The Horrible Mr. Hyde

"I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity."

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a book about the duality of mans' nature. And it definitely was interesting. The notion that all good people can also inherently be bad people too is all too true. "I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life."

If only people were not so weak and base, as to be lulled into the false sense of righteousness and propriety. Only "in an hour of moral weakness, to once again compound and swallow the transforming draught."

Its an interesting story about letting that baser version of yourself gain footing in your life and soon overthrow that which is good and right. What I found really relevant was that, the more Dr. Jekyll transformed into the purely evil Mr. Hyde, no matter how he rationalized it, the balance of selves became offset, until he could no longer control the transformation and became that which was most hated and abhorred. Oh Mr Hyde. If only you could not gain such strength to overcome in the end the seemingly good and kindly Dr. Jekyll. And oh Dr. Jekyll, if only you had not given him such power.

"In the beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the other side. All things therefore seemed to point to this; that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse."

I think this book (which really was more of a short story), spoke to an inner worry. The worry is that we are only good when under the spotlight of society. That our motives are not where they should be. We put up a face but deep within we are not that face. When left to the darkness, our more selfish nature comes out. This falseness, in the daylight chaffs at us and curiosity of our other nature begins to weigh heavy until we give it (and our baser desires) heed. Or worse that the public face is the false part of our nature, masking something inherently wrong with us. Something that conceals the defects of our own nature, so that we appear more attractive, interesting, valuable, and end up deceiving all who lay eyes upon us.

Anyways. Think on that. I know I am.