Under Construction Journal Issue 6.1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL 6.1 | Page 39

detection is viewed as “soul sicken[ing]” (Stevenson, 2015, 75) by Dr Lanyon. After all, Jekyll only split his
soul – Hyde existed in Jekyll all along which suggests the issue is with the act of self-detection rather than
the appearance of the evil.
Grace Moore puts forth a complex argument concerning Jekyll’s ability to need only his own body,
likening the first transformation to a “state of self-induced orgasmic rapture” (Moore, 2004, 156).
However, one comment in particular is pertinent to the idea of detecting (or more accurately a fear of
detecting) the self within their fictional society:
“Jekyll himself frequently reiterates the fact that he and Hyde are one, not simply doubles. He is
frequently imaged in front of mirrors, and Utterson and Poole’s response to the looking glass in
Jekyll’s room, ‘into whose depth they looked with an involuntary horror’, is illustrative of a terror
generated by something more significant than ‘the rosy glow playing on the roof, the fire sparkling
in a hundred repetitions along the glazed front of the presses, and their own pale and fearful
countenances stooping to look in’. The mirror itself is clearly the source of the men’s fear,
symbolising as it does Jekyll’s infatuation with himself.” (Moore, 2004, 155-56)
While Moore views the mirror to be a symbol of Jekyll’s self-love, self-sufficiency and ‘infatuation with
himself’, I view it more as a fear of looking inwards to see the real self, to come to terms with the Hyde.
In this sense, interior detection is something Poole and Utterson do not seem comfortable with yet, as
Moore points out, Jekyll ‘is frequently imaged in front of mirrors’ (155). The mirror then comes to
symbolise Jekyll’s ability and willingness to explore the more evil side of his moral duality. Utterson and
Poole, then, show a contempt that leads to the repression of their ‘bi-part soul’ in their fear of the mirror
as the symbol of the real self. In other words, through his process of self-detection, Jekyll is willing to
accept his Hyde. full stop Poole and Utterson, on the other hand, seem too afraid to even consider what
evil might reside in their own souls, and so continue their repression of whatever might exist inside them.
The Metaphysical Detective
The notion of self-detection aligns with Merivale and Sweeney’s 1999 definition of the metaphysical
detective which is a concept of - 20th century literary theory, which Stevenson’s 1886 work thus precedes.
They define a metaphysical detective narrative as:
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