Download Socratic Seminar Questions on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Socratic Seminar Questions
on
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Mr. Cleon M. McLean
Department of English
Ontario High School
Socratic Seminar Questions on
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1. What is the overall mood of the story?
Does the mood change during the course
of the story? Cite examples to support
your answer
2. How does Stevenson create suspense in
the text?
3. There are several narrators in the story.
How might the story have been different
if there were only one narrator?
Socratic Seminar Questions on
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
4. From which point of view is the story written?
How does this affect your understanding of the
story?
5. Is there a significance to the names Utterson,
Jekyll, and Hyde?
Note: According to some critics,R. L. Stevenson
originally intended the name Jekyll to have a
French pronunciation, which would be je kill, with
the accent on the second syllable. The pronoun je
in French means I.
Socratic Seminar Questions on
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
6. Compare and contrast the physical and
mental characteristics of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
7. Why do you think Mr. Utterson made so
many incorrect assumptions?
8. Did Henry Jekyll’s experiences change the
way you look at yourself? Explain how or
why not.
Socratic Seminar Questions on
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
9. Romantic philosophers such as Jean
Jacques Rousseau explored the idea of man as
a "noble savage". This idea is oxymoronic,
surely. How might you define "noble"? How
might you define "savage"? How, then, can
man be one and the same?