How is The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thematically similar to gothic literature and how does it differ? In what ways is it more Victorian rather than Gothic?

First, it's not really useful to think of "Victorian" and "Gothic" as two competing elements in this work. "Gothic" is a genre; "Victorian" is not a genre, but an umbrella term describing works of all genres produced during a certain period of time. As such, there are characteristics of Victorian literature which we can find in Gothic literature of the time—and in romantic literature, drama, and so on, without making the text any less of its own genre. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a Victorian Gothic work. This puts it in a specific genre of its own which reframes Gothic elements in a Victorian context. We can track the similarity between Victorian, or fin-de-siecle, Gothic works (such as Dorian Gray, Dracula, The Island of Dr. Moreau) and first wave Gothic works (The Castle of Otranto, The Monk, Frankenstein), while also observing how elements of the Victorian have changed what Gothic means.
Strong Gothic elements in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde include:

Mystery and the supernatural. Perhaps the key component of Gothic literature, this is also key to this story. The mystery of the connection between Jekyll and Hyde maintains tension throughout the story, while Hyde's misdeeds are presented in a suspenseful way. Meanwhile, there's obviously a supernatural element in Jekyll's transformation (or is there? More on that below).


Isolation. Dr. Jekyll works primarily alone, which is why he is able to achieve what he does, away from the prying eyes of society.


The setting as character. While the setting in this novel, Victorian London, is dissimilar to the moor and castle settings of early Gothic novels, it is described equally as if it is an important part of the plot and theme of the novels, and used to create atmosphere.

Meanwhile, Victorian preoccupations which have made their way into the text include:

Class. Victorian literature often explored questions of class and society; in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the tension between the well-to-do professional classes and the dubious lower classes is encapsulated in one person and his two halves. The "bad" part, Mr. Hyde, symbolizes the part of us we try to repress, or the part of society the upper classes like to pretend is not there.


The tension between science and religion or the"when does a scientist become a man playing God"? See point 1 above—at what point does science, sufficiently advanced, become something supernatural, and something with which mankind should not meddle? Dr. Jekyll meddles in affairs beyond his understanding, to his detriment. Note, however, that this science/religion question is not unique to Victorian literature, but had already been evolving—and seen as something to be explored in Gothic texts—since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1816.

Now, as stated, "Victorian Gothic" is understood to be its own genre. As such, it has its own particular defining features which show the influence of both Gothic literature and Victorian preoccupations and which we can find in this text, such as:

Duality. The duality of man, and of society, is absolutely key to Victorian Gothic and can be found in all the major texts. While a man is seen to be respectable, on the one hand, some part of him is actually prowling the underworld of Victorian London. This betrays Victorian concerns about the hypocrisy of London, which, on the one hand, was a very class-focused, genteel society and, on the other, played host to Jack the Ripper and child prostitution. We also find duality explored in other Victorian texts—think The Importance of Being Earnest—but it's a defining feature of Victorian Gothic.

So, rather than asking what parts of this text are Gothic and which are Victorian, it's easier to explore how it represents the revival of the Gothic genre within a Victorian context.