Textual Hyde and Seek - Moodle USP do Stoa

Textual Hyde and Seek: "Gentility," Narrative Play and Proscription in Stevenson's "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" Author(s): Robbie B. H. Goh Source: Journal of Narrative Theory, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Spring, 1999), pp. 158-183 Published by: Journal of Narrative Theory Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30225726 . Accessed: 17/05/2013 12:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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TextualHyde and Seek: "Gentility," NarrativePlay and Proscriptionin Stevenson's DrJekyllandMrHyde B. H. Goh Robbie In discussingwhatis perhapsthe nineteenthcentury'smost famousand enduringstory of split identities,RobertLouis Stevenson's1886 short novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, critics have quite pre-

dictablyusedDr.Jekyll'sscientificprojectas ananalogueforthenarrative itself. Stevenson'stale,it is argued,offersa plethoraof signssplitoff from their signifieds, voices disembodiedand dislocated,and distinctions elided.1This in turnis seen as partof Stevenson'sattemptto undermine patriarchy,which-variously, accordingto differentscholarlyviews-is malebourgeoisidentity"out of partof a projectto createa "reimagined the ashesof the flawedonethetextdismantles,or anOedipalconflictwith ThomasStevensoncenteringaroundthe pleasureprincipleandthe figure of the mother,or a gestureof deviance(suchas the sexualcode of homoVictoriansociety.2 eroticism)withinthe constraintsof hypocritical An extensionto this overtlypoliticalrole ascribedto the text is the view of it as engagingin narrativeplay intendedto frustratethe linear codes of "readerly," "realist"expectations.ThusAlan Sandisonspeaksof Stevenson'spervasive"metafictional his "subversive,deconstructures," structiveundertow"which is partof modernism's"antagonism towards the literarytradition"of nineteenth-century realism(4-5, 15). Scholars JNT. Journal of Narrative Theory 29.2 (Spring 1999): 158-183. Copyright c 1999 by JNT. Journal of Narrative Theory.


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like Williams and Arata invoke Stevenson's essays "A Chapteron Dreams,"andespecially"ANote on Realism,"as evidenceof the author's anddivergencefrom"traditional predilectionfor literaryexperimentation humanistnotionsof bothrealismandidentity."3 Thenotionof divergence-literary,sexualor political-does not,however, offer a completelysatisfyingaccountof Stevenson'snarrativeproit offersno satisfactoryaccountof instancesof the narject. In particular, rative'sapparentcomplicityin moralcodesorjudgements,of conservative or authoritarian strandsin the text-not merelythe ironicallysmugpatriarchalvoice of characterslikeUttersonandLanyon,butalso the corrobonarrator. ratingvoice of the quasi-omniscient Scholarshipon Stevenson has oftenbeentroubledby the presencein thisnovelof whatGarrettcalls the "strongconservativestrain"(60), andThomasa "plotof exclusion" (73), whichin factcontradictthe "savagepleasure"of its iconoclasticimpulses.The inabilityto accountfor this contradictory impulseleadsGarrettto concludethatthe novellais guiltyof "fictionalirresponsibility," a "refusalor failureto offerany securepositionforits readeror to establish any fixedrelationbetweenits voices"(70), andThomassimilarlycalls the thenotionof a textual"deviance" novel a "schizo-text" (83). Furthermore, that a socio-sexual devianceimputestoo realist echoes conventions) (from much teleologicalpurposeand coherenceto a narrativewhich is complexlypre-moral,"plaisir"ratherthanlogicalintention;it is to foreground the thematicsof the Hydeantransgression, while neglectingthe narrative whichcontainsthattransgression at the sametimethatit reperformance it. pudiates In this novel,narrativeitselfis the siteof meaning,of textualprocesses thatoperatepriorto narrowerthematicconcernsandto simplifyingsocial oppositions.This reinforceswhatmightbe termedthe intentionalnature of values andjudgements,whichdo not standoutsideof the text (in the butinsociety"or"history"), seeminglypre-textualreferentsof "Victorian steadfindmeaningpreciselyin the actsof interpretative judgementstructuredand sustainedby the narrative.Social criticismis very much seckey,to this formof modernist ondary,andcannotformthe interpretative of a semioticexercisein whose concern is the creation narrative, primary the act of reading,althoughof coursethis exerciseis also a social, systemic function.


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The centralsignifyingcodes,in thisas well as otherStevensonian narratives,arethoseof shameandguilt,kinshipandproscriptive banishment, This is most which are playedout in an unmistakeably Oedipalpattern. apparentin the Scottish (pseudo)romances,Weirof Hermiston,Kidnapped,andDavidBalfour(or Catriona,as the latterwas knownin England and Scotland).4Characters in these novels struggleliterallyagainst the name of the father,eitheras a repudiationof the biologicalfather's "coarseandcruel"nature(as is the case withArchieWeirin Weirof Hermiston,who effectivelyrenounceshis kinshipwith his fatherthe "hanging"judge);5or else as a conflictof emotionalandpoliticalaffiliationsin thetroubledJacobitestruggleswhichis the settingof thelattertwo novels. Namingthe protagonistof Kidnappedandits sequelDavidBalfour(this being the familynameof Stevenson'smother)also allows Stevensonto write elementsof his own troubledrelationshipwith his fatherinto this politicaldrama. The problematicsof namingin thesenovels suggeststhe fundamental crisisin identitythatStevensonis verymuchconcernedwith,not the less becauseof his fascinatidnwiththenameandlegendof RobRoyMacGregor: ... Stevensonhopedhe mightbe descendedfromRob or at anyratefromtheclan.Obviously,he Roy MacGregor was neverable to proveit, and the "perfectevidence"he

in a letter. .. amounts mentions onlyto thefact--ifit is a fact-that whenthe nameof MacGregor was proscribed someof theclancalledthemselves "Stevenson." (Aldington 10) David's quest might be seen as that of gaininghis rightfulappellation ("DavidBalfourof Shaws")afterthe deceitfuldisinheritance performed his uncle but this can never be made at Ebeneezer, by public:6 the end of the first novel, he comes to a compromising agreement in which the

shameduncle is financiallypenalised,butremainsinstalledat Shaws,to all appearancesthe Lairdstill. David, in fact the rightfulLaird,spends most of the two novels sans identityandroots,tossedto andfrobetween different clan affiliations and power factions. David's outlawed Jacobite friend,Alan Breck Stewart,faces a similarplight throughoutthese novels,


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caughtbetweenthe prideof bearing"aking'sname,"andthe shameand guilt of havingpublicallyto hide that name in HanoverEngland(Kidnapped60, 219-220). The eponymousheroineof Catriona,too, endures hardshipand disgraceundera varietyof names-as "the daughterof JamesMore,"the wardof "Mrs.Ogilvy/LadyAllardyce,"and finallyas the wife of "DavidBalfour"(Catriona9, 57). In the troubledclimateof the Scottishromances,identityis notmerely oppositional,but is constantlyambivalentandshifting.Individualsdo not merely struggle to choose between two affiliations-the legal and Hanoverian,or the oppositional,outlawedJacobinical-butcontinually re-negotiatetheirpluralidentitiesin eachdifferentspeech-act.David,for himselfto a seriesof fatherexample,does not "regress"by "submitting his as Sandison (190) suggests;rather, career(if it hasanysigniffigures," icanceat all) is thatof a continualprocessof acceptanceandrepudiation of differentfather-figures. Thushe moves fromthe authorityof his Whig mentor the to Jacobiteintriquesof AlanBreckandJamesStewCampbell art, fromthe Stewartsto theirenemiesthe MacGregors,fromthe petty outlawescapadesto the higher(butalso contradictory) realpoliksymbolised by SimonFraserandPrestongrange. In the end,he andCatrionahavenot so muchresolvedthesequestions of identityand forgedtheir own place, as they have stumblednolens volens throughdifferent,contradictory positions.The romancedevice of the endingmarriagecannotconcealthe factthattheirunionstandsin the face of competingclaimsto theirindividualloyalties,a pointwhichthe readeris remindedof evenattheveryend,as theirtwo childrenarenamed for Alan and for Prestongrange's (the LordAdvocatewho persecutesthe David well Stewarts)daughter. may say that he marriesCatriona"as thoughtherehad been no suchpersonas JamesMore"(290), but Catriona's own renunciationof her fatheris muddledand irresolute:"I am a daughterof Alpin! Shameof the sons of Alpin,begone!"(286), she proclaims, proscribinghis name by resortingto the legendaryclan of the herkinshipto himunderanAlpins,althoughin so doingshe perpetuates otherclansignifier.Yetagain,she andDavidalso re-affirmtheirties to the MacGregorsby seekingthe blessingof the exiled chieftainof the clan, who implicitlyassociatesthemwith JamesMoreonce again,by refusing (andforbiddingthem)publiclyto repudiatehim (muchas Ebeneezercannot be publiclydenounced):"weareall Scotsfolk andall Hieland"(290).


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These narrativesthus accentuatethe romancepleasure (the plot structure of growth, marriageand hope) by a perverse,sado-masochisticinvocation of the cruelty, shame, and pain of the betrayals(including self-betrayals) upon which the romanceending must be founded. Oedipal relations are marked by surface affections and (ultimately) deeper betrayalsand proscriptions,this narrativeschadenfreudereplacing the promised but undelivered plot structuresof the bildungsroman.In readingDavid's relationshipwith James Stewart,for example, one is compelled to work througha perversely sado-masochisticprogression:James is the symbolic father, himself proscribedand persecutedby the Campbells, who provides temporaryshelter to David and Alan: "Jamescarried me accordingly into the kitchen, and sat down with me at table, smiling and talking at first in a very hospitablemanner"(Catriona, 186, emphasis added). The peculiarityof this novel is that David moves from a plethora of motives ("justice,""vanity,"gentlemanly"essence")urging him to risk his life in James's defence, to a gradualabsorptioninto the affairsand concerns of James's Whig enemies. Yet this betrayalis repeatedlymarkedby David's own sympathetic sentiments on precisely this betrayal: in his comment on the political machinationswhich sacrifice James,he observes that "therewas only one person that seemed to be forgotten,and that was James of the Glens" (150). Yet David is himself complicit (by his silence) in James's fate: Therewas neverthe leastwordheardof the memorial, or noneby me. Prestongrange andhis GracetheLordPresidentmayhaveheardof it (forwhatI know)on thedeafest sides of theirheads;they keptit to themselves,at leastthepublicwas nonethewiser;andin thecourseof time,on November8th, and in the midstof a prodigiousstormof windandrain,poorJamesof the Glenswas dulyhangedat Lettermore by Ballachulish.(187) David, too, has kept his testimony "on the deafest side," as he puts it. He attemptsto dilute this act with the complacentrationalizationthat "innocent men have perishedbefore James, and are like to keep on perishing(in spite of all our wisdom) till the end of time" (187), and to naturalizehis


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actions as a young man's spiritedrejectionof an unfairemotionalburden, a lost cause. Proscription(etymologically "proscribere")-writing as elision, rejection or banishment-is an inherentlyparadoxicalact, not only in its play of presence/absence(as a declarationwhich names he who henceforth,by the authorityof that declaration,is not to be named), but also in the admixture of pity and cruelty,pain and pleasure, as David shows. Thus the foregroundingof David's feelings of guilt and anxiety are partof the very pleasure of their catharsis,and the reader(whose investmentin the titular hero and heroine of these novels finds pleasure in the unfolding of their destinies, even if this denouementnecessarily glosses over ethical and affective complexities) is no less complicit in this textual process. Following Julia Kristeva, we might describe Stevenson's textual pleasure as an instance of "jouissance,"which is only in partthat covert pleasure which phallocentricnarrativesseek to suppress,and which may manifest itself in a delight in deviance or alterity:in primalterms the mother, that "other [who] has no penis, but experiencesjouissance and bears children"(About26). Beyond this, Kristeva(in her analysis of that most patriarchal of symbolic systems, Christianity)also speaks of "ecstatic"and "melancholic"jouissance, which are "two ways in which a woman may participatein this symbolic Christianorder"(27, 28). In such attemptsby the other "to gain access to the social order,"jouissance comes to assume ambivalent nuances: as the "reward"that the subject acquires from the symbolic order,the "triumph"of "sublimatedsadisticattacks"on the other whom the subject now disavows or proscribes,but also as the "tearful" submission which brings the acceptance of self-recrimination(30). Thus the subject on the one hand assumes the position of the undifferentiated entity who is pleasurably accommodated by the patriarchalorder (although only at the cost of losing distinctness);and on the other hand, relates to that order as a difference which must submit to punishment(but which punishmentalso brings the pleasure of acceptance).This complex duality incorporatesboth the proscriptionof the self (in the hysteric's "unutterablejouissance") as well as the proscriptionpractisedby the self on an other, in the name of the father-law("True-Real"230). This ambivalentunion of ecstatic sadism and melancholic masochism is not, of course, confined to the daughterwhose symbolic lack is so evident; Freud describes a similar ambivalencein the process of ego forma-


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tion which he describes in the Oedipalterms of the son-fatherrelationship. According to Freud,the self ultimately "absorbsinto itself the invulnerable authority"(superego) and consequentlyentersinto the dual role of authority and rebel (Civilization 115). The boy's discourses assume their own characteristics-recurring in Freud's accounts as tropes of hostility and symbolic violence towards the father (murder,castration)confirmed by acts of proscription(guilt feelings, displacement,jokes, the taboo). For Freud, the locus classicus of these tropes is totemism and taboos among the "primitive"aboriginal and Polynesian tribes, a primitivist ethnology reflected in some ways in Stevenson's view of the Pacific Islanders-and thus, by association, with the Scottish highlandersStevenson frequently comparedto the Polynesians.7For both Freudand Stevenson, totems and taboos were only the "ambivalentemotional attitude"of the father-complex in modem society writ in large and savage letters (Totem 141). The totemic symbols and relateddiscoursesof "avoidance,"taboo laws and religions are thus essentially narrativedevices to negotiatethe self's anxious and pleasurablerelationshipwith authority.8 Jouissance and proscriptionare even more complexly interwoven in Jekyll and Hyde, where a numberof complex narrativesigns and (mis)directions take the place of the historical dramaand action of the Scottish novels. Despite its evasive fragmentation-Sandison says that it is "not one story but ten enigmatic stories" (219), and Thomas speaks of the "fragmentingof the self into distinctpieces with distinctvoices" (73)-the novella neverthelessreads at some levels like a moral, cautionarytale. Andrew Lang calls it "Poe with the additionof a moral sense," and Stevenson himself insisted quite heatedly on a particularway of readingJekyll, "because he was a hypocrite-not because he was fond of women," and for his "cruelty and malice, and selfishness and cowardice."9However, this moral indictment(if it ever appearsclearly in the narrative)is more problematic in respect of Jekyll's peers-Utterson, Lanyon, Enfield, Carewand the whole patriarchalsociety they represent.This is certainly a form of modernist "janiformity"wherein "organic"and conservative views of society can be preserved covertly, in the performanceof the narrative,to create a critical project mounted in some bad faith.l0 However, what distinguishes Stevenson's narrativefrom, say, the hesitant imperialismand racism of Kipling and Conrad, or the divided Anglo-Irish political consciousness of Yeats-modernism in its mode of melancholic, identifica-


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exists,not as a statementor torysocialcriticism-is thatthe contradiction visionwithin(whatRolandBartheswouldcall)the"culturalcode,"butas a clash within/between"hermeneutic," "semic"and "symbolic"codes (55-60).11Thereis thusno organic,re-visionedmodelof societyandhistoryto be uncovered(as a set of cluesto the informedreader),butrathera moralgoal througha textualperformance into whichthe readeris interthanmodernism's other pellated.Thatgoal is no less ideologically-fraught it in in not articulation or but rather visions;however, consists, statement, narrativeas a functionof the socialsystem. Sucha view of JekyllandHydeposes one kindof answerto the many problemsof thetext,one of themostvexingbeingtheroleof the shadowy, narrator forconvenience,calledthe Steven(henceforth, quasi-omniscient soniannarrator), who at timessuggeststhe roleof moralcommentary performedby the omniscientrealistnarrator of nineteenth-century andmodem fiction,and at othertimes moreclosely resemblesthe non- (or pre) is elumoralroleof thenarrator in metafiction.ThisStevensonian narrator and then with the sive, variouslypresent authoritative, closelyaligned perspective of a narratingcharacter,then elsewhereseeminglyabsentand giving way to disparatevoices. It is thus hardlysurprisingthatthe existence of sucha narrator is not usuallyrecognisedor conceded.In arguing his claimforthe"disappearance of the author," RonaldThomasnamesthe narrators in the who novella: major Jekyll, possiblyhas the least control over what is ostensibly his own story, Utterson, and Enfield. We should add to this list the shadowy narrativevoice whose textual presence is perhaps most clearly seen at the beginning of the novella: Mr Uttersonthe lawyerwas a man of a ruggedcountenance,thatwas neverlightedby a smile;cold, scantyand embarrassedin discourse;backwardin sentiment;lean, long, dusty,drearyandyet somehowlovable.At friendly meetings,and when the wine was to his taste,something eminentlyhumanbeaconedfromhis eye;somethingindeed whichneverfoundits way into his talk,but whichspoke notonlyin thesesilentsymbolsof theafter-dinner face,but moreoftenandloudlyin theactsof his life.He was austere with himself;drankgin when he was alone,to mortifya


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A numberof detailswhichwill proveironicareestablishedin thisopening passage:Utterson'sself-despised"tastefor vintages"is one of the prominent links betweenhim and Jekyll'ssocial circle, "alljudges of good wine"(22), buthis gin drinkingidentifieshimselfwiththe socialotherhe encountersin Hyde'sdomainof Soho,with its "ginpalace"andwomen addictedto their"morningglass"(27).12The seeminglyirrelevantpoint abouthis long absencefromthe theatreanticipatesthe significantscene when Uttersonpassesthroughthe doorsof Jekyll's"surgicaltheatre,"a liminalspacewhichmarkstheboundarybetweenUtterson'srationalsociety andthe irrationalalterityof Hyde'sworld(43). Perhapssignificantly, thatlong-disusedtheatreis surreallyclutteredwith"cratesandbottles,"a hint of the public house and the lower appetitesto which it caters.In Jekyll'sdefensivestatementat the endof the novel,he compareshis conreasonswithhimselfuponhis vice"(69). ditionto that"whena drunkard This suggestionof uncontrollable appetiteis reinforcedin the samechapter when UttersonreadsJekyll/Hyde'sdesperatelettersto the chemists, who are called"Messrs.Maw"-once againsuggestingconsumptionand thatof a "voraciousanimal."l13 Jekyll'saddictionto appetite,in particular the drugis of coursehighly suggestiveof anotherVictoriananxiety,the base appetitefor opium. Thatprevalentfin de siecle trope-the hypocrisyof the respectable middleclass-is almostlost in these subtle-one mighteven say oversubtle-hints. Thisplayfulsubtletyseemsto be the point:whatis created is a sly, teasing,andprovocativelyconfidentialnarrative voice,whichsuggests its intimateknowledgeof Uttersonandhis world,while suggesting It shouldnotbe articulated. at the sametimethatsomeof thoseparticulars is a narrativewhich seemsto proscribewhile it describes-Utterson,we aretold, is not the most emotionallyexpressiveperson,andhas qualities which"neverfound[their]way into his talk,"so thatit devolvesupona to revealhis secret,"eminentlyhuman" close confidantelike the narrator this intention is not followedthrough,andthe readeris aspect.However, insteadreferredenigmaticallyto "thesesilentsymbolsof the after-dinner face," seeminglyinterpolatedinto a scene of affectionateand intimate community,butone whichis continuallydeferred.Theclosestone comes


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to penetrating into such a scene is at the beginning of the chapter "Dr Jekyll Was Quite at Ease," but once again Utterson's mysterious human qualities are teasingly elided under phrases like "his unobtrusive company,""practisingfor solitude,""the man's rich silence" (22). At any rate, his humanity and solicitude, such as it is, can only emerge after the moment of intimate companionship-after the dinner is over and the "old cronies" have departed.Here, as elsewhere in the depiction of Utterson, the uncertain tone oscillates between affection and irony, between a warmth which invites the reader's moral identificationwith the lawyer, and a contraryinvitation to read more sinister (albeit equally cryptic) aspects into this characterization. One of the consequences of this narrativepoise is an ontological uncertaintywhere the boundariesof narrativezones (in Bakhtin'ssense) blur and meld. On the one hand,this narratorat times sharesso much of Utterson's consciousness, point of view, and even more idiosyncraticcharacteristics, that he seems to fade into non-existence, leaving Utterson as the dominantnarrativepresence. Thus, for example, where Uttersonbegins to suspect something amiss in Jekyll's affairs: And the lawyer,scaredby the thought,broodedawhile on his own past,gropingin all the cornersof memory,lest of an old iniquityshould by chancesome Jack-in-the-Box leapto lightthere.His pastwas fairlyblameless;few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension;yet

he was humbledto the dustby the manyill thingshe had done,andraisedup againintoa soberandfearfulgratitude by the many that he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.(20-21) This is grammaticallythe same third-personnarrativewhich opens the novella, and sharestoo the insight into Utterson'sstate of mind, the "sober and fearful" (self-) scrutiny, and something of the irony (in Utterson's utter misconception of Hyde's relationshipto Jekyll) of the earlier passage. At the same time, however, the text is at pains to establisha narrative voice and perspectivethat is characteristicallyUtterson's,distinctfrom the Stevensonian narratoras such: the self-deprecatingand dry Utterson in this passage and elsewhere never describeshimself in the affectionateand


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approvingterms("somehowlovable,""anapprovedtolerancefor others," "thelastgoodinfluence")thatthevoice attheopeningof thenovellauses. Moreover,Utterson'sperspectivelacksthe playfulnessof the Stevensonian narrator,and is the "soberand fearful"victim of the text's ironies his misplacedconcernandsympathy ratherthantheirmaster;in particular, for Jekyllcreatea distinctivenote of ironicanxietyin his perspectiveand voice. In contrast,the Stevensoniannarrator expresslylacksthis note of anxiety,andis nevera victimof textualironies;if he doesnot speakto reveal foreknowledge or insight,neitheris he takenby surpriseas areUtterson andothernarrators. Whatis createdis a narratorial equivalentof the ontologicalquestions the conundrum-the confusionof the pronouns posed by Jekyll/Hyde "he/I"in Jekyll'sstatement(73),the"community of memory"betweenthe two personalitiesthat FrederickMyersinsistedon (Maixner221). In a similarway,the ghostlymovementfrompresenceto absence,distinctiveness to similarityon the partof the Stevensonian narrator calls into question the very basis of narrativebeing-even thattransient,actantialexistence which enablesthe processof reading.CertainlyUttersonhas no ontologyor person,no formallinguisticmarkersto designate grammatical who is givenneihis separationfromtheunnamed,"omniscient" narrator, therthe pronoun"I"nora nameas themarkof his locusor identity.Yetin whatothersense can it be saidthatUttersonis a narrator at all, thanthat is his the reader takenso closelyandintimatelyinto perspectiveandstate of mind,andthathe is given a greatercentralityandpresencethanother speakers?The finaltwo chaptersin the novellaembodythisparadox:Uttersonhas retiredfromthe physicaldramaby the endof the eighthchapter,andindeeddoes not intrudehis perspective,tone andpersonalityinto the final two chapters.However,a chronologicalanomalypersistsat the end, to maintainUtterson'snarrativecentrality:the readerencountersthe two finalstatementsas it wereon sufferance,onlybecauseUtterson(in his act of readingthe letters)continuesas a notionalconsciousnessandnarrative devicein the novella.14 The ontologicalpuzzle deepenselsewhere,as narrativevoices quite distinctand separatefromthat of the Stevensoniannarratorare offered. Thus,forexample,the beginningof the chapterentitled"TheCarewMurderCase":


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Nearlya yearlater,in the monthof October18-, London was startledby a crimeof singularferocityandrenderedall themorenotableby thehighpositionof thevictim.Thedetailswerefew andstartling.A maidservantlivingalonein a house not far fromthe river,had gone upstairsto bed abouteleven .... It seemsshe was romantically given,for she satdownuponherbox,whichstoodimmediately under the window,and fell into a dreamof musing.Never (she used to say, with streamingtears,when she narratedthat experience)neverhadshe felt moreat peacewith all men or thoughtmorekindlyof theworld.(25) This passage is distinctive in several ways: its tone is the detached and sensationalistically irresponsiblevoice of the yellow press, and its perspective is speculative and tentativewhen comparedto the certaintyof the omniscient narrator.Although the narrativehere has decided opinions, these are couched frankly as speculations or hearsay: thus the maid's chancing to witness the murderis embellished with a theory of her being "romanticallygiven" (which is more suggestive than precise or explanatory), this in turnqualifiedwith "it seems."Her feelings are not intuitedby the narrator(as Utterson's are), but deliberatelyspecified as her reported statementin the parenthesis"(she used to say . .. when she narratedthat experience").Yet this narrativedistance does not stop the reportingvoice from indulging in a kind of disparagingsexism, which imputesto the maid all the tropes of a foolish sentimentalism and weakness ("full moon," "tears,""prettymanner,""fainted")-an element of sexual attitude(however negative) which has no place in the dry bachelor atmosphere surroundingUtterson and his circle. The change to Utterson's point of view (in the third paragraphof the chapter) is markedand significant, althoughthere are no explicit chapter or section breaks. It establishes that Utterson is not privy to the perspective and knowledge containedin the first two paragraphs:indeed, the narrative places him in an altogether separate space, so that the news (together with the envelope bearing Utterson's name) must be physically conveyed to him at a specific time ("the next morning,before he was out of bed"). Utterson'smind and feelings, too, are contained:on receiving the information,he "shot out a solemn lip," carrieshimself with the enigmati-


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cally "same grave countenance,"and insists that he "shall say nothing" until he has seen the body (26). This may simply be (juris) prudenceon the part of the lawyer, but it has a distinct narrativeeffect as well: the readeris suddenly denied access to Utterson'sinner state, an access quite freely given in much of the novel, through the omniscient narratoror throughUttersonhimself. This unusualdenial thus serves to segregatetwo distinct narrativevoices and the social registersthey imply: the readeris inducted into the sensationalism and commonness of the initial paragraphs,only to encounterthe social and narratorialproscriptionthatUtterson's consciousness brings to the episode. Veeder (119) argues that a note of dubiousness clings, not only to Carew's encounterwith Hyde (which suggests the anonymityof a homosexual solicitation), but also to the maid who mysteriouslyhas the means and necessity to live "alone in a house."More thanthe suggestions of sexual vice, however (which are indeterminate),the note of moral dubiousness is struckby the narrativeliberties and improprietiesin this passage. The journalisticvoice and its chauvinistictrivializationof the maid's character and perspective, is repeatedby the policeman who reportsthe murder to Utterson: asked by the lawyer (with characteristicunderstatement and periphrasis)if Hyde is a "person of small stature,"the policeman's reply is crudely conjectural:"'Particularlysmall and particularlywickedlooking, is what the maid calls him"' (27). The tone of narrativeintrusion spreadsthroughoutthis chapter,like the fog which unites the environs of Hyde and the maid, Utterson, and finally Soho, where Hyde's landladyis described as "an ivory-faced"woman, having "an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy"(27). The blanknessof the ivory face is overwrittenby the curious semiotic contradictionwherein the narrativevoice reads "evil" simultaneously with signs of its erasure("smoothedby hypocrisy").Other crudely intrusive interpretationswhich distinguish the narrativeof this chapterinclude the descriptionof the "blackguardlysurroundings"of the neighbourhood,and the crass detail of Jekyll's fortune("a quarterof a million sterling").Narrrativecrueltyhere is less blunt, and even more overdetermined, than in the Scottish romances, but it manifests itself quite clearly both in these gleeful accusatory voices, as well as the implied judgement against them. The ontological uncertaintysurroundingthe Stevensoniannarratorthus destabilizes expectationsat the level of codes such as the hermeneuticand


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symbolic: firstly, because the slippage between narratorialperspectives is also a slippage of moral perspectivesand thus of judgement. The potential shame and guilt of Utterson's"manyill things he had done" are diluted by the absence/presenceof the omniscient narrator,who simultaneouslyenforces the external,objective criticism (which is also a quasi-objectiveexoneration-"His past was fairly blameless"),but also offers the possibility that these are no more than Utterson'sown alarmistand baseless fears, or hypocritical and baseless self-exoneration. Symbolic clusters-gin and wine, the front door and the back, professionalismand dilettantism,physical markers such as the tall/fair versus the short/dusky-accordingly never progress beyond the merely (but also problematically)suggestive, since it is never clear if they are always containedwithin the same signifying code or perspective. Furthermore,the primary hermeneutic code concerned with Jekyll's motives and means is likewise also subverted:to reach the "full statement"at the end of the novel is not to move from fragmented "outside"perspectives to a unified "inside"one, but ratherto encounter the further conumdrum of the Jekyll-Hyde identity conflation ("He, I say-I cannot say, I," 73; and laterwhen even Jekyll is referredto in the third person, 74), the moral equivocations(the quibble involved in terms like "double-dealer,""duplicity,"and "hypocrite,"60) and the inexplicable nature and source of Jekyll's motivating "morbid sense of shame." Denied the bases of identity and individual characterupon which to make any moraljudgement,the readerencountersthe hermeneuticcodethe enigma which, in Barthes's view, is teasingly proferred,but deferred rightto the end of the narrative-not (or not merely) as the expected moral reversal, the patriarchalfigure broughtlow and conflated with his degenerate self, but elsewhere, in the significance of narrativeacts themselves. This simultaneously ecstatic and melancholic jouissance-the selective location of the narrative consciousness, now outside the transgressive other and delighting in his punishment,and elsewhere within and sharing in the other's shame and guilt-has as its corollarythe creationof a code of "gentility" in the narrativeacts of other characters.This functions in similarways to the romanceelements Stevensonuses elsewhere, as a code which provides for the readerthe pleasureof identification(in both senses, of decipheringthe code, as well as of a positive affiliation and investment of interest), which is nevertheless troubled by the narrativecruelty and


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silencein proscription uponwhichit is based.Utterson's(juris)prudential the case of the Carewmurder,andits glaringcontrastto surrounding inis stancesof narrativeandinterpretation one coarseness, only example.A work in the similarclass distinctionseemsto be at Utterson/Enfield relationship,whichis governedby tacitandcomplexcodesof narrativeavoidance,transgression, guilt,andtolerantinclusion. Thusin the "Storyof theDoor,"Uttersonlistensto Enfield'sstorywith a companionable,seeminglycasualsilence,withoutbetrayingwith any immoderateinterruptions the factthathe too knowssomethingconnected withthe door.The only indicationof his privateknowledgeis the Stevensoniannarrator'shint,"witha slightchangeof voice"(9), when Enfield beginshis story.Enfield's"touchof sullenness"at the end,whenUtterson revealshis knowledge,wouldseemat firstto be a breakfromthis gentlemanly code of narrativetolerance:Uttersoncomes close to challenging Enfield'sveracity,andthis hintof impolitenessseemsto soundthe deathknell to theircompanionable exchange,as they "makea bargainneverto referto this again"(12). However,the bargainitself turnsout to be ironic,andunderstoodas at theWindow," Utterson suchby bothgentlemen:in the chapter"Incident and and Enfieldare once againat theircompanionable refer walk, quite casuallyandwithoutheatto the taboosubjectof Jekyll'sdoor(39). This renewalof the ostensiblytaboosubjectthusbecomesan occasionforconand sharedvalues of this communityof firmingthe tacit understanding gentlemen:Uttersonis quickto pointout to Enfieldthathe too has seen Hyde, and"sharedyourfeelingof repulsion"(39); andin the earlierexattitudeto scandal("themoreit lookslike change,Enfield'sdiscretionary QueerStreet,the less I ask,"11),is echoedin Utterson'stolerantanddiscrete treatmentof Jekyll'sscandalousaffairs.Both gentlemen-narrators are also caughtin compromisingmoments,and both share"shame"at the professionalcode of being compelledto break(howevertemporarily) discretion:Enfielddeclareshimself"ashamed of [his]longtongue,"not (it would seem) for narratingthe affairof Hyde'sbrutality,but for the fact that it has unintentionallycompromiseda gentlemanwhom Utterson knows.Uttersonis placedin a similarsituationafterhis encounterwith Hyde:while he seemsnot at all ashamed(andeven a littledefiant)about lying to Hyde that Jekyll had mentionedhim, he is unaccountably "ashamedof his relief' when Jekyll'sabsencefromhomepostponesthe


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lawyer'spainfultask of confrontinghim with the latter'sencounterwith Hyde(18-20). Notionsof gentility,professionalism andpatriarchy sit uneasilyin this I the of and am aware that novel's ironic thrustservesto novel, course, breakdownmanyof those carefulsocialdistinctionscherishedby Victorianmiddle-classsociety,andthatthe figureof Hyde servesto transgress boundariesanddistinctions.Thisis whatPeterGarrett(69) describesas a and Veederas the "dissolutionof distinctions"which "contamination," subvertVictoriansociety's stratifications(121). On a slightly different tack, Sandison(takingexceptionto Veeder)insiststhatUttersonandEnfieldnot onlydo notbelongto the sameprofessionalmiddleclass,butalso exist in a relationshipof socialinequalitywith an almostOedipaltension areoverdetermined to (232-236). Aratapointsout thatHyde's"stigmata" or the "bourthe extentthathe could equallybe the "degenerate prole" geois male"(236, 238). It is too simple,however,to say (withArata)that a "homosocialbonding"takesplaceas the middle-classprofessionalmen "closeranksaroundhim"to "protecthim fromharm"(239).Moralconfusion andthe dissolutionof socialboundariescannothide the obviousrethe novel, andthe moralimperapulsionthatHyde generatesthroughout tive which condemns both Hyde and his middle-class creator and alter-ego. However,if the closing of ranksdoes not obey the expectedclass the readingof socialmeaningsin the novel, logic, andthusproblematizes it does sketcha logic of narrativegentility.Jekyll,withhis immodestdisclosuresand interpretative excesses,is an obviousexampleof the transgressionof this code,butso is HastieLanyon,whosefirstname,"boisterous anddecidedmanner," andsummary judgementof Jekyllas "wrongin mind"(15), alreadysuggestsomethingof his indecentinterpretative haste andcarelessness.Thisis displayedmostclearlyin his responseto Jekyll's writtenpleaforhelp:JekyllexpresslyasksthatLanyon"drawout,withall its contents as they stand," the fourth drawerof his cabinet (53, original

andmakesa detailedexamiemphasis).Lanyonexceedshis instructions, nationof those contents,speculatingon the natureand purposeof the powdersand of Jekyll'sexperiments.Jekyll does indeed list in vague termsthe contentsof the drawer-"somepowders,a phial and a paper book"--butit is not solicitousconcernanda desireto close rankswhich promptsLanyon's excessive curiosity.Lanyon makes no attemptat


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Jekyll'sroomsto verify that he has the correctdrawer,stuffingit with strawandsealingit unseen;it is onlywhenit is too late,afterhe returnsto theprivacyof his own home,thathe violatesJekyll'sprivacy.Theinvestigationleadsto "littlethatwas definite,"by Lanyon'sown admission,but this inconclusiveset of signs does not preventhim fromforcinga prejudiced conclusion:the whole affairspeaks,"(liketoo manyof Jekyll'sinvestigations)to no end of practicalusefulness,"andJekyllconsequently mustbe sufferingfrom"cerebraldisease"(55). Lanyon'scareerin this novellathus becomesa moraltale cautioning It is his semioticarroindiscretion andhastyinterpretation. againstnarrative gance,in a sense,thatdoomshim.Havingsatisfiedhis curiosityandconfirmedhis derisoryopinionof Jekyll'saffairs,he declinesthe optionto allowHydeto takethe potionandleave"withoutfurtherparley"(58). The he witnesses,accordingly, is an encounter withthe ineffable transformation signs (fromLanyon'spointof view), describedin termsof indeterminable and blurredcategories:"he seemedto swell-his face becamesuddenly blackandthe featuresseemedto meltandalter"(59).As a properrecompense for his lack of discretion,Lanyonis told andshowneverythingby assuredness: Jekyll,whichfinallybringsaboutthecollapseof his narratorial "Whathe toldme in thenexthour,I cannotbringmy mindto set on paper." he conveys(belatedly)in his instrucThiscall fora discretionary narrative, whichis "forthehandsof J. G. Utterson tionsforhis posthumous statement, ALONEandin caseof his predeceaseto be destroyedunread"(37). It is a similarlack of narrativegentilitywhich(no less thanhis transformationinto the socialother,Hyde)condemnsJekyll.In his finalstatement, Jekyll begins by declaring himself "endowed .

.

. with excellent

parts,"andindeedhis narrativeis constantlymarkedby excess:he aimsat beforethe public,"his shame a "morethancommonlygravecountenance is "almostmorbid"(unlikethe shamesharedby Uttersonand Enfield, whichis felt on behalfof otherpeople,andquicklydismissed),he waxes panygericallyon his own life ("I labouredto relieve suffering";"much was done for others,"71). It is not only Hyde,Jekyll'sphysical"devil" within,who lacks restraintfromthe normalmoralchecksandbalances; Jekyllin his full statementalso revealshimselfto be lackingin narrative restraint,in the habitsof decorousperceptionandarticulation uponwhich socialorderseemsto rest.


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The novel's dominantsymbolic code is thus not the "contamination"of the middle-class, althoughthis is figured in the architecturaldegentrification and the urban sprawl which links respectable neighbourhoodswith the slums of Soho; beyond this predictablesemic level, the reader'sattention is directed to symbols of a threateningconflagration,which must be containedby avoidance and discretion.This often takes place on the verge of a revelation, as when the streeton which Enfield and Uttersonrambleis described as being "like a fire in a forest,"just priorto Enfield's scandaltinged story (8), or the atmospherein Soho "like the light of some strange conflagration"(27) when Utterson struggles to keep his own counsel in the Carew Murdercase. Utterson's well-intentionedbut inquisitive interrogation of Jekyll takes place with the two men on opposite sides of the fire, and is punctuatedby a pause in which Jekyll urges a discretionarysilence ("I beg of you to let it sleep") and Utterson"reflecteda little looking in the fire" (22, 23). The fire is also, of course, an image of primitive, libidinal energy, as when Hyde kills Carewin a "greatflame of anger"(25), and runningthroughoutJekyll's final self-justification,with its mention of the two "incongruousfaggots" of human nature, the "hellish" energies, and the image of Jekyll as "a creatureeaten up and emptied by fever" (69, 74), to name just a few instances. The fire interactswith the image of the fog, a conjunctionwhich Conradputs to very differenteffect in Heart of Darkness, where meaning in Marlow's tales is as ephemeralas the way in which "a glow brings out a haze" (30). In Jekyll and Hyde, the two symbols interactto suggest opposing forces: where the fog is associated with the spillage which seeps across ostensible class dividers, and with the obfuscating lack of self-knowledge which results in error and excess, the flame is defined in opposition to these qualities: ... andtherewouldbe a glow of a rich,luridbrown,like the lightof somestrangeconflagration; andhere,fora mothe would be ment, fog quitebrokenup, and a haggard shaft of daylightwould glance in betweenthe swirling wreaths.(27) The fireburnedin the grate;a lampwas set lightedon the chimneyshelf, for even in the housesthe fog beganto lie thickly;.... (30)


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Between a revelation which consumes narrativeproprieties,and this obfuscation which denies enlightening (self) knowledge altogether, the reader is directed to find the significance of right social conduct at the symbolic level. This is a deliberate"poetics of misdirection,"in which the reader'sinterpretativeenergies are turned away from the hermeneutic,semic and symbolic patterns which would be expected to sustain a "cultural"code (in Barthes's sense of a social referentor message) of fin de siecle social decay and hypocrisy.Instead,the play of narrativeidentitiesand code manipulation compel the reader's interpretativeenergies and attentionelsewhere, in a continual seeking of the moral flaw proscribedby the narrative's over-subtle but persistently suggestive signs, and of an "abstract" gentility whose basis is no known or recognizeablesocial groupingor category, but ratheris sustainedby a shadowy procedureof "right"interpretative behaviour. The autotelic moral-the coincidence of the moral hermeneutic (narrativediscretion and epistemological humility) with the reading process (which structuresfor the reader a position of continual wariness and the need to make precise distinctions)-is reinforcedby the plaisir involved in the proscriptionof an imprecise dread.The closer the call, the nearerthe reader'sown resemblanceto and avoidance of this intepretativearrogance,the greateris the imperativein the readingprocess to proscribe the near-sin of the nameless narrator,and the more obvious sins of Jekyll and Lanyon. The narratorialgentility suggested in Jekyll and Hyde might in some ways be comparedto Stevenson's articulationof an aesthetic gentility in his critical essays. When he cautions, in his essay "A Note on Realism," that the good writer "must ... suppressmuch and omit more,"he adumbrates the good taste which characterisesthe narrativesof decent professional men like Utterson,Enfield and the omniscientnarrator(72). Stevenson's essay advocates in writing a certain degree of "abstraction"or "idealism" against the tyranny of contemporary"realism,"by which he means the "merelytechnical and decorative"reliance on external"detail" which has risen in late nineteenth-centuryletters (69). His fragmentary essay, "A Chapteron Dreams," similarly suggests that the unconscious, condensed and enigmatic narrativestructureof the dream-workis aesthetically superiorto the moral elaborationsand embellishmentsof the "conscious ego" ("Chapter"202, 206-208).


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This aesthetic anxiety is not confined to Stevenson, and is also expressed in the essays of his friend and fellow novelist Henry James. James's 1884 essay "TheArt of Fiction"was, like Stevenson's "A Note on Realism,"a reactionto WalterBesant's lectureon fiction; like Stevenson's essay, it was an act of repudiation,enteringinto the "New Grub Street"15 wars by delineating an aesthetic class position. James describes Besant's form of literary professionalism as a type of snobbery and hypocrisy, clothing Besant in Jekyll-like clothes. Among Besant's stricturesare that "a writerwhose friends and personalexperiencesbelong to the lower middle-class should carefully avoid introducinghis charactersinto society." James finds this both "chilling," as an act of social superiorityand prescription, as well as ironic: Besant's sweeping remarksare "not exact," "so beautiful and so vague," and thus lack the "precisionand exactness" which Besant himself holds to be a key quality of the novelist ("Art"55). Beneath Besant's vision of a properliteraryprofessionalism,accordingto James, lies a journeymanstyle which resemblesthe plebeianmodels it disparages-an imputed social transgression,Jekyll-like, which on James's partmarksthe close relationshipbetween the aestheticwill and social anxiety. It is also quite clear that beneathJames's own thinly-veiled courtesies to Besant lies his own act of proscription,subtly defining James's code of aesthetic gentility by contrastingitself to the heavy-handedcrudeness of Besant's strictures.In place of the "vagueness"and "unguarded"aims of lower orders of writing, James advocates "precision,"which consists of being the most true to "experience."Here his departurefrom Stevenson becomes clear: where Stevenson fears the dominance of realism's "local dexterity," "facts," the artist "with scientific thoroughness, steadily to communicatematterwhich is not worth learning"(74), James stronglyapproves of "exactness"and "truthof detail," even agreeing with Besant's suggestion that the author's novel should be stocked with facts from his notebook (55). For James, the "freedom"of the novel did not mean a retreat into ellipsis and unconscious signification, but was equivalent with "history"and life itself. Whatever his reservationsabout the "vulgarity, the crudity,the stupidity"("Criticism"134) of base reviewersand readers, James'smoral goals, like his aestheticgentility,ultimatelytake the form of a broad humanismwhich attemptedto presentthe "real"aspect of human experience to modem society. This aesthetic of human "experience"and


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the "real,"despite its stylistic quarrelwith the nineteenthcentury,retained its preoccupation with the social and political, and thus constituted (as Fredric Jameson and others have pointed out) a utopian and idealist vision.16 In this respect the modernism of the Conradianartist's "descent into himself' to reveal human experience, aligns itself with James's aesthetic: in particular,Conrad'sincessant concern with the ethics of European racism,17as well as with the materialbases of social decay (ivory in Heart of Darkness, silver in Nostromo,the largereconomy of imperialist capitalism in which these signs function),and his quest for an implicit social and moral orderthat will offer an alternativeto this, characterizesthe romantic organicism of his modernism no less than that of James and Yeats.18 This impulse of veracity-a conviction of the largerworld or reality which it is literature'sduty to accuratelycopy-is conspicuously absent from Stevenson's poetic model. Stevenson's novel is sometimes reluctantly called into being by "financial fluctuations,"and it will often have a dose of "morality"superadded("Dreams"208); but the "real"figures only as the hovering "evil angel" fighting for the soul of the text ("Realism" 72). This was also an alternativetheory of narrative'spossible negotiation of power: romantic modernism's response was to meet it with the opposed power of the impressionistic statement(epitomised by Lily Briscoe's momentary, intense "vision," Marlow's "Buddha"-likestory). Stevenson's narrative, in contrast, responds to modernism's anxiety about social power by a continual exercising (and exorcising) of the shame and guilty pleasure involved in the textual process. The reader's engagement with narrativeelements, as a form of language-power,becomes a ritual performance which displaces and defers the force of the actual, social and historical. In repudiating the realist and social utopian codes of romantic modernist narrative,Stevenson resorted to a narrativemodel which (in its anti-romanticconception of the "sublime" as a constant deferral, and in its reliance on profoundly self-conscious "language games")19more closely resembles and anticipatespostmodernity. National Universityof Singapore Singapore


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Notes 1. More recent examples of such readings include essays by Peter K. Garrett,Ronald R. Thomas, and M. Kellen Williams. 2.

The phrase is Stephen D. Arata's(248). One of the mot persuasiveand comprehensive accounts of the role of patriarchyin this novella is William Veeder's essay "Children of the Night."

3.

The phrase is Arata's (253), althoughhe does usefully problematizeStevenson's antirealist poetics.

4.

It was Cassell, the English publisher,which coined the alternativetitle, fearing that Stevenson's original title (the one by which it was known in America), would be confused with Kidnapped.For a detailed account of the publishing history of these romances, see BarryMenikoff.

5. The unfinishedromance WeirofHermiston is includedin the World'sClassic's edition of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (115). 6.

Ebeneezer is himself ironically named, a shameful betrayalof the Biblical memorial stones and their function of public testimony and declaration;see, e.g., 1 Samuel 7:12, King James Version.

7. Thus Stevenson in In The South Seas claims understandingof MarquesaIslandersbecause of his "knowledge of our Scots folk of the Highlandsand the Islands."Stevenson felt the similarityespecially in terms of the structuresof power governing the two societies: "an alien authorityenforced, the clans disarmed, the chiefs deposed, new customs introduced"(Island 34). 8. TerryEagleton (262) remindsus that for Freud,libidinalprocesses are essentially aesthetic devices, the unconscious working "by a kind of 'aesthetic' logic." 9.

Andrew Lang wrote a review of Jekyll and Hyde in the SaturdayReview of 9 January 1886, reprinted in Critical Heritage (199). This view of the "moral sense" of the novella was echoed by JamesAshcroftNoble, the anonymousreviewer in the Rock of 2 April 1886, and others (203-205, 224-227). Stevenson's insistence is found in his letter to John Paul Bocock in November 1887, reactingangrilyto an unnamedcritic's account of RichardMansfield'sproductionof Jekyll and Hyde (231).

10. The term "janiformnity" is taken from Watts(Deceptive). "Organic"modernistprojects have their origins in romanticism's championing of an underlying, "living" social


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value against the degradingaspects of industrialand commercialforms-thus, for example, John Storey's characterisationof MatthewArnold's "organic"intellectualconservatism. I1. Barthes'fifth code, the "proiaretic"-associated with plot patterns,"action,"and consumeristreading, is of less direct relevance to Jekyll and Hyde. 12. This ostensible social distinction based on choice of drink seems to be part of what RobertMighall identifies as an "urbananthropology,"associatedwith Victoriansocial commentatorssuch as Henry Mayhew. The irony of Utterson'smixed tastes depends upon the knowledge of such an anthropology,even as it ultimately confuses its distinctions. 13. "Voracity"is not a usual partof the definitionof "maw,"but it is insisted on by the Oxford StudyDictionary; most definitions do, however, suggest the feral, with its connotations of savagery and base appetites. 14. A similarly abruptnarrativelegerdemainoccurs at the end of Catriona, where in the final two paragraphs,David for the first time addresseshis two children,who are suddenly revealed as the auditors of his extended, two-novel story, although they are never even hinted at, at any earlier point. This creates a retroactivenarrativeinstability, where the reader is urged to re-readthe entire preceding narrativein light of the differentintent, consciousness and functionthis change in the audiencesuggests, while at the same time the belatednessof this revelationalso suggests thatthis revision is impracticaland unnecessary. 15. George Gissing's phrase is slightly anachronistic,of course (since his novel of that title is published in 1891), but eloquently relevant 16. FredricJameson, following modernistslike Habermnas, characterizesmodernismas an in to "about the think attempt thing itself, substantively, Utopian or essential fashion" (ix). Even Habennas's disputant,Jean-FrancoisLyotard,defines modernismas a "nostalgia" or "solace," a refusal to embrace the lack that constitutes the true sublime ("Answering the Question" 149). This is true of modernism'simperialistproject as well: Benita Parry (10) points out that the ambivalenttextual processes in Conrad's Heart of Darkness serve a political goal, that of reinvigoratinga "latent idealism" within the Britishcolonial project. 17. This is no less a cultural referent for its being deeply controversial: see Chinua Achebe's "An Image of Africa,"and opposing views offeredby CedricWattsand Hunt Hawkins.


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18. Yeats saw himself as one of the "last romantics"(his phrase in "Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931"), of course, and his attemptto envision an enspirited,aristocraticIreland (in opposition to the materialistic coarseness of "Paudeen'spence") stands in clear contrast to Stevenson's profoundunease with the modernistsocial vision. See Denis Donoghue's "RomanticIreland,"and Allen Tate's"Yeats'sRomanticism." 19. These, once again, are Lyotard'sterms and characteristics,raised in "Answeringthe Question"(146-149) and "Discussions"(366-369).

WorksCited Achebe, Chinua."An Image of Africa."MassachusettsReview 18 (1977): 782-794. Aldington, Richard. Portrait of a Rebel: The Life and Workof Robert Louis Stevenson. London: Evans Brothers, 1957. Arata, Stephen D. "The Sedulous Ape: Atavism, Professionalism,and Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde." Criticism37.2 (1995): 233-259. Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Trans.RichardMiller.New York:Hill and Wang, 1974. Conrad,Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1973. Jeffares. Donoghue, Denis. "RomanticIreland."Yeats,Sligo and Ireland. Ed. A. Nonrmnan GerrardsCross: Colin Smythe, 1980. Eagleton, Terry.The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford:Blackwell, 1990. Freud, Sigmund. Totemand Taboo.Trans.James Strachey.London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950. . Civilization and its Discontents. Trans. Joan Riviere. London: Hogarth Press, 1957. Garrett,Peter K. "Cries and Voices: Reading Jekyll and Hyde." Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde After One Hundred Years.Ed. William Veeder and Gordon Hirsch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Hawkins, Hunt. "The Issue of Racism in Heart of Darkness."Conradiana 14:3 (1982): 163-171.


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James, Henry."The Art of Fiction."Selected LiteraryCriticism.Ed. Morris Shapira.New York:McGraw-Hill, 1964. . "Criticism."Selected LiteraryCriticism.Ed. MorrisShapira.New York:McGrawHill, 1964. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism:Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP. 1991. Kristeva, Julia. About Chinese Women.Trans.Anita Barrows. London: Marion Boyars, 1977. . "The True-Real."The Kristeva Reader. Ed. Toril Moi. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Lyotard, Jean-Francois." Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism." Modernism/Postmodernism.Ed. Peter Brooker.London:Longman, 1992. "Discussions, or Phrasing 'After Auschwitz."' The LyotardReader. Ed. Andrew Benjamin. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989. Maixner, Paul (ed.) Robert Louis Stevenson: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. Menikoff, Barry. "Towardthe Production of a Text: Time, Space, and David Balfour." Studies in the Novel 27.3 (1995): 351-362. Mighall, Robert. "'Some City in a Nightmare': The Body and the Polis in Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde."Diatribe 6 (1995). Parry, Benita. Conrad and Imperialism:Ideological Boundariesand VisionaryFrontiers. London: Macmillan, 1983. Sandison, Alan. Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism:A Future Feeling. Houndmills:Macmillan, 1996. Stevenson, R. L. Kidnapped.London:Cassell and Co., 1886. . Catriona. London:William Heinemann,1924. . "A Note on Realism."Essays Literaryand Critical. London:WilliamHeinemann, 1923.


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. Island Landfalls:Reflectionson the SouthSeas. Ed. JenniCalder.Edinburgh:Cannongate, 1987. Dr Jekvll and Mr Hyde and WeirofHermiston. Ed. Emma Letley. Oxford:Oxford . UP, 1987. . "A Chapter on Dreams." Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Weirof Hermiston. Ed. Emma Letley. Oxford:Oxford UP, 1987. Storey, John. "MatthewArnold: The Politics of an Organic Intellectual."Literatureand History 11.2 (1985): 217-228. Tate, Allen. "Yeats's Romanticism."Yeats:A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. John Unterecker.Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:PrenticeHall, 1963. Thomas, Ronald R. "The StrangeVoices in the StrangeCase: Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde, and the Voices of Modern Fiction." Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde After One Hundred Years. Eds. WilliamVeederand GordonHirsch.Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1988. Veeder, William. "Childrenof the Night: Stevenson and Patriarchy."Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde After One Hundred Years.Eds. William Veeder and Gordon Hirsch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Watts,Cedric. "'A Bloody Racist':About Achebe's View of Conrad."Yearbookof English Studies 13 (1983): 196-209. . The Deceptive Text:An Introductionto Covert Plots. Sussex: Harvester Press, 1984. Williams, M. Kellen. "'Down with the Door, Poole': DesignatingDeviance in Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde."English Literaturein Transition1880-1920, 39.4 (1996): 412-429.
