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.