A few lines later, he explains, "He, I say – I cannot say, I."(52). Firstly, he talks in the first person about himself, regardless of whether he is Jekyll or Hyde, but then he suddenly starts to mention Hyde and sometimes himself in third person: "(…) where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of that moment.” (51). He is the experiencing-I, but during his narrative, he switches several times from first to third person.
WHAT TRIGGERS ENFIELD'S STRANGE STORY FULL
The last chapter, Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case, also starts immediately with the letter Jekyll left for his lawyer Utterson and thus is in the first-person narrative situation. Therefore, Lanyon is the first-person narrator who explains his own death and “reveals the identity of Jekyll and Hyde, leaving to Jekyll’s the task of explanation.” (Garrett 60). Lanyon’s Narrative, and consists of the letter. Since Utterson is not allowed to open it until the death of Jekyll, we have no insight until chapter 9 which is called Dr. Hastie Lanyon confides to Utterson what he had found out about Jekyll is introduced. Garrett also points out: “What is most striking about them is, rather, the ways they are all shaped to fit together like the pieces of a puzzle (.)” (60). In addition, many documents, such as Jekyll’s will, play an important role for the narrative structure of the novel: “the novel is composed (…) of ten disparate documents identified only as letters, incidents, cases and statements” (Thomas 160). Lanyon’s Narrative and Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case. Another answer is that he was called by the police because he was somehow involved (15).īesides Mr.Enfield’s Story of the Door and the maid’s report of the Carew Murder, two other narrations are inserted into the main one, namely Dr. Probably this is how Utterson heard about the incident. But it can be suggested that she must have told the story several times, not only to the police: “she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience” (14). The question arises how the lawyer is connected to the maid’s experiences. The account is also told in the figural narrative situation by an invisible narrator but the event is presented through Utterson’s point of view. In chapter 4 The Carew Murder Case, a maid tells that a “crime of singular ferocity” (14) happened in London.
He functions as a reflector, due to this, we see the scenes through his eyes (Meyer 67). From chapter 2 onwards, the story is told by an undefined narrator but the reader goes along with Utterson’s perspective. The fact that he, and also the reader, is not satisfied by Enfield’s explanation sets the story going (Niederhoff 32). Because Utterson is the one who is addressed we already see the story from his point of view. Enfield tells “a very odd story” (1) to his friend Utterson in first-person narration. During one of their “Sunday walks” (1), Mr. Utterson’s and Mr.Enfield’s) are presented which is also a hint for an omniscient perspective. Furthermore, on the first page, the thoughts of people (here Mr.
Utterson who is described in a very detailed way. Also the characters are introduced by this omniscient voice, for example Mr. The beginning of the novel is told by an authorial narrator who “offers a godlike panoramic view from an Olympic position outside and above the story” (Meyer 66). Afterwards, I will analyze the effect and the purpose that this narrative construction has on the reader. In the following, I will explain the multiperspectival narrative situation in the novel by pointing out the different perspectives, namely those of Enfield, Utterson, Lanyon and Jekyll. In the end I will summarize my results by drawing a short conclusion. Then I want to examine the reliability of the different narrators in the book. First, I will analyze the narrative situation by elaborating on the narrative structure of the story and its effect on the reader. Hyde” written by Robert Louise Stevenson in 1886. This term paper deals with the analysis of the narration in the novel “The Strange Case of Dr.