Chapter 9: Dr. Lanyon's Narrative
Summary:
Chapter nine consists of the text of Lanyon's letter to Utterson, which he was instructed not to open until Lanyon and Jekyll had both died (or Jekyll had disappeared). Lanyon begins at the night after Jekyll's last dinner party. Apparently, he received a very urgent letter from Jekyll that requested Lanyon follow very specific instructions by going to Jekyll's home and retrieving a specific drawer from his cabinet. Poole was to help him get into the upper room. Lanyon was to fetch the drawer and all of its contents and immediately return to his home. A messenger from Jekyll would come to claim the ingredients at midnight. There was no explanation of why Jekyll needed Lanyon to complete these tasks, but there was such a severe sense of urgency that Lanyon felt he should comply.
Lanyon followed Jekyll's directions and returned home with the drawer. Inside, he found several vials, one of which appeared to contain a kind of salt, and another that contained a strange red liquid concoction. Lanyon also found a notebook in the drawer that seemed to document years of experiments and notes about their results, but no suggestion as to the nature of the experiments. Lanyon curiously waited for his visitor, and began to conclude that Jekyll must have lost his mind. At midnight, a small dwarfish man appears at Lanyon's home, wearing clothes far too large for him. The reader recognizes this description and knows this messenger is Hyde, but Lanyon had never met Hyde and did not recognize him. Hyde acts strangely, both nervous and excited, and rather than exchange pleasantries with Lanyon, immediately asks where the drawer is.
Lanyon points it out and Hyde requests a graduated glass in which he mixes the drawer's ingredients. His mixture first turns purple and then green. At this point, Hyde stops and addresses Lanyon, asking if he would like to see the results of his assistance, which will in his words, "stagger the unbelief of Satan," or if Hyde should leave with the mixture. At this point Lanyon is annoyed by his guest's behavior and is interested in what could warrant such strangeness. He decides that he wants to see this thing to the end.
Hyde drinks the glass, and Lanyon watches as his body changes form. Moments later, Hyde is gone and Dr. Jekyll is standing before Lanyon. At this point, Lanyon concludes his letter to Utterson, stating that Jekyll's explanation of the transformation and the nature of his years of experimentation are too disturbing to repeat. Lanyon knows that the shock of this event is so severe that he will surely die.
Analysis:
Finally, in this chapter, the nature of Jekyll's experimentation and his dual existence as Jekyll/Hyde is revealed. Lanyon's description of that fateful night reveals the otherwise mysterious relationship between Hyde and Jekyll. Through this letter, Stevenson finally directly embraces the supernatural theme of the novel, and reveals the horror Jekyll's transformation inflicted on Lanyon.
Lanyon includes many details in his letter, even noting the colors of the various vial contents in Jekyll's drawer. However, although he is very detailed in what he witnessed that night, Lanyon does not provide an explanation of how such a transformation could occur, or how Jekyll's scientific experiments advanced and progressed to this point.
Lanyon purposely does not include this information, as he simply finds it to offensive to write about. Clearly, this is important information, but Lanyon refuses to discuss it, just as he refused to share this information immediately after witnessing it. Instead, Lanyon forced society to wait until Jekyll's death or disappearance and his own death before the truth would be revealed.
The novel contains many other silences, such as the lack of description of Hyde's face, and mutual agreement between Enfield and Utterson to avoid speaking of Jekyll's apparent seizure and suffering at the window. Lanyon's silence here is a reflection of how intensely he wishes to reject Jekyll's work. We learned earlier that Jekyll and Lanyon, the rationalist, had a falling out over the legitimacy of pursuing mystical science.
Now, having been proved wrong, Lanyon refuses to accept or acknowledge scientific achievement or work that is entirely contrary to his perspective. So offensive is the shock of Jekyll's work, that Lanyon is affected physically. He grows weak, internalizes his pain, protects the truth, and eventually dies as a result of the shock of witnessing Hyde's transformation into Jekyll.