Author: eavisi

 

Jekyll attempts to cheat human nature by creating a potion that separates the hidden evil in him from himself. By channeling all his suppressed evil into another being he can live without any evil desires in his regular self, or so he thought. Jekyll’s pride is shown through his want to better himself through unnatural means rather than live through the struggle of living with your evil side and learning to control it like everyone else. It is his pride that leads him to ruin his life as well as what leads him to his death.  

 

“That man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous f*ggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated? (Stevenson 43).” 

 

“That man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point.” Jekyll is right, people are nuanced, they have innate desires that are both good and bad. The question is, if everyone has innate desires that are good and bad how does one know whether they are a good or bad person? The answer lies in if you allow yourself to be ruled by your bad desires or your good desires, if you are ruled by the good desires you are a good person, if you are ruled by the bad desires you are a bad person. This idea Jekyll never takes into consideration, while of course a person will always have good and evil desires it does not mean he is split in two, like Jekyll believes. Man only has one side, himself, and it is a tug of war of whether he allows himself to be ruled by his good or bad desires. Next Jekyll writes, “I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced inallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side.” Jekyll’s pride becomes obvious here, no one who is wholly human can be moral all the time without fail, which is what he claims here. Next Jekyll says, “I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.” Jekyll is wrong, and his transformations prove it, he thinks it’s possible he could be both the good and bad sides of himself in totality. This is wrong. Jekyll’s desire to transform into Hyde originally came from him, his supposedly “good” half still gives into the desire of wanting to be the wholly bad version of himself. This shows that one cannot ever be radically one or the other since even what he thinks is his good half still desired to be Hyde and executed the plan to become him repeatedly.  Jekyll’s pride can be seen again in this part of the quote, “If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.” Jekyll wants to live a life free of the unbearable burden that is evil, so that he can live a life in which he can be wholly good all the time. Essentially, he wants to cheat life, without evil to resist and struggle with, how can he be a good person? So much of being a good person is pushing against your evil desires, so how can he truly be wholly good with no evil in himself to fight against? In addition, what makes him think he is deserving of freedom from the the fight between good and evil within oneself? His pride has allowed him to think he can bypass a test that is necessary to decide one’s character, a test that every human ever has faced. Lastly, he says, “It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous f*ggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?” First Jekyll says, “It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous f*ggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling.” Once more, it is not a curse that man struggles with good and evil, it is a test. It is a test that Jekyll believes he is too high and mighty for. Jekyll is not at peace with the idea that a person has two sides that are constantly struggling, he is not ready to put in the work to fight that battle and tries to cop out. Had Jekyll been a good person he would have laid down his pride and accepted evil would always been a part of him and mustered the strength to fight it. Yet instead he wanted to be perfect, no one who is only human is perfect. He could not accept his imperfect status because of his pride, and this is what led him to his demise. Jekyll essentially tried to be God.  

Throughout Dracula people are getting bitten and turning into Vampires. It is a constant unending chain, that seemingly can’t be stopped. Then, at the end of the novel the chain is broken when they kill Dracula. In the process Morris is killed, in turn, he is remembered through Mina and Johnathan’s’ baby whom they named Quincey, who also happened to be born on the same day Morris was killed. This represents the theme of rebirth in the novel. This can be most clearly seen in Jonathan Harker’s final note at the end of the novel. 

 

Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy’s birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our brave friend’s spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together; but we call him Quincey. In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out(Stoker 402). 

The passage starts off with the line, “Seven years ago we all went through the flames.” This is already the first representation of the theme of rebirth in this passage. Flames are often associated with rebirth because of the Phoenix, who at the end of its life sets itself on fire so a young Phoenix can rise from its ashes. For them to have this child they all needed to go through the flames, meaning they needed to suffer. The next line shows how this suffering gave them a rebirth, “and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured.” This shows that through the suffering or ‘flames’ they were able to gain rebirth which is a new life that is free of Dracula. The next line states that Mina and Jonathan’s child was born on the same day as the day Morris died. Suggesting that Quincy, their kid, might even be a reincarnation of Morris, this is the most literal example of rebirth in this quote. The end of the quote goes like this, “In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out. The castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation.” Jonathan and Mina went back to Transylvania and revisited all the places they had been. Why would they go back and be reminded of such terrible memories? The answer probably lies in the human desire to see a place they associate with chaos and evil rebirth as a place set free from that evil, or rebirth. In the next sentence Jonathan writes, “It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out.”  Even though this place is associated in their minds with the place their best friend had been murdered, he acknowledges that despite that experience it felt as if nothing had happened there, “Every trace of all that had been was blotted out.” This shows us that even the most terrible things can experience a rebirth.  

It is also important to take note of what Bram Stoker is saying about rebirth. For most of the novel rebirth is shown in an evil light, vampires live long past regular humans and they spread their misfortune to others who then are rebirthed as vampires. Yet, at the end rebirth is portrayed in a positive light through Jonathan and Mina’s child, Quincey. This could be a comment by Stoker on the obsession with death in the Victorian era and the desire to live longer, which caused some people to seek out unnatural methods to elongate their life. By showing that when you allow life to take its course there is rebirth but in a much more metaphorical and spiritual way, and that is the next generation.  

 

 

 

 

This novel is a good illustration of how scientific advancement buttheads with religion in 19th century societies. This progress in science led to people questioning the validity of religion, causing societal unrest. Given that people argued that science was a direct contradiction to religion, it of course made many assume that science itself was evil. Stoker plays off this sentiment in Dracula. Throughout the novel it is the spiritual world against the scientific world. On the one hand Seward uses science to understand the world and fight against Dracula’s forces. Whereas Dracula operates through the supernatural. Seward refuses to diagnose Renfield through reasoning that involves the supernatural, so he is left perplexed. When Seward attempts to save Lucy through blood transfusions, he fails, and she turns into a vampire. These are just two examples that demonstrate this war between old world beliefs that involve the supernatural and new world beliefs that rely on scientific explanation. A good example of this in the text comes from Van Helsing. 

“You are a clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. . .. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young. . ..(Stoker 204) 

Here Van Helsing argues that while science is a great explanation for many things and great for the future, Seward allows it to blind him because he believes in it unequivocally. He argues that the problem with science is that when it has no explanation it remains that way, the answer is that it has no explanation. He says the reason for this is because science attempts to explain everything so when it can’t, it refuses to accept any other non-scientific explanation. This quote perfectly represents the societal tension of science and spirituality in the 19th century, Seward will not accept this idea that science cannot explain something, he is gung-ho on approaching the world through science and only that way, despite the traditional societal pull to see the world spiritually which is represented through Van Helsing and Dracula. These two sides of society are represented through the characters in this novel as this quote demonstrates.  

“The night was clear and fine above us. The stars shone cold and bright, while a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a soft, uncertain light. Before us lay the dark bulk of the house, its serrated roof and bristling chimneys hard outlined against the silver-spangled sky. Broad bars of golden light from the lower windows stretched across the orchard and the moor. One of them was suddenly shut off. The servants had left the kitchen” (Doyle 1). 

 

 

This passage encapsulates exactly what the sensation genre is. The sensation genre is meant to make the regular extraordinary. The reason for this is because it applies to people’s lives. Lady Audley’s is a deeply normal Victorian setting. A man is set to marry a woman, she appears to be the classic innocent and docile Victorian woman, yet she turns out to be the exact opposite. This fascinates the reader because it makes the normal absurd, the excitement they lack in their everyday life is found through the sensation novel. This quote is the perfect example of this, “The stars shone cold and bright, while a half-moon bathed the whole scene in a soft, uncertain light.” The setting Doyle talks about is normal but the way he describes it makes it seem haunting, this can be seen when he describes the light from the stars as “uncertain”, he makes the stars seem uncanny when he calls the “cold and bright” as if the stars themselves are setting the scene for what’s about to take place. Next, he says, “Before us lay the dark bulk of the house, its serrated roof and bristling chimneys hard outlined against the silver-spangled sky.” While one might expect a house to be the most normal aspect of a story he describes it as, “Before us lay the dark bulk of the house.” Yet he calls it a “dark bulk” making its presence daunting and unpleasant. Finally, he says, “One of them was suddenly shut off. The servants had left the kitchen.” A normal action such as shutting off a light one might expect not to make one sit up in fear but by using “suddenly” he makes the normal action of a servant turning off the lights for the night seem threatening. This quote demonstrates the purposeful irregularity of supposedly normal circumstances, which is the purpose of a sensation novel at its core. Doyle makes what should be a normal nighttime setting feel like the beginning of a horror movie.  

 

“We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life—this unflinching regularity in the smaller wheels and meaner mechanism of the human machine, which knows no stoppage or cessation, though the mainspring be for ever broken, and the hands pointing to purposeless figures upon a shattered dial” (Braddon 206). 

The first line serves as a tone setter for the rest of the paragraph, like the way a thesis might guide an argumentative essay; “we are apt to be angry with thus cruel hardness in our life.” Essentially, he, Robert Audley, is saying life can be hard, and for the rest of the paragraph he goes into detail about why it’s hard. He needs to express how grueling life can be so he relates it to a factory like setting, this can be seen when he uses words like wheels, mainspring, mechanism, human machine and shattered dial. Relating an industrial setting to life is a useful way of expressing the point of this paragraph, since factories are often associated with fatigue, underpaid workers, unsafe conditions and long hours, especially in the eighteenth century. Also, Braddon uses no full stops in this paragraph until the last sentence, only commas and dashes. This allows the reader to read it as if it is a poem, continuously. This choice of punctuation is especially well suited to this paragraph because it allows her in depth description to flow, she centers in on one point, which is to express how hard life can be, and by having no full stops it brings the paragraph into one cohesive point, which makes it easier for the reader to digest her thesis. This passage also gives us an insight into Robert’s psyche. Given that Robert has been on the search for an explanation for the disappearance of his friend for a long time, one can only imagine the weariness and anguish he must feel. In addition to this he has just met George’s father, who gave clear signs that he did not care much for George and that the part of him that does has written off his disappearance as a trick. Making George’s disappearance even more tragic and even tougher for Robert to handle. When factoring in these recent experiences George has endured, his pessimistic view on life makes sense.