Giada Zanella classe V H

THE THEME OF THE DOUBLE IN…

…DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE: the double in one’s personality
One might question whether Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are in fact a single character. Until the end of
the novel, the two personas seem nothing alike—the well-liked, respectable doctor and the hideous,
depraved Hyde are almost opposite in type and personality. Stevenson uses this marked contrast to
make his point: every human being contains opposite forces within him or her, an alter ego that
hides behind one's polite facade. Correspondingly, to understand fully the significance of either
Jekyll or Hyde, we must ultimately consider the two as constituting one single character.
Despite the seeming diametric opposition between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, their relationship in
fact involves a complicated dynamic. While it is true that Jekyll largely appears as moral and
decent, engaging in charity work and enjoying a reputation as a courteous and genial man, he in fact
never fully embodies virtue in the way that Hyde embodies evil. Although Jekyll undertakes his
experiments with the intent of purifying his good side from his bad and vice versa, he ends up
separating the bad alone, while leaving his former self, his Jekyll-self, as mixed as before. Jekyll
succeeds in liberating his darker side, freeing it from the bonds of conscience, yet as Jekyll he never
liberates himself from this darkness.
Also Jekyll's partial success in his endeavors shows us something more about his personality. Jekyll
himself attributes his distorted results to his state of mind when first taking the potion. He says that
he was motivated by dark urges such as ambition and pride when he first drank the liquid and that
these allowed for the emergence of Hyde. He seems to imply that, had he entered the experiment
with pure motives, an angelic being would have emerged. However, one must consider the
subsequent events in the novel before acquitting Jekyll of any blame. For, once released, Hyde
gradually comes to dominate both personas, until Jekyll takes Hyde’s shape more often than his
own. Indeed, by the very end of the novel, Jekyll himself no longer exists and only Hyde remains.
Hyde seems to possess a force more powerful than Jekyll originally believed. The fact that Hyde,
rather than some beatific creature, emerged from Jekyll’s experiments seems more than a chance
event, subject to an arbitrary state of mind. Rather, Jekyll’s drinking of the potion seems almost to
have afforded Hyde the opportunity to assert himself. It is as if Hyde, but no comparable virtuous
essence, was lying in wait.
This dominance of Hyde—first as a latent force within Jekyll, then as a tyrannical external force
subverting Jekyll—holds various implications for our understanding of human nature. We begin to
wonder whether any aspect of human nature in fact stands as a counter to an individual’s Hyde-like
side. We may recall that Hyde is described as resembling a primitive creature; perhaps Hyde is
actually the original, authentic nature of man, which has been repressed but not destroyed by the
accumulated weight of civilization, conscience, and societal norms. Perhaps man doesn’t have two
natures but rather a single, primitive, amoral one that remains just barely constrained by the bonds
of civilization. Moreover, the novel suggests that once those bonds are broken, it becomes
impossible to reestablish them; the genie cannot be put back into the bottle, and eventually Hyde
will permanently replace Jekyll—as he finally does. Even in Victorian England—which considered
itself the height of Western civilization—Stevenson suggests that the dark, instinctual side of man
remains strong enough to destroy anyone who, like Jekyll, proves foolish enough to unleash it.
…JANE EYRE: the double in one’s feelings
While in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the double exist in the same person, in Jane Eyre it is represented
by another person, completely different from the protagonist, yet deeply connected with her: Bertha
Mason.
Bertha Mason is a complex presence in the novel. She impedes Jane’s happiness, but she also
catalyses the growth of Jane’s self-understanding. In fact she can be seen as a manifestation of
Jane’s subconscious feelings—specifically, of her rage against oppressive social and gender norms.
Jane declares her love for Rochester, but she also secretly fears marriage to him and feels the need
to rage against the imprisonment it could become for her. Jane never manifests this fear or anger,
but Bertha does. Thus Bertha tears up the bridal veil, and it is Bertha’s existence that indeed stops
the wedding from going forth. And, when Thornfield comes to represent a state of servitude and
submission for Jane, Bertha burns it to the ground. Throughout the novel, Jane describes her inner
spirit as fiery, her inner landscape as a “ridge of lighted heath” (Chapter 4). Bertha seems to be the
outward manifestation of Jane’s interior fire. Bertha expresses the feelings that Jane must keep in
check, according to the conventions of Victorian society.
We can find an example of the duality of Jane’s feelings near the end of chapter 27: “Feeling . . .
clamoured wildly. <<Oh, comply>> it said. << . . . soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you
love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? Or who will be injured by what you do?
>> Still indomitable was the reply: <<I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the
more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned
by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now.
Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation. . . . They have a worth—so I
have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with
my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs.>> ”
In this quotation, Jane asserts her strong sense of moral integrity over and against her intense
immediate feelings. Rochester has been trying to convince her to stay with him despite the fact that
he is still legally married to Bertha Mason. His argument almost persuades Jane: Rochester is the
first person who has ever truly loved her. Yet she knows that staying with him would mean
compromising herself, because she would be Rochester’s mistress rather than his wife. Not only
would she lose her self-respect, she would probably lose Rochester’s, too, in the end. Thus Jane
asserts her worth and her ability to love herself regardless of how others treat her.
Jane’s allusions to her “madness” and “insanity” bring out the parallel between Jane and Bertha
Mason. It shows us that Bertha is a double for Jane, who embodies what Jane feels within,
something that, if externalized, makes her look “mad”.
…THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: the double in one’s conscience
The theme of the double in The picture of Dorian Gray, unlike the novels analyzed before, is
represented by an object. The picture of Dorian Gray, “the most magical of mirrors,” shows Dorian
the physical burdens of age and sin from which he has been spared. For a time, Dorian sets his
conscience aside and lives his life according to a single goal: achieving pleasure. His painted image,
however, asserts itself as his conscience and hounds him with the knowledge of his crimes: there he
sees the cruelty he showed to Sibyl Vane and the blood he spilled killing Basil Hallward.
But there are also other symbols that show us the contrasting relationship between Dorian’s
appearance and soul, the duality between his beauty and his dirty conscience.
The colour white
Dorian’s trajectory from figure of innocence to figure of degradation can be charted by Wilde’s use
of the colour white. White usually connotes innocence and blankness, as it does when Dorian is first
introduced. It is, in fact, “the white purity” of Dorian’s boyhood that Lord Henry finds so
captivating. Basil invokes whiteness when he learns that Dorian has sacrificed his innocence. But
the days of Dorian’s innocence are over. It is a quality he now escapes from, and, when he orders
flowers, he demands “as few white ones as possible.” When the colour appears again, in the form of
James Vane’s face—“like a white handkerchief”—peering in through a window, it has been
transformed from the colour of innocence to the colour of death. It is this threatening pall that
makes Dorian long, at the novel’s end, for his “rose-white boyhood,” but the hope is in vain, and he
proves unable to wash away the stains of his sins.
The opium dens
The opium dens, located in a remote and derelict section of London, represent the sordid state of
Dorian’s mind. He flees to them at a crucial moment. After killing Basil, Dorian seeks to forget the
awfulness of his crimes by losing consciousness in a drug-induced stupor. Although he has a
canister of opium in his home, he leaves the safety of his neat and proper parlor to travel to the dark
dens that reflect the degradation of his soul.
James Vane
James Vane is less a believable character than an embodiment of Dorian’s tortured conscience. As
Sibyl’s brother, he is a rather flat caricature of the avenging relative. Still, Wilde saw him as
essential to the story, adding his character during his revision of 1891. Appearing at the dock and
later at Dorian’s country estate, James has an almost spectral quality. Like the ghost of Jacob
Marley in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, who warns Scrooge of the sins he will have to
face, James appears with his white face to goad Dorian into accepting responsibility for the crimes
he has committed.