The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Specimen Assessment Materials

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question. You should use the extract
below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about how tension is created at different points in the novel. In your response you
should:
 refer to the extract and the novel as a whole;
 show your understanding of characters and events in the novel;
 refer to the contexts of the novel.
[40]

Mr. Utterson was sitting by his fireside one evening after dinner, when he was surprised to
receive a visit from Poole.
‘Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?’ he cried; and then taking a second look at him,
‘What ails you?’ he added, ‘is the doctor ill?’
‘Mr. Utterson,’ said the man, ‘there is something wrong.’
‘Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you,’ said the lawyer.
‘Now, take your time, and tell me plainly what you want.’
‘You know the doctor’s ways, sir,’ replied Poole, ‘and how he shuts himself up. Well, he’s
shut up again in the cabinet; and I don’t like it, sir – I wish I may die if I like it. Mr. Utterson,
sir, I’m afraid.’
‘Now, my good man’, said the lawyer, ‘be explicit. What are you afraid of?’
‘I’ve been afraid for about a week,’ returned Poole, doggedly disregarding the question, ‘and
I can bear it no more.’
The man’s appearance amply bore out his words; his manner was altered for the worse; and
except for the moment when he had first announced his terror, he had not once looked the
lawyer in the face. Even now, he sat with the glass of wine untasted on his knee, and his
eyes directed to a corner of the floor. ‘I can bear it no more,’ he repeated.
‘Come,’ said the lawyer, ‘I see you have some good reason, Poole; I see there is something
seriously amiss. Try to tell me what it is.’
‘I think there’s been foul play,’ said Poole, hoarsely.
‘Foul play!’ cried the lawyer, a good deal frightened and rather inclined to be irritated in
consequence. ‘What foul play? What does the man mean?’
‘I daren’t say, sir,’ was the answer; ‘but will you come along with me and see for yourself?’
2017
You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.
You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this
question.

Write about Mr Hyde and how he is presented in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole
• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel
• refer to the contexts of the novel [40]

‘We have common friends,’ said Mr Utterson.

‘Common friends?’ echoed Mr Hyde, a little hoarsely. ‘Who are they?’
‘Jekyll, for instance,’ said the lawyer.
‘He never told you,’ cried Mr Hyde, with a flush of anger. ‘I did not think you would have
lied.’
‘Come,’ said Mr Utterson, ‘that is not fitting language.’
The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment, with extraordinary
quickness, he had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house.
The lawyer stood awhile when Mr Hyde had left him, the picture of disquietude. Then he
began slowly to mount the street, pausing every step or two and putting his hand to his
brow like a man in mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was
one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of
deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne
himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he
spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against
him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and
fear with which Mr Utterson regarded him. ‘There must be something else,’ said the
perplexed gentleman. ‘There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me,
the man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it be the old story
of Dr Fell? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and
transfigures, its clay continent? The last, I think; for O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read
Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.’
2018
You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.
You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this
question.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is about the struggle between good and evil.
Write about how Stevenson presents this at different points in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole
• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel
• refer to the contexts of the novel [40]

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.
Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly
on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man)
had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that
ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This,
too, was myself. It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the
spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance, I
had been hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in so far I was doubtless right. I have
observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at
first without a visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all human beings,
as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the
ranks of mankind, was pure evil.
I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and conclusive experiment had yet to be
attempted; it yet remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must
flee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet,
I once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and
came to myself once more with the character, the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.
2019
You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.
You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this
question.

Write about Dr Jekyll and how he is presented at different points in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole
• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel
• refer to the contexts of the novel [40]

A FORTNIGHT LATER, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave one of his pleasant dinners
to some five or six old cronies, all intelligent reputable men, and all judges of good wine;
and Mr Utterson so contrived that he remained behind after the others had departed. This
was no new arrangement, but a thing that had befallen many scores of times. Where
Utterson was liked, he was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the light-
hearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit
awhile in his unobtrusive company, practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man’s
rich silence, after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule Dr Jekyll was no exception;
and as he now sat on the opposite side of the fire – a large, well-made, smooth-faced man
of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness –
you could see by his looks that he cherished for Mr Utterson a sincere and warm affection.
‘I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll,’ began the latter. ‘You know that will of yours?’
A close observer might have gathered that the topic was distasteful; but the doctor carried
it off gaily.
‘My poor Utterson,’ said he, ‘you are unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so
distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what
he called my scientific heresies. O, I know he’s a good fellow – you needn’t frown – an
excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but a hide-bound pedant for all
that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon.’
‘You know I never approved of it,’ pursued Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic.
‘My will? Yes, certainly, I know that,’ said the doctor, a trifle sharply. ‘You have told me so.’
‘Well, I tell you so again,’ continued the lawyer. ‘I have been learning something of young
Hyde.’
The large handsome face of Dr Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness
about his eyes. ‘I do not care to hear more,’ said he. ‘This is a matter I thought we had
agreed to drop.’
‘What I heard was abominable,’ said Utterson.
‘It can make no change. You do not understand my position,’ returned the doctor, with a
certain incoherency of manner. ‘I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very
strange – a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by talking.’
2020
You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.
You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this
question.
The novel is about the conflict between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Write about this conflict
and how it is presented at different points in the novel.
In your response you should:
• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole
• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel
• refer to the contexts of the novel [40]
Now, however, and in the light of that morning’s accident, I was led to remark that whereas,
in the beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late
gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the other side. All things therefore seemed to
point to this: that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming
slowly incorporated with my second and worse.
Between these two I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but
all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite),
now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared
in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but
remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals
himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; Hyde had more than a son’s
indifference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll was to die to those appetites which I had long
secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde was to die to a
thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and for ever, despised and
friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in
the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be
not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of
this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms
cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so
vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part, and was found wanting in the
strength to keep to it.
Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by friends, and cherishing
honest hopes; and bade a resolute farewell to the liberty, the comparative youth, the light
step, leaping pulses and secret pleasures, that I had enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde. I made
this choice perhaps with some unconscious reservation, for I neither gave up the house in
Soho, nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay ready in my cabinet. For two
months, however, I was true to my determination; for two months I led a life of such
severity as I had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an approving
conscience. But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of
conscience began to grow into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and
longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I
once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.
2021
You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.
You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this
question.

In The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the reader follows the characters on their
journeys of discovery. Write about how Stevenson presents some of these discoveries and
how they are important to the novel as a whole.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole
• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel
• refer to the contexts of the novel [40]

I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked
death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might
by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of
exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change. But the
temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last overcame the suggestions of
alarm. I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale
chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt, which I knew, from my experiments, to be the
last ingredient required; and, late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched
them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a
strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.
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.
2022
You have 45 minutes to answer this question.
You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this
question.

Write about some of the ways Stevenson creates shock and horror at different points
in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole
• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel
• refer to the contexts of the novel [40]

All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good
walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able
down a cross-street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner;
and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s
body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to
see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a view halloa, took to
my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a
group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave
me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running. The people who had
turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon the doctor, for whom she had been
sent, put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened,
according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But
there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So
had the child’s family, which was only natural. But the doctor’s case was what struck me. He
was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong
Edinburgh accent, and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us:
every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turned sick and white with the
desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and killing
being out of the question, we did the next best. We told the man we could and would make
such a scandal out of this, as should make his name stink from one end of London to the
other. If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all
the time, as we were pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the women off him as best we
could, for they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there
was the man in the middle, with a kind of black sneering coolness – frightened too, I could
see that – but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan.