What are some fog-related quotes from "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"?
Fog is an important recurring motif in the novel and often represents Mr. Utterson's sense of fog or confusion as he tries to get to the bottom of the mystery of Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll's relationship to him.
Mr. Utterson feels determined to get to bottom of his old friend Dr. Jekyll's inexplicable link to the evil Mr. Hyde, who Jekyll has made his heir. We learn that Utterson is determined to find him, even if it means fighting through fog:
Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in the by-street of shops. In the morning before office hours, at noon when business was plenty and time scarce, at night under the face of the fogged city moon ...
Later, when a maid recounts seeing Mr. Hyde attack and kill Sir Danvers Carew, Mr. Utterson says to the police officer that he can take him to Mr. Hyde's house....
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They travel through a fog that reflects Mr. Utterson's continuing confusion about the peculiar Mr. Hyde:
It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths ...
When Mr. Utterson and the police officer arrive at the home of Mr. Hyde:
the fog settled down again upon that part, as brown as umber, and cut him [Mr. Utterson] off from his blackguardly surroundings.
Further, when Mr. Utterson is ushered for the first time ever into Dr. Jekyll's laboratory, this setting, so closely related to the mystery of Mr. Hyde, is fogged, representing Dr. Jekyll's moral confusion and Mr. Utterson's literal confusion, for:
the floor [was] strewn with crates and littered with packing straw, and the light [was] falling dimly through the foggy cupola.
How is fog used symbolically in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
One of the most prominent themes in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is what critic Irving S. Saposnik calls the "contrasts between exterior modes and interior realities." The meaning of this is that inner motives, desires and vicious tendencies are hidden in civilized society behind facades (coverings) of that which is acceptable and good, like a home, a career, social standing, a marriage, etc.
In this scenario, fog symbolically represents on a natural level the thematic element of the facade that covers people's inner wrongs. In a spiritual reading, the fog becomes the veil that covers false spirituality (sort of like the minister's veil in Hawthorne's story The Minister's Veil). In a psychological reading, the fog is the conscious and/or subconscious disguises people employ to cover over their real inner psyches, the "Hyde," which some suggest Stevenson believes is in--or potentially in--each person. In other words, the fog literally and symbolically covers realities--a heavy fog can cover everything beneath it literally and therefore symbolically, which underscores the theme of exterior modes contrasting with interior realities.