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AQA English Literature · Paper 1 Section B
Robert Louis Stevenson · Published 1886 · Gothic Novella
Section & Marks
Section B: The 19th-century novel
30 marks · Approximately 45 minutes
Key Difference
You will NOT be given an extract. You must answer from memory. The question will ask you to write about a theme, character, or idea across the whole novella.
Key Skills (what markers look for)
Read, understand and respond to texts. Use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations.
Tip: Embed short quotations into your sentences and offer a personal interpretation. Use phrases like 'Stevenson presents...' or 'The reader is positioned to...'
Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology.
Tip: Zoom in on individual words and techniques. Discuss WHY Stevenson chose specific language. Consider the novella form, narrative structure (multiple narrators, delayed revelation), and the effect on the reader.
Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written.
Tip: Integrate context naturally into analysis. Link Victorian attitudes, scientific discoveries, and social expectations to the themes of the novella. Do not write separate 'context paragraphs.'
The novella is structured as a mystery, with the truth about Jekyll and Hyde concealed until the final two chapters. Stevenson uses multiple narrators and delayed revelation to mirror the theme of secrecy.
Chapter 1
Mr Utterson and his cousin Mr Enfield are on their regular Sunday walk. They pass a mysterious door, and Enfield tells the story of a man named Hyde who trampled a young girl and then paid compensation with a cheque signed by a respectable gentleman. Enfield describes Hyde as giving 'a strong feeling of deformity' without any specific feature being wrong. Utterson is disturbed because he knows the cheque was signed by Dr Jekyll.
Chapter 2
Utterson reads Jekyll's will, which leaves everything to Edward Hyde. Troubled, he visits Dr Lanyon, who has fallen out with Jekyll over his 'unscientific' experiments. Utterson stakes out the door and finally meets Hyde, who is small, pale, and gives 'an impression of deformity.' Utterson fears Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll. He visits Jekyll, who insists he can be rid of Hyde whenever he chooses.
Chapter 3
Jekyll holds a dinner party. Afterwards, Utterson raises his concerns about Hyde and the will. Jekyll becomes evasive and asks Utterson to drop the subject. He insists Utterson promise to carry out the terms of the will and ensure Hyde gets 'his rights.' Jekyll's discomfort suggests he is hiding something significant.
Chapter 4
Nearly a year later, a maid witnesses Hyde brutally murder Sir Danvers Carew, a distinguished MP, beating him to death with a cane. The murder is savage and unprovoked - Hyde stamps on the body with 'ape-like fury.' Utterson identifies the broken cane as one he gave Jekyll. Police find Hyde's rooms ransacked but Hyde has vanished. Jekyll swears he is done with Hyde.
Chapter 5
Utterson visits Jekyll, who looks 'deathly sick.' Jekyll shows Utterson a letter apparently from Hyde, saying he has escaped. Utterson's clerk, Mr Guest, notices the handwriting is almost identical to Jekyll's, only slanted differently. Utterson suspects Jekyll forged the letter to protect Hyde.
Chapter 6
Hyde has disappeared and Jekyll seems restored - sociable and charitable for two months. Then Jekyll suddenly withdraws again, refusing visitors. Utterson visits Lanyon and finds him on his deathbed, visibly shaken by some terrible shock. Lanyon says: 'I have had a shock... I shall never recover.' He refuses to discuss Jekyll. After Lanyon dies, Utterson receives a letter not to be opened until Jekyll's death or disappearance.
Chapter 7
Utterson and Enfield pass Jekyll's house and see him at an upstairs window. They exchange pleasantries, but then Jekyll's expression changes to one of 'abject terror and despair.' He slams the window shut. Both men walk away in silence, deeply disturbed. Stevenson withholds the cause of Jekyll's horror, building suspense.
Chapter 8
Jekyll's servant Poole begs Utterson for help, convinced his master has been murdered. They hear a strange voice from the laboratory - not Jekyll's. They break down the door and find Hyde's body on the floor, dead by suicide, wearing Jekyll's oversized clothes. Jekyll's confession and Lanyon's letter are found on the desk.
Chapter 9
Lanyon's letter reveals that Jekyll sent him urgent instructions to collect a drawer of chemicals from his laboratory. Hyde arrived at midnight to mix and drink the potion - and transformed into Jekyll before Lanyon's eyes. The shock of witnessing this transformation destroyed Lanyon's health and ultimately killed him. Science has overstepped its boundaries.
Chapter 10
Jekyll's confession reveals everything. He created a potion to separate his good and evil natures, allowing him to indulge his darker desires without consequence. At first, he controlled the transformations, but gradually Hyde grew stronger and began appearing without the potion. After the murder of Carew, Jekyll tried to stop, but Hyde's hold was too powerful. The supply of a key chemical ran out, and Jekyll could no longer prevent the transformations. He writes his confession knowing Hyde will soon take over permanently.
Understanding characters as constructs - Stevenson made deliberate choices about how to present each character to convey meaning.
A wealthy, respected London doctor and scientist who creates a potion to separate his good and evil natures. Jekyll represents the outward respectability of Victorian gentlemen who concealed their darker impulses. His experiment is driven by the desire to indulge sin without consequence, but ultimately his darker side consumes him.
'Man is not truly one, but truly two'
'I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man'
'I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse'
'I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life'
Hyde is the physical embodiment of Jekyll's repressed evil. He is smaller, younger, and deformed-looking because Jekyll's evil side has been suppressed and is less developed. Every character who meets Hyde feels instinctive revulsion, but none can explain exactly why. Hyde grows larger and more powerful as Jekyll gives in to temptation, symbolising how evil strengthens when indulged.
'Something troglodytic... the man seems hardly human'
'Satan's signature upon a face'
'ape-like fury'
'the man trampled calmly over the child's body'
A lawyer and Jekyll's loyal friend who serves as the main narrative perspective. Utterson is the embodiment of Victorian restraint: rational, loyal, discreet, and reluctant to judge. He investigates the mystery of Jekyll and Hyde but actively avoids the truth, preferring respectable explanations (blackmail, madness) to the terrifying reality.
'If he be Mr Hyde... I shall be Mr Seek'
'I let my brother go to the devil in his own way'
'inclined to Cain's heresy... I let my brother go to the devil in his own way'
A conventional doctor and former friend of Jekyll who represents mainstream Victorian science. Lanyon dismissed Jekyll's experiments as 'unscientific balderdash.' When he witnesses Hyde's transformation into Jekyll, the shock is so great that it kills him. Lanyon's death represents the destruction of the rational mind when confronted with truths it cannot accept.
'I have had a shock... and I shall never recover'
'unscientific balderdash'
'my life is shaken to its roots'
Utterson's cousin and walking companion who witnesses Hyde trampling a young girl. Enfield is sociable and well-connected, contrasting with Utterson's reserve. His reluctance to gossip or investigate reflects the Victorian code of gentlemanly discretion.
'I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why'
'It was like some damned Juggernaut'
Jekyll's head servant who ultimately seeks Utterson's help when he fears his master has been murdered. Poole represents the loyal, observant servant class who see more than they are meant to but lack the power to act alone.
'I've been afraid for about a week... and I can bear it no more'
Themes are the big ideas Stevenson explores through plot, characters, and language. AQA questions will always focus on one of these themes.
The central theme of the novella. Stevenson argues that every person contains both good and evil. Jekyll's experiment to separate these natures fails catastrophically - rather than purifying himself, he unleashes pure evil in Hyde while his 'good' side remains mixed. The novella suggests that duality is natural and that attempting to deny or separate it is dangerous. Victorian society's insistence on moral purity only forces people to hide their darker impulses, making those impulses more destructive.
'Man is not truly one, but truly two'
'I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man'
'all human beings... are commingled out of good and evil'
Victorian society demanded rigid moral standards, particularly of middle- and upper-class men. Stevenson shows that this repression does not eliminate sinful desires but drives them underground. Jekyll's 'profound duplicity of life' is not unique to him - it is the condition of his entire social class. The novella implies that Victorian respectability is a performance, and that the pressure to appear morally pure creates the very monsters it seeks to prevent.
'I concealed my pleasures'
'I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life'
'Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite'
The novella explores the dangerous potential of science unchecked by morality. Jekyll's experiment represents the Victorian anxiety about scientific progress overstepping natural or divine boundaries. Darwin's theory of evolution (1859), new chemical discoveries, and rapid industrialisation all raised fears about where science might lead. Stevenson suggests that science without ethical restraint creates monsters - both literal and metaphorical.
'unscientific balderdash' (Lanyon on Jekyll's research)
'I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice'
'I began to perceive more deeply... the trembling immateriality... of this seemingly so solid body'
The novella is structured around secrets: Jekyll's secret identity, hidden doors, locked cabinets, sealed letters, and unspoken suspicions. Characters repeatedly choose silence over investigation. Utterson and Enfield agree not to discuss what they have seen. Utterson suppresses his suspicion about the forged letter. This code of silence protects reputations but enables evil. Stevenson suggests that Victorian discretion is complicity.
'I let my brother go to the devil in his own way'
'I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask'
'If I do not ask you the name of the other party, it is because I know it already'
Hyde's violence escalates through the novella: from trampling a child to beating Sir Danvers Carew to death. This escalation suggests that evil, once indulged, cannot be contained. Hyde's violence is gratuitous and pleasurable to him, representing pure malice without conscience. Stevenson presents evil not as an external force but as something within every person, waiting to be unleashed.
'the man trampled calmly over the child's body'
'with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows'
'a gust of delight'
'bones were audibly shattered'
In Victorian society, reputation was everything, especially for professional gentlemen like Jekyll, Utterson, and Lanyon. The novella shows how the obsession with respectability creates a culture of concealment. Jekyll does not create Hyde because he is unusually evil, but because he cannot bear to damage his reputation. The respectable setting of London's West End - with its hidden back-streets and secret doors - symbolises a society built on surfaces.
'I concealed my pleasures'
'I was the chief of sinners, I was also the chief of sufferers'
'a certain gaiety of disposition... such as I found it hard to reconcile with a wear and austere life'
Learn these quotations and their analysis. In the exam (no extract provided), you must quote from memory - embed short phrases rather than long passages.
“Man is not truly one, but truly two”
Jekyll (Chapter 10)
The novella's central thesis. Jekyll presents duality as a universal human condition, not a personal failing. The declarative sentence has the authority of a scientific discovery. Stevenson suggests all people contain good and evil. The word 'truly' appears twice, emphasising that this is a deeper truth than Victorian society wants to acknowledge.
“I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man”
Jekyll (Chapter 10)
'Primitive' links human duality to something ancient and pre-civilised, connecting to Victorian anxieties about evolution and degeneration. 'Thorough' suggests duality permeates every aspect of human nature - it cannot be removed. 'Learned to recognise' implies this truth was always there but suppressed.
“I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life”
Jekyll (Chapter 10)
Jekyll admits he was living a double life before creating Hyde. 'Profound' suggests this duplicity runs deep. 'Already committed' implies entrapment - he is caught between his public reputation and private desires. Stevenson suggests that Victorian society forces respectable men into hypocrisy.
“I concealed my pleasures”
Jekyll (Chapter 10)
A deceptively simple confession that reveals the core of Victorian hypocrisy. Jekyll's 'pleasures' are never specified - Stevenson leaves them to the reader's imagination, making the statement universal. The act of concealment, not the pleasures themselves, is what leads to disaster. Repression creates Hyde.
“I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why”
Enfield (Chapter 1)
Hyde provokes instinctive, irrational revulsion in everyone who meets him. The contradiction ('disliked... scarce know why') suggests that evil is felt rather than understood. Stevenson creates horror through vagueness - the inability to describe Hyde's wrongness is more unsettling than any specific deformity. Language fails in the presence of pure evil.
“Something troglodytic... the man seems hardly human”
Utterson (Chapter 2)
'Troglodytic' means cave-dweller, linking Hyde to evolutionary regression. Stevenson draws on Darwin's theory to suggest that evil represents a devolution to a more primitive state. 'Hardly human' places Hyde at the boundary between human and animal, civilised and savage - a terrifying idea for Victorians anxious about their place in the natural order.
“Satan's signature upon a face”
Utterson (Chapter 2)
Utterson uses religious language to describe Hyde's evil. 'Satan's signature' implies Hyde is marked by the devil, connecting to the idea that evil has a physical, visible form. This reflects the Victorian pseudoscience of physiognomy - the belief that moral character could be read from facial features. Stevenson both uses and questions this idea.
“If he be Mr Hyde... I shall be Mr Seek”
Utterson (Chapter 2)
A rare moment of wordplay from the restrained Utterson. The pun on 'hide/seek' captures the novella's structure: truth is hidden and must be sought. It also foreshadows the detective-story elements of the plot. But ironically, Utterson seeks answers yet repeatedly turns away from uncomfortable truths.
“the man trampled calmly over the child's body”
Enfield (Chapter 1)
The juxtaposition of 'trampled' and 'calmly' is deeply disturbing. Violence combined with indifference suggests a complete absence of conscience. 'Calmly' is the key word - Hyde does not lose control; he simply does not care. The child victim emphasises innocence being crushed by evil. This is the reader's first encounter with Hyde's nature.
“with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows”
Narrator (Chapter 4)
'Ape-like' connects Hyde to evolutionary degeneration - he is human reverting to animal. The plosive sounds in 'trampling' and 'hailing down' create a violent, percussive rhythm. 'Storm of blows' uses pathetic fallacy to present Hyde's violence as a force of nature - unstoppable and inhuman. The escalation from trampling a girl to murdering a man shows evil intensifying.
“I have had a shock... and I shall never recover”
Lanyon (Chapter 6)
Lanyon represents conventional, rational science. His destruction symbolises the failure of reason to contain or explain the irrational. 'Never recover' is both literal (he dies) and philosophical - once you see the truth about human nature, you cannot unsee it. The ellipsis mirrors his inability to articulate what he has witnessed.
“all human beings... are commingled out of good and evil”
Jekyll (Chapter 10)
'Commingled' means mixed together inseparably. This is Jekyll's mature realisation: good and evil cannot be separated because they are fundamentally intertwined. This directly contradicts his earlier hope that they could be divided. Stevenson's message is that accepting duality is healthier than trying to eliminate it.
“I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse”
Jekyll (Chapter 10)
The repetition of 'slowly' conveys the gradual, creeping nature of moral deterioration. 'Losing hold' suggests control slipping away. 'Incorporated' literally means 'made into one body' - Hyde is absorbing Jekyll. The comparative 'better' and 'worse' maintain duality even as the two selves merge. This reflects Stevenson's warning that indulging evil makes it dominant.
“It was like some damned Juggernaut”
Enfield (Chapter 1)
A Juggernaut was a Hindu idol under whose wheels devotees were said to throw themselves. The simile presents Hyde as an unstoppable, crushing force. 'Damned' carries both casual and religious meaning - Hyde is literally hellish. The exotic reference also reflects Victorian Orientalism and fear of the 'uncivilised.'
“a haunting sense of unexpressed deformity”
Narrator describing responses to Hyde
'Unexpressed' is crucial - Hyde's evil cannot be put into words. Multiple characters try and fail to describe what is wrong with him. This 'deformity' is moral, not physical, yet it registers as physical. Stevenson suggests that evil is a presence felt instinctively, beyond rational description. The adjective 'haunting' adds a supernatural quality.
“I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end”
Jekyll (Chapter 10)
The final line of Jekyll's confession. Speaking of himself in the third person signals his complete dissociation from his own identity. 'Unhappy' is an understatement that reveals the depth of his suffering. The word 'end' is final and absolute - there is no redemption. Stevenson denies his protagonist any comfort or salvation.
Context is worth 6 marks. Integrate it into your analysis rather than writing separate "context paragraphs." The best responses use context to deepen their interpretation of language and themes.
Victorian Britain (1837-1901) placed enormous value on moral respectability, especially for professional middle-class men. Public reputation could make or break a career. This created intense pressure to conceal any behaviour that might be considered immoral - drinking, gambling, sexual impropriety. Stevenson's novella exposes this hypocrisy: Jekyll is not unusually evil; he simply cannot bear to be seen as anything less than perfectly respectable.
Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' (1859) revolutionised thinking about human nature. The idea that humans evolved from animals was deeply unsettling to Victorians who believed humans were created in God's image. Hyde's 'ape-like' behaviour and 'troglodytic' appearance reflect Victorian fears of evolutionary regression (atavism) - the idea that humans could devolve back to a more primitive state. Stevenson taps into this anxiety throughout the novella.
Although Freud's major works came after the novella (1886), Stevenson anticipates psychoanalytic ideas. Jekyll's attempt to separate his conscious, moral self from his unconscious, instinctual desires mirrors Freud's later model of the ego, superego, and id. Hyde can be read as the id unleashed - pure instinct without moral restraint. The novella suggests that the unconscious mind is more powerful than reason.
Stevenson sets the novella in London, with its stark contrasts between wealthy, respectable streets and dark, dangerous back-alleys. This geography mirrors the novella's themes: the front of Jekyll's house is grand and respectable; the back entrance (Hyde's door) is sinister and neglected. The fog that frequently obscures London in the novella symbolises moral confusion and the difficulty of seeing the truth.
The Victorian era saw increasing tension between scientific progress and traditional religious belief. Jekyll's experiment represents science transgressing moral and divine boundaries. Lanyon, the conventional scientist, is destroyed by what he sees. The novella can be read as a warning against science without ethics - a 'Faustian bargain' where Jekyll trades his soul for forbidden knowledge. This resonated with Victorian anxieties about where unrestrained scientific progress might lead.
Stevenson grew up in Edinburgh, a city with a dramatic split between its respectable New Town and its dark, impoverished Old Town. He was also aware of the real-life case of Deacon Brodie - a respectable Edinburgh councillor by day and a burglar by night. These influences shaped the novella's exploration of duality. Stevenson reportedly conceived the story in a nightmare, which itself mirrors the idea of the unconscious mind revealing hidden truths.
Practise planning essays in 5 minutes. Remember: no extract is provided for this question, so you must refer to the whole novella from memory. These are the most commonly examined topics.
Suggested Paragraph Plan (30 marks)
Suggested Paragraph Plan (30 marks)
Suggested Paragraph Plan (30 marks)
Suggested Paragraph Plan (30 marks)