Closed Doors - A Short Jekyll and Hyde Analysis

The 1886 novella 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' has been a huge interest of mine for about 7 years now. I am a person who enjoys character analysis, and in this novel my favourite character is the protagonist, Mr. Utterson. After all these years, I still am unsure about one thing to do with this character, maybe I am reading way too much into this, but I haven't seen anyone else bring this up, so I will ramble about it.

This blogpost will have spoilers

The question:

At the beginning of the novel, Mr. Utterson asks his cousin, Mr. Enfield, about "the door". This is used to have the character Enfield pretty much introduce Mr. Hyde, since Enfield had an experience with the evil-doer that is associated with said door. Later in the novel, we find out that Mr. Utterson had already known that the door was a backway into Dr. Jekyll's house...?

So... Why did Mr. Utterson ask about the door, despite knowing about it already?

Here is what we know about Mr. Utterson:

1. He is loyal to his friends.
2. He isn't imaginative at all (he never figures out Jekyll and Hyde are the same person until it is literally told to him after both are dead).
   
3. He believes indulging too much in anything will lead to peoples' downfalls.
   
4. He is a lawyer.
   
5. He prefers to "be there" for his friends, even if they commit misdeeds. And he has no desire to tell his friends what to do; he takes an unusual pride in his loyalty to others.
   
6. He is the one keeping hold of Dr. Jekyll's will (it says that all of Jekyll's belonging should go to Mr. Hyde), Utterson dislikes Jekyll's will; it is odd to Utterson, he thinks Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll.

The whole novel is about Utterson desperately trying to figure out Hyde's connection to Jekyll and why Jekyll is acting weird. Utterson doesn't know that they are the same person. When Utterson first saw Jekyll's will, he didn't like it, because he assumed Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll; Utterson has been lifelong friends with Jekyll and has never heard of Hyde before. After hearing Enfield's account of his encounter with Hyde, Utterson discovers that Hyde is more villainous than he had initially thought, which makes him even more worried about his friend, Jekyll.

So back to the door, the only time it is mentioned again is near the middle of the novel, Enfield discovers that Utterson knew about the door already, Enfield says something along the lines of: "you must have thought that I was really stupid for not knowing that the door was a backway to Jekyll's house" to which Utterson merely responds something like, "oh so you found out, did you?".

Nothing is mentioned about why Utterson asked about the door; at that point he didn't think too much about Hyde, he couldn't have known that Hyde had any connection to the door. He never even met Hyde at that point, all he knew was that Hyde was in Jekyll's will, and that there is a chance that Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll... So I'm left wondering what was his initial motive in asking about the backway to Jekyll's house??? Well, I have a few theories/speculations.

1. Despite looking down on gossip heavily, as many Victorian men did, Utterson still is prone to it.
2. Utterson was probably already suspicious about Jekyll's situation upon seeing his will (this one is the most simple explanation but it is so boring hahah).
3. Utterson, despite knowing that Jekyll has a 'slyish cast' on his face, is still curious about what Jekyll could be hiding behind his warm demeanour.
4. This one is a little funny but sometimes the way Utterson speaks is as though he wants everyone to know that he is best friends with Jekyll, he does this when he meets Hyde; he says how Hyde must have heard of Utterson, being Jekyll's close friend and all. It's almost like Utterson is bordering on obsession with Jekyll...!
5. Adding onto my previous point, Utterson is the type to not push his friends to do things, he lives by Cain's way of thinking, "am I my brother's keeper?". Despite this, it's shown that apparently Utterson has shown distaste for Jekyll's will and brought it up with him before being aware of Hyde's crimes. It could be out of worry, but I also wonder if Utterson is actually quite jealous of Mr. Hyde's sudden friendship with Jekyll. Utterson tells Jekyll that he could never imagine being friends with Hyde, and is quite uncharacteristically naggy in this chapter towards Jekyll, about how a bad idea his will is. And at the very end of the novel, Jekyll's will changes so that all of his belongings go to Utterson instead.

These are all quite interesting, and I will not ignore the common theories I've seen on this book being about homosexual repression, but that could be the main topic for another blogpost. This novel can be interpreted in so many ways, which is why I enjoy analysing it in my free time. My analysis of this particular blank space in the novel will no doubt reflect my own opinions in general; I am not particularly a "friendly" or I guess "warm(?)" person; although I treat people with as much kindness and respect, I am quite naturally withdrawn, so perhaps the idea of caring this much about a lifelong friend is simply alien to me. Who knows.

So those are my thoughts on this single aspect of Mr. Utterson. He is one of my all time favourite characters. I recommend it to everyone. If you want to get into reading 19th century novels, Jekyll and Hyde may be a perfect way to start; it's only 70 pages or so, and it's not too hard to read. I mean, that's how I got interested in 19th century literature/media in the first place! I have not and do not really want to watch any adaptions of the novel, as they tend to change or remove Mr. Utterson (the protagonist ahem), from their plots. I am quite happy with the novel as it is. But maybe when I have time I would like to see these adaptions to further expand on my analysis... Sounds like a good idea actually!

I would like to hear from anyone about this novel, I haven't had any luck finding people who want to talk about the novel. I had only seen one person talk about something I strongly agree with on the character of Dr. Jekyll, but it was on the comics and cartoons board on 4chan and I couldn't respond to them due to issues with my internet :')