English resources/Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde/Dr Lanyon
Dr Lanyon
A doctor, Jekyll's old friend. He sees Hyde become Jekyll. It kills him.
4 key quotes by and about Dr Lanyon in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in the order they happen, from Chapter 6 to Chapter 9. Learn this one first: “I wish to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll” (Lanyon, Chapter 6: Incident of Dr Lanyon).
Who Dr Lanyon is
Dr Hastie Lanyon is a respected London doctor and an old friend of both Jekyll and Utterson. More than ten years before the story starts, he fell out with Jekyll over Jekyll's strange scientific ideas, which Lanyon thought were nonsense.
In Chapter 6 Utterson visits him and finds him suddenly old and dying after some terrible shock, and Lanyon refuses to talk about Jekyll at all. He dies within a fortnight and leaves Utterson a sealed letter, not to be opened until Jekyll has died or disappeared.
That letter is Chapter 9. Jekyll had asked Lanyon to fetch a drawer of chemicals from his laboratory and give it to a messenger at midnight. The messenger was Hyde, who mixed the drink in front of Lanyon and turned into Jekyll. The shock of seeing it destroyed Lanyon.
Why he matters: Lanyon stands for respectable, rational science. He is the one character who sees the truth with his own eyes, and it kills him.
The quotes
4 quotes by or about Dr Lanyon, in the order they happen.
I have had a shock," he said, "and I shall never recover.
Lanyon · Chapter 6: Incident of Dr Lanyon · science · secrecy
Lanyon has seen something. He will not say what. He dies of it.
I wish to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll
Lanyon · Chapter 6: Incident of Dr Lanyon · reputation · secrecy
Lanyon cuts Jekyll off completely. Whatever he saw was too much.
O God!" I screamed, and "O God!" again and again
Lanyon · Chapter 9: Dr Lanyon's Narrative · science · religion · duality
Lanyon watches Hyde drink the potion and turn into Jekyll. He cannot stop screaming.
My life is shaken to its roots
Lanyon · Chapter 9: Dr Lanyon's Narrative · science
What Lanyon saw broke everything he believed. Science, God, all of it.
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