Things to Consider:

• Duality of Human Existence
• Victorian Morality
• Conditions in Urban London

Discussion Questions (See Part Two Q's  ):

• How, according to the editors, is Jekyll and Hyde "an expression of quintessentially fin de sèicle anxieties" (897)?
  

• How does the description of setting contribute to the mood of the work?

• Explain:  "He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point" (901).

• How does Utterson respond to his initial meeting with Hyde?  Why?
• Why does Utterson call Poole Poole, but Poole calls him Mr. Utterson?

• Why does Utterson say, "Things cannot continue as they are" (906)?  Why doesn't he trust Hyde?

907:

• How does Jekyll's will fit in here? (See also 902).

• Why does Hyde kill Dr. Carew?

• How has Jekyll's "character" been "exposed" by Carew's murder?

• Explain:  "If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also" (915).

• How did Stevenson rebel against his conservative family upbringing?

• Who exactly are Utterson and Enfield?
• Explain:  "It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity" (898).

• Why does Enfield conceal the name on the check?

901:

• Explain the comparison of questions and stones.
• Explain:  "Your tale has gone home" (901).

• What is the significance of the fact that Utterson, Lanyon, and Jekyll are all bachelors?

910:

• Why would even "the most honest" experience "terror of the law" (910)?

• Explain the significance of the similarity in Jekyll's and Hyde's handwriting.

914:

• How does Hyde's "disappearance" affect Jekyll?  Explain.
• Why does Lanyon suddenly look so death-like?

• Why does Jekyll suddenly get such a horrified look on his face?
• Why does Utterson say, "God forgive us" (917)?

• What is the significance of Hyde's clothes being too big? (cf. 931)
  

• Why does Hyde ask Lanyon to watch his transformation?

• What does Jekyll mean by "the perennial war among my members" (930)?
• In what ways are Jekyll's discoveries incomplete?

• Is Mr. Hyde truly "pure evil" (932)?  Explain.

• Is it true that "It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty" (933)? Explain.

• Why does Jekyll spontaneously become Hyde?

• Explain the significance of Jekyll's use of both 1st and 3rd person on this page (e.g. "He, I say,—I cannot say, I"(937)).

• Describe the different kinds of hate that Jekyll and Hyde feel for each other.

939:

• Explain:  "It was that unknown impurity which lent efficacy to the draught" (939).

• Why does Poole suspect that Jekyll has been murdered?
• Why does Utterson remain skeptical?

• Explain Jekyll's "response" to first "encountering" Edward Hyde.

932:

• Explain Jekyll's claim that the potion "was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prison-house of my disposition; and ... that which stood within ran forth" (932).
  

• Explain:  "While Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence,  Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost" (935).
• Explain the significance of Jekyll's use of 1st person in describing Hyde's crimes.