Short Compilation

Author's Note: I was looking at Mrs. Wood's response to Jekyll and Hyde a few weeks back, and I was inspired to do something similar. I compiled several quotes that inspired me, and meshed them together into one (very) short prose/poetry piece. I'm not sure if this counts as a writing response or not, but I liked it, so I'll post it.

I lingered but a moment at the mirror. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion. It was then my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. The ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul. Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged, the animal within me licking the chops of memory. This brief condescension to evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.

Quotes:

“I lingered but a moment at the mirror…” (108) “At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion…” (109) “It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery.” (109) “…the ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul.” (117) “Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged.” (116) “…the animal within me licking the chops of memory.” (118) “…the brief condescension to evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.” (118) “…he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as something not only hellish but inorganic.” (122)

The Fear of Life

Author's Note: As I read through Jekyll and Hyde one last time I came across this quote: “I began to perceive more deeply than it had ever been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mist-like transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired.” (105) It really stuck a chord in me – how fragile is life!

At a moment’s notice, life could end. Snuffed out like –that– with no one the wiser. There is no life without death, no morning without night, and yet we fear it. Why?

As men we think we are invincible, and we fear anything we cannot conquer. Death comes, and we watch it take everyone on earth, and we know that someday it will come for us. There’s nothing we can do about it either, with all our medicines and technologies and miracles: everyone dies. It’s a fact of life.

No one knows what death means. No! –don’t say it means we are no longer alive. We all know that: what does that mean? Is there another life we go to? Perhaps we travel to our judgment. Perhaps we all convene in a meetinghouse and torture those who did wrong in life. Or, perhaps, there is nothing. We simply die, game over, adios. The fear of the unknown is man’s strongest of fears, and there is nothing we know less about than death. It’s only natural we fear what we do not know.

We risk death every day, every time we get up in the morning, every time we open our eyes, every time we take a breath. Living, in its essence, means death. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but someday all of us will die. We fear it because it is inevitable, because it follows us everywhere, skulking in the shadows and lurking just behind us with every step we take.

This makes our fear quite ironic, really. Life cannot exist without death: life means death: life is death. And yet we both fear death and idolize life. Ah, such is the petty nature of man, to hate without knowledge and to fear without despair.

Hidden Selves

Author's Note: As I read through the chapters of Jekyll and Hyde, I was struck by the repeating motif of 'twinship' and duality. This was the result:

As man goes about his life, he carefully selects the things that he chooses to hide and those he chooses to share with others. In every man, there is a side he hides, a part of himself he locks away and refuses to let anyone see, including himself. However, the more he acknowledges this side, the more he shows it or considers it, the better he can understand himself and that who his truly is. This self-understanding and control is the basis on which the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written. Stephenson, however, adds a second layer of description of this through a constant motif of ironic duality. Jekyll himself states that “man is not truly one, but truly two.” (104) His own second side, which he gave the name of Hyde, is the complete opposite of the side he shows to society. However much Jekyll hates the new man he discovered, he can never quite bring himself to destroy it. This is because it is an innate part of him, a part which he had merely ignored until that point. If he had given that side of himself a small chance to rise before giving it free reign, Hyde would have been better controlled, better behaved, better received. Because Jekyll had pushed Hyde back, completely repressing him until Hyde was suddenly given complete control, Hyde didn’t know how to control himself; he went primal, responding in ways that kept him safe but were not socially acceptable. Had Jekyll taken the time to know his other half, he would have been able to control it: his lack of knowledge made him helpless to mediate between his two sides.

Good vs. Evil: Is there really a difference?

Author's Note: I read this quote from Jekyll and Hyde: "There’s a rather singular
resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical: only differently
sloped.” (55) It made me realize that there is very little difference between a good person and an evil one. Good and evil have exceedingly similar qualities. The only difference between good and evil is the perception one has when judging
them.

"Killer!"
The muttered word echoes through the otherwise silent cell. The guards shove the prisoner inside, lock the doors.
"You don't deserve such a light sentence, you murderer."
Thirty-five years.
That was the sentence. Thirty-five years in a prison cell for pushing a man out
a window and down four stories. The time seemed so little, and yet so much.
The prisoner sat hunched over, clutching her knees and hiding her head behind her hair. The silence was oppressive, a more menacing presence than the guards or the other prisoners. A small sob escaped her mouth. Her shoulders shook, and she
succumbed to the tears.

She hadn't meant to kill the man.
He had been standing over Julia - her precious Julia - and she had heard the girl crying. Her daughter didn't cry for much, she knew that. Her daughter was brave. And that man - she didn't know who he was, and no one had the right to be so close to her Julia! She had rushed over, pushed at him, made him back away from the child.
He swore, but she had paid him no attention. Julia was bleeding, and that was of more importance. She lifted the girl gently, prepared to take her home, but the man grabbed her roughly. "Stop it!" she had cried. "Leave us alone!"
"I don't think so," the man had growled. He pulled at Julia, tumbled her from her mother's grasp. The girl screamed.
At the scream, her mother had snapped. Letting out a ferocious cry that only a mother knows, she hit at the man, anger suffusing her body. Her intensity surprised him, and he flinched backwards. His weight hit glass and the crystal shattered. He fell backwards, crying out in fear as he plummeted downwards.
He had been hurting her daughter, but now Julia was safe. That was all that mattered. She hadn't meant to kill him.

Author's Note: While reading Jekyll and Hyde, I noticed many places where Stevenson includes the Faust theme, warning against beeing to devoted to finding knowledge. The quotes "...hitherto it was his ignorance of Mr. Hyde that had swelled his indignation; now, by sudden turn, it was his knowledge" as well as "but now his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved" in particular caught my attention. This poem is a response to those quotes.

Uncertainty, curiosity, mystery
Driving me to question all-
What I had been told
What I had thought truth

I don't know but want to
Need to
Will
Will find the answer

And do, but only to find a
Question

Another question
Another problem
Another need to know

I don't know but want to
Need to
Will
Will find the answer

And do, but only to find that
The answer enslaves me
Closing me in a labyrinth of mystery

Never to escape.