From Hell - Interpretations and Themes

Interpretations and Themes

From Hell was partly inspired by the title of Douglas Adams' novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in that it explores the notion that to solve a crime holistically, one would need to solve the entire society in which it occurred. Moore's take on the Jack the Ripper murders is not a "whodunit": he spells out his (fictional) culprit and the ostensible reasons for his actions very early on. But as Gull remarks, "Averting Royal embarrassment is but the fraction of my work that's visible above the waterline." The murders are an occult ritual, a complex sacrifice using Victorian London itself as an altar. The symbolism of London's landmarks is explored in the fourth chapter, in which Gull explains his motives to his uncomprehending coachman, and employs psychogeography to tie together these landmarks with the city's history.

Gull is depicted as a misogynist who opposes women's suffrage, along with other progressive movements of his time. Women had power over men once, Gull believes, and the irrational, Dionysian unconscious mind once dominated the rational, Apollonian conscious mind. Moore cites writers such as Marilyn French and Robert Graves, who argue (as the fictional Gull does) that women held both political and religious power prior to the rise of patriarchal religions such as Christianity. Gull is reason's lunatic: he believes he is carrying out an act of magic to enforce the rational, masculine hegemony.

From Hell also explores Moore's ideas on the nature of time. Early on, Gull's friend James Hinton discusses his son Howard's theory of the "fourth dimension", which proposes that time is a spatial dimension. All time co-exists, and it is only the limits of our perception that make it appear to progress. Sequences of related events can be seen as shapes in the fourth dimension: history can "be said to have an architecture", as Gull puts it. Gull's experiences seem to confirm this: he has visions of the twentieth century during the murders, and as he is dying he experiences, and appears to influence, past and future events. Moore had earlier explored similar ideas in Watchmen, where Dr. Manhattan perceives past, present and future simultaneously, and describes himself as "a puppet who can see the strings".

Perhaps the most elaborate theme in From Hell stems from Moore's statement that "the Ripper murders — happening when they did and where they did — were almost like an apocalyptic summary of... that entire Victorian age. Also, they prefigure a lot of the horrors of the 20th century." In Moore's reading of the works of contemporary artists including Zola and the post-impressionist painters, the prostitute had become an icon of the working lives of the impoverished and disenfranchised. He notes that the 1880s saw the Mahdi uprisings, the first time the Western world had to face militant Islamic fundamentalism; physicists were beginning to make discoveries that would pave the way to the atomic bomb; and the growth of both Zionism and anti-Semitism. The period of the killings coincides with the conception of Adolf Hitler and the final scene alludes to the outbreak of the Second World War. After the final murder, during which Gull has an extended vision of 1990s England, Gull says, "It is beginning, Netley. Only just beginning. For better or worse, the twentieth century. I have delivered it."

Much of the metaphysical speculation in From Hell can be attributed to Moore's embrace of gnosticism, which takes a more central role in his other work, most notably his comic series Promethea.

On a more prosaic level, Moore indicts the inequalities of Victorian society, contrasting Gull and the wealthy circles he moves in with the hand-to-mouth existence of the women he targets; the moral disgust shown at the peccadilloes of the poor with the depths to which the rich are prepared to sink in order to protect the image of propriety; the imaginary anti-Semitic conspiracy theories which divert the police's investigations with the real conspiracy that controls them. During one murder, scenes from the killing are interspersed with scenes from a nearby meeting of a socialist club, addressed by William Morris, where a portrait of Karl Marx comes to dominate the scene. In his appendix, Moore sardonically expresses regret that England never had a revolution as France did.

Just about every notable figure of the period is connected with the events in some way, from "Elephant Man" Joseph Merrick to Oscar Wilde, from the Native American writer Black Elk to William Morris, the artist Walter Sickert to Aleister Crowley, who makes a brief appearance as a young boy in short trousers, sucking on a candy cane, and lecturing the police about magic.

According to his notes in his appendix, Moore was somewhat inconsistent with how "historically accurate" the events within the graphic novels are. On one hand, he revealed that he had actually written an entire scene where Abberline gets into an argument with Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley; he rewrote it after research revealed that Buffalo Bill had left England by the time of the murders. On the other hand, again according to his own notes, he had William Morris appear in London on the night of one of the murders, although historical records show he was out of town that night. Morris, however, does not interact with any of the characters, but is simply seen reading his poem "Love Is Enough", while Gull murders Elizabeth Stride in the alley below.

In The Dance of the Gull Catchers Moore reports that he had been drawn into and even obsessed with the particulars of the Ripper crimes. The Ripperologists—or "Gull Catchers" as he refers to them—are depicted as slightly unhinged men running about with large butterfly nets, chasing details and connections, however tenuous. Initially, Moore observes them from a distance, but eventually—while researching and writing From Hell—he joins them. Moore compares the multitude of increasingly outlandish Ripper theories to a Koch snowflake, where a finite, fixed location, event and era (London, in late 1888) can have an infinite number of nooks and crannies.