State of Edward Hyde

The State of Edward Hyde is the physical and moral condition of the evil persona that Henry Jekyll brings into being through his transformative drug. Hyde is not merely a separate identity but a being of pure evil, whose very presence inspires an instinctive, unnameable loathing in everyone who encounters him. His state is defined by a profound physical deformity that cannot be specified, a moral insensibility that grows more powerful over time, and a relationship to Jekyll that shifts from voluntary disguise to involuntary domination.

Physical Appearance and Deformity

Hyde is described as small, dwarfish, and plainly dressed, yet his most striking feature is an impression of deformity that no observer can precisely name. Jekyll himself explains that the evil side of his nature, having been less exercised and less exhausted than the good, produced a body that was "so much smaller, slighter and younger" than Henry Jekyll. Evil, which Jekyll calls "the lethal side of man," left on Hyde's body "an imprint of deformity and decay." When Mr. Utterson first sees Hyde, he notes that the man is "pale and dwarfish," with a displeasing smile, a husky and broken voice, and a manner that combines timidity and boldness in a murderous mixture. Yet none of these specific points can explain the "hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear" that Utterson feels. He concludes that Hyde seems "hardly human," something "troglodytic," and reads "Satan's signature" upon his face. Mr. Enfield, who witnessed Hyde trampling a child, similarly finds him impossible to describe: "There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable." Enfield can see Hyde in his memory at that very moment but cannot name what makes him so repellent. Dr. Lanyon, when he meets Hyde, experiences an "odd, subjective disturbance" that resembles incipient rigour and a marked sinking of the pulse, which he later believes has a cause "much deeper in the nature of man." The maid who witnesses the Carew murder describes Hyde as "particularly small and particularly wicked-looking." Even Poole, who has served Jekyll for twenty years, recognizes Hyde by his size and his "quick, light way" and feels in his marrow "kind of cold and thin" at the sight of him.

Moral Nature and Pure Evil

Hyde is not a mixture of good and evil but, as Jekyll states, "alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil." When Jekyll first transforms into Hyde, he feels "younger, lighter, happier in body" and conscious of "a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul." He knows himself at that first breath to be "more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil," and the thought "braced and delighted me like wine." Hyde's every act and thought centers on self; he drinks pleasure "with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another" and is "relentless like a man of stone." Jekyll, looking back on Hyde's deeds, stands aghast but consoles himself that it is Hyde alone who is guilty, and thus his own conscience slumbers. The pleasures Hyde seeks are undignified, but they soon turn toward the monstrous. When Jekyll commits the murder of Sir Danvers Carew, he does so in the person of Hyde, with "a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill" than ever before, striking "in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything." After the murder, Hyde flees "at once glorying and trembling, my lust of evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost peg."

Growth and Domination Over Jekyll

Over time, Hyde's state changes from a temporary disguise to a permanent threat. Jekyll notices that the body of Edward Hyde has grown in stature and that he is conscious of "a more generous tide of blood" when wearing that form. The balance of his nature is being permanently overthrown; the power of voluntary change is forfeited, and the character of Hyde threatens to become irrevocably his. Whereas in the beginning the difficulty was to throw off the body of Jekyll, it gradually transfers to the other side: Jekyll is slowly losing hold of his original and better self and becoming incorporated with his second and worse. Hyde's hatred for Jekyll is of a different order from Jekyll's hatred for Hyde. Hyde loathes the necessity of returning to Jekyll's subordinate station, loathes the despondency into which Jekyll has fallen, and resents the dislike with which he is regarded. He plays "ape-like tricks," scrawling blasphemies in Jekyll's own hand, burning letters, and destroying the portrait of Jekyll's father. Yet Hyde's love for Jekyll is also powerful: he fears Jekyll's power to cut him off by suicide, and this fear drives him to "commit temporary suicide" by returning to Jekyll's form. At the end, when the original salt that gave efficacy to the drug runs low and cannot be replaced, Hyde is trapped. Jekyll writes his confession under the influence of the last of the old powders, knowing that when it wears off, he will again become Hyde, who will either die on the scaffold or find courage to release himself. The state of Edward Hyde, once a chosen escape, has become an inescapable prison of pure evil that finally consumes both identities.