Honors Modern Fiction

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Study Guide

Chapter 1: The Story of a Door

  1. Who is Mr. Utterson, and what is he like? Cite specific details from the novel. (This means provide page numbers!)
  2. What incident does Mr. Enfield relate to Utterson?
  3. What picture doesEnfield paint of Edward Hyde’s appearance? Whymight Stevenson have deliberately avoided describing him fully?
  4. How do we know that Hyde has a Superego of sorts (which, admittedly, he will largelyignore for the remainder of the novel)?
  5. Why does Enfield prefer not to delve too deeply into the background behind his story?

Chapter 2: Search for Mr. Hyde

  1. Diction is a fancy term for word choice. Examine the bolded diction choices in the following excerpt: “That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would go soberly and gratefully to bed.”
  2. Describe the atmosphere created by the diction.
  3. How would you characterize the tone of this passage?
  4. What does Jekyll’s will stipulate?
  5. Whose name is on the check that Hyde writes to the little girl’s family in chapter 1?
  6. What interrupts the friendship between Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll?
  7. What further details do we receive about Hyde’s appearance?All of the characters in the story who see Hyde comment about how uncomfortable hisappearance makes them feel. Psychoanalytically speaking, how might Hyde’s looks be a symbol ofsomething else? And why would this make people feel uncomfortable? Explain.
  8. What kind of person was Jekyll when he was younger?
  9. This chapter incorporates some specifically dream-like imagery. Cite a quotation that suggests that all of this is actually a dream.

Chapter 3: Dr. Jekyll was Quite at Ease

  1. How is Jekyll described?
  2. Jekyll is disappointed in Lanyon for being “an ignorant, blatant pedant” (21). What is a pedant? (If you don’t know, look it up!)

Chapter 4: The Carew Murder Case

  1. How is Sir Danvers Carew described?
  2. With what weapon is he murdered, and, psychoanalytically speaking, what type of symbol is this?
  3. Who gave the “weapon” to whom?
  4. By what item are Carew and Utterson connected?
  5. In which psychosexual stage is our Dreamer at this point, and how do we know?

Chapter 5: The Incident of the Letter

  1. Describe the “dissecting room.”
  2. How is this name ironic?
  3. What does Jekyll tell Utterson about the letter he “received,” and what is the truth of the matter? Explain.
  4. Sir Danvers Carew was a Member of Parliament, which indicates that he is: a) id or b) superego? Explain.
  5. What might be the meaning of the name “Mr. Guest”?
  6. What significant relationship does Guest deduce between Jekyll and Hyde?
  7. How do the diction and tone of Utterson and Guest’s conversation suggest the superego at work?

Chapter 6:Remarkable Incident of Dr. Lanyon

  1. How does Jekyll’s behavior change at the beginning of this chapter, and what accounts for the change?
  2. What change does Lanyon undergo within a 6 night period?
  3. What reason does Lanyon give for the change? Hypothesize the specific nature of the “shock” that Lanyon has experienced.
  4. We have already discussed how the novel seems dream-like. During what time of day do most of the novel’s events take place?
  5. As the novel progresses, the atmosphere of London becomes murkier and foggier. What happens in fog? What is Stevenson suggesting about Jekyll’s psychological state?

Chapter 7: Incident at the Window

  1. Stevenson describes the courtyard as “full of premature twilight”, although “the sky…was still bright with sunset” (38). What do these details tell us about Jekyll?
  2. What happens to Jekyll as Utterson and Enfield are speaking with him?
  3. Why would Utterson say, “God forgive us” (italics added)?

Chapter 8: The Last Night

  1. Stevenson makes several references to cleanliness, particularly of streets (see also, chapter 2). What might be the psychoanalytic significance of this? In other words, what needs to be “cleaned”?
  2. What has Poole been sent out to fetch everyday this week, and why?
  3. We can understand why Jekyll/Hyde would do so, but why would Poole and Utterson look in the mirror “with an involuntary horror”? What does this suggest about their psyches?
  4. What has happened to Jekyll by this point in the novel, and how do we know?
  5. List the phallic symbols in this chapter, and discuss whether they are positively or negatively applied.

Chapter 9: Dr. Lanyon’s Narrative

  1. What does the description of Hyde suggest about Jekyll’s id?
  2. Why does Lanyon die? In what instances might repressionbe necessary for a society to function?

Chapter 10: Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case

  1. How does Jekyll describe his own “theory of opposites” at the beginning of the chapter? Find an appropriate quotation.
  2. How does Jekyll describe his repression? Find an appropriate quotation.
  3. What does Jekyll mean when he claims “that man is not truly one, but two”?
  1. How does Jekyll resolve to diffuse the tension of opposites, the id-superego struggle?
  2. Jekyll says, "I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated the trembling immateriality, the mist-like transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired" (Stevenson, 55). By applying Freudian terminology, we can state that Jekyll has identified the Ego. What does he tell us about the Ego? (Freud, incidentally, agreed with Stevenson on this.)
  3. Why does Jekyll insist on calling Hyde “he” and not “I”?
  4. Freud states that a too great repression of the Id urges results in neurosis. Ultimately, the repression does not hold, and the subject feels torn between the urge and the sense of shame and guilt. When it finally erupts, the urge takes a form that is extreme: “It ramifies like a fungus, so to speak, in the dark and takes on extreme forms of expression, which when translated and revealed to the neurotic are bound not merely to seem alien to him, but to terrify him by the way in which they reflect an extraordinary and dangerous strength of instinct. This illusory strength of instinct is the result of an uninhibited development of it in fantasy and the damming-up consequent on lack of real satisfaction” (Freud). How do we see this “extreme form” occur with Hyde?
  5. What is Jekyll’s explanation for Hyde’s smaller stature?
  6. When Jekyll first views Hyde, he is not repulsed by the creature’s appearance. Why not? What does this suggest about the true nature of the id?
  7. Who actually commits suicide, Jekyll or Hyde?

1