1. What are the essential differences between Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde? Is Jekyll purely "good" and Hyde purely "evil"? Do they share any traits—in other words, does some of Jekyll remain within Hyde?

2. The description of Mr. Utterson takes the entire first page and half of the second to complete.  Why do you suppose Stevenson spends so much time characterizing Utterson?  How does this description give insight into his relationship with Dr. Jekyll?

3. What action causes Mr. Enfield to notice Hyde?  Why does Mr. Enfield conceal the name on the check?  Given the story Enfield tells, why is chapter one titled "The Story of the Door"?

4. What is the source of Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Lanyon’s disagreement?  How does Lanyon find out the extent of Dr. Jekyll's experiments?

5. How does the telling of the story through different voices, different characters, affect us as readers?  Does it confuse or clarify meaning?

6. Besides Dr. Jekyll's written explanation of the duality of human nature, how else is this idea illustrated in the novella?  Through which scenes is man's dual nature best demonstrated?

7. How would you characterize Jekyll's relationship to Hyde? Why does Jekyll seem to need to be Hyde?

8. Our understandings of the Victorian era may be incomplete or even stereotypical, but the attitudes of the period concerned moral decay and were fearful of sex, violence, and addiction.  How does Stevenson’s theme of good vs. evil (man's morality) reflect/ contradict/have nothing to do with the belief systems of the Victorian period?

9. Noel Carroll, in The Philosophy of Horror, explains that in over-reacher plots, the experiment performed by the protagonist often goes awry.  Does Dr. Jekyll's experiment fail?  Does the potion do what Jekyll hopes?

10. When Hyde appears and commits unspeakable acts, it is usually on well-lighted, clean, and silent streets.  The same streets that are alive with activity during the day.  What does this mean?  What idea(s) about the novella does it convey?