This how it works covers Writing About Secondary Characters: Function, Not Feelings within Lanyon and Utterson for GCSE English Literature. Revise Lanyon and Utterson in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This is a high-frequency topic, so it is worth revising until the explanation feels precise and repeatable. It is section 5 of 15 in this topic. Use this how it works to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
⚙️ Writing About Secondary Characters: Function, Not Feelings
The most common error on Utterson and Lanyon is to write about them as though their feelings matter in themselves. They do not. Stevenson uses them to perform structural functions: Utterson is the narrative frame, Lanyon is the measure of the boundary Jekyll crosses. The analytical move is always to ask what Stevenson achieves by including this character, in this form, in this position in the narrative.
Technique 1 — Narrative positioning. Utterson is introduced first, before any other character. This is not accident: Stevenson gives the reader a deeply sympathetic version of Victorian respectability before showing what that respectability cannot see. The reader understands Utterson before being disappointed by him. The irony lands harder because the affection is genuine.
Technique 2 — Foil construction. Lanyon functions as a foil to Jekyll — not as a person but as an argument. His cheerful rationalism exists to be destroyed by the evidence Jekyll's experiment produces. Stevenson does not need Lanyon to be a complex character; he needs Lanyon to embody Victorian scientific confidence and then die of its failure. The death is a structural point, not a character tragedy.
Technique 3 — Epistolary framing. Both Lanyon's letter (Chapter 9) and Jekyll's Full Statement (Chapter 10) arrive as written documents. Stevenson uses the letter form to create layers of narrative distance: Lanyon writes to be read after his death, knowing the reader will already suspect the truth. The hesitation encoded in a deathbed letter — "I sometimes think if we knew all" — is Stevenson's way of giving the secondary character his most precise single moment without making him a major protagonist.
Practice questions for Lanyon and Utterson
Which of the following best describes Utterson's role in Jekyll and Hyde?
Explain ONE technique Stevenson uses in constructing Utterson as the novella's narrator, and explain its effect.