A Student's Guide to "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde"
- Apr 14
- 7 min read
Updated: May 9
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde might seem to be just another spooky Victorian tale but, underneath, it's packed with themes like identity, guilt, science and the darker side of human nature.
Here's everything you'll need to confidently tackle this text in your GCSE English Literature exams.
Plot
Set in a gloomy Victorian London, the novella follows lawyer Mr Utterson, who is concerned about his friend Dr Henry Jekyll. Jekyll has mysteriously altered his will, leaving everything to a disturbing, violent man named Edward Hyde. Initially, Utterson suspects blackmail, thinking Jekyll is being threatened.
Hyde is described in unsettling terms: "There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable." Utterson’s investigations eventually reveal a shocking truth: Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. Jekyll had created a potion to separate his respectable self from his darker impulses, believing that “man is not truly one, but truly two.”
Initially, Jekyll enjoyed the freedom Hyde brought, acting impulsively without guilt, but soon, the darker side became uncontrollable, leading to violence, chaos, and ultimately Jekyll’s downfall.
Jekyll admits his tragic error: “I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self” and the novella ends with his desperate confession and the suggestion of his death or suicide.
Main Characters
Dr Henry Jekyll
Jekyll, respected and admired, struggles secretly with Victorian expectations. He believes everyone has hidden sides, saying, “Man is not truly one, but truly two.”
His attempt to separate these sides through science reveals his internal conflict and ultimately destroys him, demonstrating the danger of denying our true selves.
Mr Edward Hyde
Hyde embodies Jekyll’s darker impulses: violent, cruel and selfish. Stevenson deliberately describes Hyde vaguely to create unease: "Something displeasing, something downright detestable" and his unsettling presence represents everything society rejects, revealing Stevenson's message about the destructive power of repression.
Mr Gabriel Utterson
Utterson is steady, reliable and deeply concerned with maintaining order. Although perhaps a bit dull, he's the moral heart of the story and, through Utterson, Stevenson explores Victorian society’s values of secrecy and reputation.
His cautious vow, “If he be Mr Hyde… I shall be Mr Seek,” reflects his determination to uncover the truth.
Dr Lanyon
Lanyon, a traditional scientist, values rationality and evidence, dismissing Jekyll’s experiments as dangerous nonsense.
Witnessing Hyde transform into Jekyll profoundly disturbs him and he writes, “I saw what I saw... and my soul sickened at it.”
His death after this shock highlights the novella’s warning about the potential dangers of pushing scientific boundaries too far.
Mr Richard Enfield
Enfield is a minor character but he first introduces the topic of Hyde’s brutality, describing how Hyde trampled a child.
Stevenson uses Enfield's character to perfectly summarise Victorian attitudes, stating, “The more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.”
Themes
Duality of Human Nature
This is the big theme: the one your exam question is most likely to mention and, as discussed earlier, one that links directly to Jekyll’s character. He’s not just a man with a secret; he’s someone who genuinely believes that every person has two sides: the one we show to the world and the one we hide.
Jekyll’s tragic statement, “I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man... I was radically both,” perfectly summarises this theme and Stevenson's message: we can’t divide people neatly into “good” and “bad.” It doesn’t work like that.
Stevenson shows the danger in denying our true complexity, as repression only strengthens our darker side.
Reputation and Respectability
Victorian society’s obsession with reputation forced people to hide their true selves and they were expected to behave perfectly in public, no matter what they were doing in private.
This pressure to appear respectable is a key reason Jekyll begins his experiment in the first place. His misguided confidence that he can control his darker side, keep it hidden and return to his respectable self whenever he wants is evident in his statement, “the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr Hyde.”
Stevenson is criticising the Victorian society's obsession with appearances and their preference for reputation over truth. The fact that Jekyll has a dark side isn't a problem but Stevenson seems to be suggesting that it's the lengths he goes to hide it which causes the real harm.
Science and Ethics
The novella explores ethical dilemmas in scientific advancement.
Jekyll confession that, “The temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last overcame the suggestions of alarm,” highlights the risks when science ignores moral consequences and echoes contemporary fears about unchecked scientific progress.
This theme reflects the growing tension in the 19th century between scientific discovery and moral responsibility. Darwin had published On the Origin of Species not long before, and people were starting to question everything: religion, identity, the very nature of humanity.
Stevenson taps into those fears and encourages the reader to ask themselves a big question: just because science can do something, does that mean it should?
Good vs Evil
Although some would generalise Dr Jekyll as "good" and Mr Hyde as "evil," the two themes aren’t clearly separate in the novella.
Hyde’s evil is Jekyll’s creation and this complicates moral distinctions as he is the result of Jekyll's own choices.
As the story goes on, Jekyll starts to enjoy being Hyde, and by the end, he can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. This can be summarised by Jekyll's short, yet powerful, statement, “I was radically both" revealing Jekyll's realisation that morality is complex and intertwined.
Stevenson suggests that good and evil are entangled and that it's very easy for the line to become blurred: especially when people try to avoid responsibility for their actions.
Context
To really understand Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, it helps to know what was going on when Stevenson was writing it. The novella was published in 1886 and late Victorian Britain was characterised by strict social rules, fast-moving science and a fair amount of anxiety under the surface.
Victorian Society
Victorians valued reputation highly, forcing people to conceal their true selves. Stevenson highlights this hypocrisy through Jekyll’s admission, “I concealed my pleasures… both sides of me were in dead earnest," which criticises the damage caused by society’s strict expectations and double standards.
Science and Religion
As previously mentioned, Stevenson wrote at a time when Darwin’s evolutionary theories challenged religious beliefs, causing anxiety. Hyde’s animalistic descriptions reflect Victorian fears of human regression and the moral uncertainties created by scientific advances. prompting readers to question ethical boundaries in scientific progress.
Gothic Genre
Jekyll and Hyde uses classic Gothic elements, such as darkness, mystery and locked doors, but the story is set in familiar London streets.
Stevenson uses this familiar setting to heighten the horror, making readers feel the danger could happen anywhere, even close to home.
That’s one of the reasons it's so unsettling.
Language and Structure
One thing that makes Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde different from other novellas is how Stevenson decides to tell the story. He doesn’t just lay everything out in the opening chapters. Instead, he builds it like a detective story, gradually revealing the truth through multiple perspectives, including letters, confessions and Utterson’s own investigations.
This method maintains suspense and reinforces themes of secrecy and repression and the deliberately vague descriptions of Hyde increase reader discomfort. One observation, that there is “something displeasing, something downright detestable,” about Hyde captures his unsettling ambiguity. His formal, controlled tone makes sudden moments of violence even more shocking, as when Hyde brutally attacks Sir Danvers Carew, demonstrating the destructive consequences of repression.
This idea of mystery and concealment is emphasised by Stevenson's use of imagery (fog, dimly lit streets, locked doors and windows) as well as repeated contrasts of light versus dark, good versus evil and science versus religion.
The Author
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in 1850, in Edinburgh and is best known for his adventure tales like Treasure Island.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is something different. It’s more psychological. More personal. A little stranger.
Stevenson was often ill throughout his life and spent a lot of his time travelling and searching for better climates. Famously, Stevenson wrote the first draft of Jekyll and Hyde rapidly after dreaming the story... only to dramatically destroy it after his wife’s criticisms.
His final version was written and published in just over a week and became an instant success.
Final Thoughts about Jekyll and Hyde
Yes, the language can feel formal at times and some of the sentences are longer than they probably need to be. It takes a bit of patience to make sense of the structure, with all those documents and delayed reveals, but it’s worth it.
Remember, Jekyll and Hyde isn’t just about science, horror, potions, transformations, good vs evil, crime, monsters or a strange man trampling a child. It's about human nature, societal pressures, moral complexities and the dangers of repressing our true selves.
It’s also a warning. A warning about secrecy, about repression and about what can happen when we try to "Hyde" the parts of ourselves we don't want others to see.
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