Episode 47: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (Part 2)

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde Themes "As we think in our hearts, so are we." (Proverbs, 23.7) The TwinsMost cultures have a fascination with the phenomenon of twins. Jekyll and Hyde can be understood to be a strange type of twin.  Castor and Pollux were twins in Classical Mythology, both had the same mother (as would be expected): Leda, but each had a different father. Castor’s father was Leda’s mortal husband and was thus mortal, while Pollux was the son of Zeus, and thus an immortal. When push came to shove and Castor was killed, Pollux shared half his immortality with his twin.  We see in Tolkien, the half-elf brothers Elrond and Elros choose their kindred, Elrond to be an elf and thus immortal and Elros to be human and thus to die. In fact the symbol of the twins runs through our culture: Cain and Abel, Romulus and Remus, Osiris and Set.  Very often one is bad and the other good. Most often, stories about twins involve a moral choice.  The psychologist Carl Jung felt this motif revealed an archetype in human nature itself. Jung (Collected Works XX, 217n) mentions the old apocryphal legend that Jesus (the believer) was twin to Thomas (the doubter).  Chevalier and Gheerbrant (trans. John Buchanan-Brown) in their Dictionary of Symbols (1994, p1047) talk about different pairings of twins; one dark, the other light, one good, the other evil, and they say that they represent the contradictions in a person’s nature and his or her moral struggle to overcome them.  Stevenson’s discussion of this theme addresses the morality, but as well as being philosophical, he manages to demonstrate it through its human and dramatic aspect and show the suffering that such a struggle within a person’s nature can bring. It is not so simple as good fighting against bad. Jekyll wants to be both evil and good at the same time and to enjoy his evil with no penalty. His solution is to create, or more correctly, liberate Mr Hyde. Jekyll gets away with his guilty, but tempting pleasures while he ca