Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Edexcel GCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

In this extract, Utterson meets Mr Hyde for the first time but keeps his suspicions about Jekyll’s will to himself.

Explain how secrecy is important elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer, you must consider:

• how characters keep secrets to protect their reputations

• the consequences of secrecy in the novel.

[20 marks]

Read the following extract from Chapter 4 of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, a maidservant sitting at her window late at night witnesses a meeting in the lane below between Mr Hyde and an elderly gentleman, Sir Danvers Carew.

He [Hyde] had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling; but he answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman. The old gentleman took a step back with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot, and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted.

It was two o’clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighbouring gutter – the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. A purse and a gold watch were found upon the victim; but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped envelope, which he had been probably carrying to the post, and which bore the name and address of Mr Utterson.

This was brought to the lawyer the next morning, before he was out of bed; and he had no sooner seen it, and been told the circumstances, than he shot out a solemn lip. ‘I shall say nothing till I have seen the body,’ said he; ‘this may be very serious. Have the kindness to wait while I dress.’ And with the same grave countenance he hurried through his breakfast and drove to the police station, whither the body had been carried. As soon as he came into the cell, he nodded.

‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I recognise him. I am sorry to say that this is Sir Danvers Carew.’

‘Good God, sir,’ exclaimed the officer, ‘is it possible?’ And the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition. ‘This will make a deal of noise,’ he said. ‘And perhaps you can help us to the man.’ And he briefly narrated what the maid had seen, and showed the broken stick.

Explore how Stevenson presents the murder of Sir Danvers Carew in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

[20 marks]

In this extract, the maidservant has the shocking experience of witnessing a murder.

Explain how shocking events are explored elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer, you must consider:

• who has a shock and when

• what happens to shock them.

[20 marks]

Read the following extract from Chapter 10 of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, Henry Jekyll describes, in his written statement, what happened when he first drank the potion he had created.

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature.

There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that which stands beside me as I write, was brought there later on and for the very purpose of these transformations. The night, however, was far gone into the morning — the morning, black as it was, was nearly ripe for the conception of the day — the inmates of my house were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and I determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in my new shape as far as to my bedroom. I crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked down upon me, I could have thought, with wonder, the first creature of that sort that their unsleeping vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.

I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know, but that which I suppose to be most probable. The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed. Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll.

Explore how Stevenson presents Henry Jekyll’s account of his first transformation into Edward Hyde in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

[20 marks]

In this extract, Henry Jekyll talks about the good and bad sides of his character.

Explain how bad behaviour is explored elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer, you must consider:

• who demonstrates bad behaviour

• how bad behaviour is shown.

[20 marks]

Read the following extract from Chapter 6 of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, Utterson has been refused entrance to Dr Jekyll’s house and decides to go to visit Dr Lanyon.

There at least he was not denied admittance; but when he came in, he was shocked at the change which had taken place in the doctor’s appearance. He had his death-warrant written legibly upon his face. The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the lawyer’s notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind. It was unlikely that the doctor should fear death; and yet that was what Utterson was tempted to suspect. ‘Yes,’ he thought; ‘he is a doctor, he must know his own state and that his days are counted; and the knowledge is more than he can bear.’ And yet when Utterson remarked on his ill-looks, it was with an air of great firmness that Lanyon declared himself a doomed man.

‘I have had a shock,’ he said, ‘and I shall never recover. It is a question of weeks. Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes, sir, I used to like it. I sometimes think if we knew all, we should be more glad to get away.’

‘Jekyll is ill, too,’ observed Utterson. ‘Have you seen him?’

But Lanyon’s face changed, and he held up a trembling hand. ‘I wish to see or hear no more of Doctor Jekyll,’ he said in a loud, unsteady voice. ‘I am quite done with that person; and I beg that you will spare me any allusion to one whom I regard as dead.’

‘Tut-tut,’ said Mr Utterson; and then after a considerable pause, ‘Can’t I do anything?’ he inquired. ‘we are three very old friends, Lanyon; we shall not live to make others.’

‘Nothing can be done,’ returned Lanyon; ‘ask himself.’

‘He will not see me,’ said the lawyer.

‘I am not surprised at that,’ was the reply. ‘Some day, Utterson, after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this. I cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of other things, for God’s sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep clear of this accursed topic, then, in God’s name, go, for I cannot bear it.’

As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll, complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a long answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious in drift. The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable.

Explore how Stevenson presents Doctor Lanyon in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

[20 marks]

In this extract, Lanyon is close to death.

Explain how death is explored elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer, you must consider:

• who dies and how

• the effect these deaths have on other characters.

[20 marks]