanyon is deathly ill and doesn’t want to talk about Jekyll.
But, Lanyon does tell Utterson that he’ll figure everything out after Lanyon passes
away.
Utterson tries writing letters to Jekyll.
Jekyll replies that he’s going to be completely reclusive from this point on.
Shortly after, Lanyon dies and Utterson finds a letter addressed to him and to be opened
only after Jekyll’s death.
In chapter 7 Utterson and Enfield are on one of their walks when they pass by Jekyll’s
house, and coincidentally see him sticking his head out the window getting some fresh
air.
Jekyll looks extremely sick, so they invite him on a walk which they think could help.
However, all of the sudden Jekyll gets this horrified look on his face, quickly closes
the window and runs deeper into the house.
Shocked, and confused, Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield they leave.
In Chapter 8 Some time later, Mr. Poole calls Mr. Utterson over to Jekyll’s house.
He reports that some man is in Jekyll’s laboratory, and it’s not Jekyll.
Mr. Utterson is confused why the assailant is sticking around after committing a crime.
Mr. Poole informs Mr. Utterson that the voice has been sending him all over town looking
for a specific ingredient.
Utterson wonders if Jekyll has some strange disease that changes him.
The butler says that the man looked similar to Mr. Hyde
Utterson and the butler eventually break into the laboratory and find a dead Mr. Hyde who
is wearing Dr. Jekyll’s clothes.
They also find a huge mirror, which is out of place for a laboratory.
Utterson finds 3 documents.
One is a new will that leaves Jekyll’s estate to Utterson.
The second is a note dated that day, which tells Utterson to go home and read the letter
from Lanyon.
Third, there’s also a sealed envelop.
Chapter 9 is entirely a dictation of the letter from Dr. Lanyon
In it, Lanyon tells us that he was instructed by Dr. Jekyll to break into his laboratory
to retrieve ingredients and a man would come collect the items at midnight.
Lanyon does this and the man arrives right at midnight.
The man makes a concoction, and just before drinking it asks Dr. Lanyon if he really wants
to see this.
Lanyon replies that he’s already so involved that he may as well.
With that, Hyde takes the glass, drinks it, and transforms into Dr. Jekyll.
Chapter 10 is entirely the 3rd item found in Jekyll’s laboratory, the sealed envelope
containing his detailed confession.
. In this confession, Jekyll writes about how
he became obsessed with separating the two parts of a human; the good part and the evil
part.
After a lot of research, Jekyll finally finds a potion that will do just that.
The potion transforms Jekyll into the worst part of him.
Jekyll finds this exhilarating and liberating.
Eventually, Jekyll even set up a house and bank account for his alter ego, Mr. Hyde.
However, one night Jekyll involuntarily transformed into Mr. Hyde during his sleep.
This shocked and scared Dr. Jekyll, having to think about how he might permanently transform
into Mr. Hyde.
He planned to stop taking the potion.
However, he slipped up and did one time.
When he turned into Mr. Hyde was when he murdered Sir Danvers Carew
After that, Dr. Jekyll stops taking the potion completely.
This is the point when Dr. Jekyll’s health improved dramatically in chapter 6.
However, one day Jekyll was bored and decided to dip into the dark nature that Mr. Hyde
practiced.
This caused Dr. Jekyll to transform into Mr. Hyde in broad day light.
At this point is when he asked Lanyon to break into his laboratory and bring him the ingredients
he needed.
After getting back to his house, he began sending Mr. Poole all over town looking for
the special ingredient in the potion.
In Dr. Jekyll’s last moments, he wrote this letter.