The Gentleman's Code
📖 The Gentleman's Code
Utterson knows something is wrong. He knows Jekyll is connected to Hyde. He suspects Hyde has some hold over his old friend. And yet his first instinct — the instinct that governs the entire first half of the novella — is to protect Jekyll's reputation.
Not to understand. Not to help. To protect.
Stevenson writes a novella in which every respectable man's first loyalty is to the mask, not to the truth. And he shows us what that loyalty costs.
Stevenson introduces all his main characters through their professional standing. Utterson is a lawyer; Lanyon is a distinguished doctor; Jekyll is a respected physician. Enfield is a man whose social connections speak for him. None of them is introduced through personality or inner life — only through what they do and
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🧠 Reputation's Trajectory in Three Words
MASK → THREAT → EXPOSURE
Mask: every character introduced through professional standing first — reputation IS identity. Threat: Hyde threatens the mask; the gentlemen's code enables Jekyll's isolation; Utterson investigates to protect, not to save. Exposure: posthumous documents only — truth arrives after death; Victorian society's apparatus means the mask survives even catastrophe.
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Quiz · Question 1 of 12
In Chapter 1, when Utterson hears about Hyde, what is his first instinct?
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