The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Dr. Jekyll believes “life would be relieved of all that was unbearable” (49) if there were a separation of good and evil within a person. Did the creation of Hyde accomplish this? Was there, in fact, a true separation of good and evil? Explain. Do you think it is possible to separate the “good” and “evil” in yourself? What benefit would there be for you if this separation were possible?

As we will also see in Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the “text turns out always to hover around, never to reveal, the specific pleasures that Jekyll is eager to pursue through the guilt-free anonymity of Hyde” (xii). What sorts of activities do you believe Hyde indulges in? Why these? Support your answer with details from the text.

In the novel, Jekyll observes, “all human beings […] are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil” (51). Why is this so? That is, why couldn’t Hyde be pure good instead? Jekyll sees himself, and presumably all humankind, as a “composite” (55), or half good / half evil; the potion that Jekyll/Hyde drinks, it seems, has no moral force. Why is Hyde all bad? (See pp. 48-49 and 51-52 for some discussion, but expand your answer to include ideas from the book as a whole.)

In the last part of the novel, we learn from Dr. Jekyll himself how he came to be divided into both Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll speaks here of “the infamy at which I thus connived” (53). The Norton edition states that, at the time, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), “connive” meant “to shut one’s eyes to an action that one ought to oppose, but which one covertly sympathizes with; to wink at, be secretly privy or accessory” (53, n. 1). How does this older definition of “connive” speak to Jekyll’s character and motives? Look especially at pp. 47-62, and describe how Jekyll is divided among “shutting his eyes,” “opposing” the actions of Hyde, and simultaneously “covertly sympathizing” with Hyde’s behavior.

To what degree are fate and free will factors in Jekyll’s transformation into Hyde? That is, would you argue that Jekyll clearly chooses to indulge his darker side or that, once Jekyll, a man of science and learning, discovers the possibility of separating his two natures, that he can only pursue the “experiment” of such a division? Also, to what degree does his own naturally divided human nature influence his decision? To what degree is biology “so determinative of our beings as to preclude the possibility of free will” (99, n. 5)? Do you think fate or free will controls your life? Would separating your “good” from your “evil” help you take better control of your life?

How is the novel an indictment of hypocrisy? How does the book demonstrate the darker forces that are inside of all of us, ones which we keep carefully hidden from the view of society? Discuss the novel, and support you answer with details from the text. (See also p. 48, note 4; and pp. 146-49.) Do you ever feel like such a hypocrite? Are there things that you keep “hidden from the view of society”? Is such hiding necessary for you? What sorts of things are important to hide, and why? (See questions #7-#10, below).

The novel also can be seen as an allegory about homosexuality in a society in which such desires and behavior must be strictly hidden. How might the book be seen as “‘a signing to the male community’ about Stevenson’s awareness of painful self-divisions fostered in men by Victorian dread of homosexuality” (98, n. 2)? (See also pp. 138-40.)

The novel can also be seen as a study of drug and alcohol addition, criminality, and/or the psychology of split personality. Discuss some or all of these possible readings. (See also pp. 132-38.)

Trace the development of the doppelganger in literature and how Stevenson’s novel uses and expands upon those traditions. (See also pp. 124-26.)

Although the novel lacks any main female characters and there is little suggestion of outright sexual behavior, how can the novel be seen as revealing the sexually repressed undercurrent of the characters and the larger Victorian society that produced the work? (See also pp. 204-13.)