With or Without Castles

Although there is no literal castle in Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there are many other elements in the description of the setting that breeds the same terror in his readers. Examples of this start at the very beginning of the story when Mr. Enfield discloses events to Mr. Utterson about what he saw outside of Dr. Jekyll's door. Describing the building with the door as two stories with no window, basically a large discolored block which gives the same picture in my mind as an eerie castle. Later, Stevenson continues when explaining the circumstances of the Carew murder case, detailing the fog that rolled in over the streets that night with the cloudless sky, and the lone window where the maid overlooked the murder. Finally, the description of Dr. Jekyll's laboratory and how Stevenson seems to mention the high built fires multiple times throughout the novel puts a picture in my mind of a castle's dungeon or something similar. This is clearly another reference to the invoking terror that castles create and the overall settings of Gothic literature. The way everything is described gives rise to a sinister fear in the readers that is the same as stories described with castles in this genre.