Wednesday 24 December 2008

What makes the chapter "The Remarkable Incident of Doctor Lanyon" characteristic of the genre of the detective novel?

Like a
typical detective mystery, this chapter opens with a dead body, that of Sir Danvers. There is
also the mysterious, sudden disappearance of the odious Mr. Hyde.

Like a
typical mystery, we are given the dates that events occur, such as January 8th, 12th, and 14th,
and as in a conventional detective novel, the mysteries start to multiply. Why does Dr. Jekyll
seem to be his old happy self and then suddenly withdraw? What has made Lanyon so deathly ill?
Why does he die? Finally, we are faced with the letter that Lanyon leaves for Utterson, but with
the frustrating instructions that it is only to be opened after Dr. Jekyll's death.


As in a typical detective novel, we are offered a series of clues along with
confronting missing pieces of the puzzle. Utterson has to try to figure out what is going on,
and we, as readers, keep turning the pages to discover what will happen.

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