Hyde’s Violation of Social Norms and Uncontrollable Disposition

Violence, rage, a sudden burst of fury, and cannibalism have often been commonly associated with insanity. “Any outburst is automatically assumed to be a further

indication of insanity” (Pedlar 97). The bestiality, the wildness found to be threatening, and the lacks of reason are suggested to be the sign of a madman. A maniac would “go out of their minds, raging and rampaging utterly out of control” as Hyde tramples on a girl’s body or beats Dr. Carew to death with a cane (Porter, Madness 14). In the novella, Edward Hyde is such a mad figure who would do everything unreasonably as described:

Sometimes they are the authors of relatively modest words and deeds which are not accompanied by raving; but more frequently, changed into rage, they express their mental impulse in a wild expression and in word and deed. Then they come out with false, obscene and horrible things, exclaim, swear, and with a certain brutal appetite, undertake different things, some of

them very unheard of for men under any circumstances, even to the point of bestiality, behaving like animals. (Porter, Madness 50)

It is the emotional instability and emotions being out of control that Edward Hyde does unreasonable behavior. Hyde’s mad behavior described by Mr. Enfield can be seen from the beginning of the novella when a little man [Hyde] and a girl run into a cross street where shocking scene come to appear in front of readers’ eyes lively “for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see” (Stevenson 9). Such mad act is vividly presented between the lines. The cold-blooded Edward Hyde is clearly an embodiment of madness crosses the line of acceptable societal normality. After hearing the dire incidence of Edward Hyde, Utterson, the lawyer cannot help murmuring “I thought it was madness” (Stevenson 13). Edward Hyde’s image of madness ingrains in people’s mind of whoever has seen or heard of him. Utterson is hunted by this horrible scene and can not let go. The elusive nightmare of trampling on the little girl becomes

exacerbating as:

The figure in these two phases haunted the lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the more swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamplighted city, and at every street corner crush a child and leave her screaming. (Stevenson 15)

Edward Hyde’s inappropriate and deviant demeanor is made more explicit and implicit when a maid servant witnessed Hyde:

a very small gentleman” who “broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on like a madman….. And

next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot, and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway.” (Stevenson 22)

Edward Hyde’s delinquency and abnormal behavior has caught people’s attention, and it makes people intolerant of seeing or hearing his name. Because of a series regof

misdeeds, burst of flame, and uncontrollable behavior, Edward Hyde is regarded as a deviant and dangerous element of the society.

Madness, as Hyde shown, is made more distinct when Hyde asks Dr. Lanyon to let a man who presents himself in Henry Jekyll’s name come over. Dr. Lanyon can not help but “made sure my colleague was insane” (Stevenson 43). Edward Hyde’s

uncontrollable mad behavior lies before Dr. Lanyon as Hyde cried “Have you got it?

And so lively was his [Hyde’s] impatience that he even laid his hand upon my [Dr.

Lanyon’s] arm and sought to shake me. I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang along my blood” (Stevenson 45). Hyde’s abrupt emotion frightens Dr.

Lanyon as Hyde hustles Dr. Lanyon the medication he always wanted. The following description characterizes the ways in which Edward Hyde resists maniac behavior as “‘I [Hyde] come here at the instance of your colleague, Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a piece of business of some moment; and I understood’… he paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria-I understood, a drawer….” (Stevenson 45). A sign of madness can be seen as Edward Hyde “reacts with nervousness, unable to articulate” a full sentence when forced facing up Dr. Lanyon’s gaze. Edward Hyde’s hysteric outburst insinuates “physical violence” and “animalistic connotations of madness”

(Pedlar 108).

Edward Hyde’s perilous and unamiable demeanour prevents Dr. Lanyon from going closer. The appalling creature Hyde whose maniac deportment has obviously been a threat cast to the society repulsed by people around him. “He [Hyde] sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his heart; I [Dr. Lanyon] could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of his jaws; and his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed both for his life and reason” (Stevenson 46). The awful scene continues unfolding before Dr. Lanyon “He [Hyde] turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision of despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of the contents, he uttered one loud sob of such immense relief that I [Dr. Lanyon] sat petrified” (Stevenson 46).

Hyde’s higgledy-piggledy act is seen as disorder and his dangerousness shakes the public order. Labelled as an insane individual, Edward Hyde’s conduct is perceived as deviant.