"The real stab of the story is not in the discovery that the one man is two men; but in the discovery that the two men are one man. After all the diverse wandering and warring of those two incompatible beings, there was still one man born and only one man buried."
~ G.K. Chesterton
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Nice quote, Jordan. Chesterton nailed it. In the end, it is what we let consume us that becomes who we are. I am reminded again of the Harry Potter quote, "We all have good and evil inside of us, it is the part that we choose to act upon that makes us who we are."
ReplyDeleteThanks for responding Brent. It can feel lonely on the Internet. But I have to say I think that the Chesterton quote differs substantially from the Harry Potter quote. What Stevenson and Chesterton find so horrifying and shocking is that there are two men Jekyll and Hyde, Jekyll has a sense of both good and evil and he chooses good and Hyde has a sense of good and evil and he chooses evil, and these two are one man! There is one birth and one death. If this is accurate we must sense the horror of Stevenson's book. Jekyll and Hyde with all their differences share a single memory Hyde knows Jekyll from the inside out and Jekyll, Hyde. Could this be true of us? Not that we straddle good and evil and sovereignly make our choice, but that half of us willing chooses evil, and half of us willing choose good? What do you think?
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I think I see your point. You may be right on Chesterton's and Stevenson's interpretation. I guess I read the quote as meaning that their were two identities warring against each other and in the end one had to win to become the "Ultimate identity", so to speak. In the end their was only one man. We see how Jeckyl is frustrated and bored with his mundane existence and although he recognizes the evil in Hyde, a part of him craves it, longs for it, to the point of no return. That's what is frightening to me. The fact that we can entertain the darkness within only so long before it ultimately consumes us. What I related with the Harry potter quote, was the fact that it was Jeckyl who made the choice to become Hyde. One could say he never quite felt alive or purposeful until he created Hyde. And in the end, ti was his choice to act on his desire to be Edward Hyde that defined who he was. While I do see that we do good things and evil things at different times, Like the book ended, Jeckyl chose Hyde, as he stated, "I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jeckyll to an end." Just my interpretation, which can sometimes be from another planet. Your thoughts, good sir? And anyone else for that matter who understands the King's English!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat hit me the strongest was the shock, horror, and the unrecognizability of Hyde to those who knew Jekyll the best. They couldn't even conceive that they were both the same person. I think this would be even stonger if we didn't already know the story and had to wait for it to be revealed in the final chapter as Stevenson's first readers did.
ReplyDelete