So Sanna's opinion is that Mr. Hyde is the part of Dr. Jekyll that partakes in sexual pleasures with other men, which, during that time period, was considered a sin. Phelan took a much more scientific and psychological approach, siting many scientific studies and showing their parallels to the novel. Phelan agreed with Sanna in the sense that both men thought Jekyll was a homosexual. Where Sanna believes Dr. Jekyll was the part of Mr. Hyde that partook in homosexual acts, Phelan would argue that Jekyll created Hyde out of self-disdain. He believes that society made Dr. Jekyll hate who he was, and Hyde was the effect of Jekyll's desire to be someone completely different from himself. Phelan writes, "Often the homosexual seeks that quality that he feels lacking himself, but sees in another" (217). Jekyll feels he is not very manly, and Hyde is his attempt at changing this.
The reader first meets Hyde in a story told by Mr. Enfield to Mr. Utterson. Enfield recalls a time when he saw a small, ugly man (Hyde) trample a little girl and continue walking without remorse. When Enfield brings Hyde back to the scene of the crime he tells Hyde that "we could and would make such a scandal out of this as should make (your) name stink from one end of London to the other"(chapter 1) and Hyde pays off the family in order to avoid just that. Sanna argues in his article that this "scandal" is actually a homosexual act that Dr. Jekyll committed, and Jekyll paid off the family in order to keep his good name intact. He writes Jekyll is "very concerned with the judgment or condemnation that could be given by contemporary culture and law, precisely as in the case of many late- Victorian homosexuals" (26). The problem with this theory is the novel is so descriptive in its depiction of the trampling that it would be difficult to take it as a metaphor. And the fact that the victim is a little girl, not a man, only lessens the chances of the incident standing for a homosexual encounter.