Paper details
Each response to each question should contain 1). A thesis statement, 2). A quote from a text, 3). A discussion of how that
quote relates to your response. If your responses are not following this format, they are not receiving full credit.
1. Discuss the narrative structure of Stevenson’s novella. What does the combination of various types of narration add to the
narrative? How would the effect have been different had it been entirely focused on Jekyll (either in first person or thirdperson
omniscient) as a protagonist rather than Utterson?
2. “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is an example of lateVictorian
“Empire literature.” Research Empire literature
and the concept of colonial ambivalence. How does the novella express the anxieties of Great Britain during this period of
the Victorian Era? How does the text demonstrate ambivalence?
3. A recurring motif in the novel is its representation of the law (lawyers, signatures, wills, etc.) How might we tie this motif to
the concept of ambivalence?
4. Would you consider the relationships between the novella’s male characters homosocial? How might this relate to the
concept of Empire?
5. How does the novella differ from the popular culture depictions of the Jekyll and Hyde story with which you were familar
before taking this course? Why has this story endured (it’s ever gone out of print) since it’s publication?
6. Apply Halberstam’s arguments more directly to Stevenson’s novella and add your own take to her discussion of Hyde (his
name sounds a lot like horse’s hide or animal hide doesn’t it?). What other references to skin in the novella do you think are
important and why?
7. How does Stevenson use fog imagery in the novella? Is it a monster itself in light of Halberstam’s argument?
8. Reread Stevenson’s description of Hyde and the mirror (“I lingered but a moment in the mirror…the face of Henry Jekyll”)
on page 51 and apply it to psychologist Jacques Lacan’s concept of the “mirror stage.” How does this concept shed light on the relationship between the gentlemanly and the monsterous that Stevenson depicts?
