Alright, well this is one of the last papers I wrote in one of my writing classes for college. This isn't the final draft exactly, since my computer got wiped shortly after graduating, and I lost a lot of my papers, but this is me going through one of my rough drafts I had and editing a few mistakes that I remembered fixing. Hopefully I got most of them.
Animal Within
I often
find myself laughing when I hear people use the word humanity, or humane, in a
positive context. It is almost like these people believe that humanity means to
aspire to a greater principle, or ideal world, when these words really mean,
“the fact or condition of being human; human nature”. Why do we assume that
human nature is a positive thing, when so many things around us tell us
differently? Wars are waged all around the world, greed and envy slime the
inner walls of our hearts, genocide openly happens, as the world watches, and
we believe word humanity can be anything but negative or hold anything but
negative implications? Dr. Jekyll’s and Mr. Hyde’s story is just a reflection,
gazed through the shroud of fantasy, of what we deal with in our daily lives.
Dr. Jekyll wasn’t a bad man, just a man, a man who was looking to strive
forward in science, not for the betterment of every other man and women, but
instead to stroke his own ego. I can’t say he was any worse than any other
ambitious man, or woman, who was looking to make a name for themselves. This
story is more than just an entertaining piece of fiction; it’s a story that’s
meant to make us question what this bag of skin we inhabit would do if our
conscious, forced on us by the rules, and their consequences, of society, if we
didn’t control it.
Mr. Hyde is
an enigma in society, for he represents the animalistic side of humans, one
that doesn’t belong in society, but rather out in the fields running with
wolves. Even when describing Hyde you hear, “he is not easy to describe. There is something wrong
with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright
detestable. 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, although I
couldn’t specify the point” though no actually physical traces can be
seen to single out Mr. Hyde, other human beings naturally frown and find
distaste at his presence. The reason the citizens find distaste in Mr. Hyde's
existence is because that can feel that he is different from the rest of them,
without even realizing that he is the part of them that they suppress from the
rest of the world since they were old enough to learn right from wrong. Though they
recognize the feeling, it is hard to place something that is usual internal in
one’s mind, and think of it manifesting in a being that stands in front of you.
So people hated him, though they did not know why. Were they justified? As
justified as you could be for running a bear or wolf out of town. You know they
can be dangerous, and a threat to yourself, or your loved ones, so the line
between right and wrong fades in instances like this, and all you know is
survival. Survival for the citizens with Mr. Hyde is to push him away, or at
the very least, to be far away from him. These people are settled in the
society, but he isn’t, so they can simple push out of their territory. There are often stories of people learning to
befriend animals, but that isn’t because we find a way to compromise with them,
as much as we find a way to bend them to our needs, and our liking, to
domesticate them. Mr. Hyde is the side of animals that won’t bend to our needs,
and thus, looked at as an enemy of the people.
The internal struggle of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde is all but hidden from us in the first half of the book, though as
a reader you should know about, since most know a bit about the story,at least
the internal struggle that is being had between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, before
reading the book. We only really see what was happening behind the scenes when
we read the notes that were left in Dr. Jekyll’s laboratory. This battle
between yin and yang, one raging inside every being since before humans spoke
their first words, is confirmed when we hear, “the powers of Hyde
seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll”.
These two sides can only coexist when both have equal influence on the
conscious, and in this type of society, men and women can only coexist if the
yin, Dr. Jekyll, remands in command of the yang, Mr. Hyde. Of course, many
people will say that there are plenty of bad people in this world still, and if
anyone with who let their Mr. Hyde out would instantly be ostracized from
society, we would be in a utopia, or at least that we’d have empty streets. While
it is true that our world would be a much different place if this was the
truth, the difference between the Mr. Hyde we see in the novel, and the evil we
see in people every day, is that most people know how to hide their dark
actions, or work around them. What I mean is that people learn to avoid the
repercussions of the law, by choosing their fights, when to fight, and how to
capitalize on opportunities. You don’t just walk down the street and bash
someone’s head in, as we see Mr. Hyde do. No, people know how to reason in our
societies, so they will do one of two things, if they are choosing to pursue
the path of violence. Either they will find a less public place to kill this
person, that has somehow irked them, and try and get rid of the body. Or in a
less extreme case, though equally inappropriate, take it out on someone else.
They don’t have to kill the person, but they might beat them, rape them, mane
them, just to get their frustration out. It could be a random person, or a
family member. Most people know, or have heard of someone in a relationship
with someone who just wants to hit them, or anyone else who will take the abuse
from them. Though it isn’t right, this is how they release their Mr. Hyde’s, in
the confines and privacy of their homes.
This conflict we see isn’t one that
working out in the gym can help you with; it is a battle of the wills and of
our own self-control, for each one of us has a Mr. Hyde in us. A side that
wants to be free of our societal restraints, and would probably feel good to
let free. Reason being, it is an innate part of our human nature to be violent
and savage, and to naturally want to hurt one another, or see someone hurt
other person. Still, from a young age we have been taught to suppress this
side, to see it as dark and evil, and to shun it. Society was built in order to
keep this side suppressed, and so that anyone not abiding by this rule would be
pushed out of society. Today we see people who can’t live by these rules and
end up rebelling against society. Serial killers are the greatest example of
this. It isn’t that serial killers are that different from us, for all of us
have it inside of us to become what they are. Still, the majority of us will
keep that side suppressed, not because we know it is good to, but rather we do
not want to face the consequences that society will throw at us if we do. Like
I mentioned before, in this story we see Mr. Hyde club a man to death, with no
remorse, and walk away, like it was the natural thing to do. In society, we
sentence these people to life in prison, or to death. The reason isn’t to make
them better, but rather to get people, who obstruct the rules we set for our
society, away from people who do follow our society’s rules. Also, this is done
to set an example for the citizens, so that they will remain law abiding
citizens and keep themselves on a short leash.
How can people who follow the rules
of society fight against a person who doesn’t? People who follow society’s
rules aren’t prepared to face these monsters, and will be run down in the
streets by the Mr. Hyde’s out there. This is the reason we have the police
force, which isn’t a force made to fight off foreign threats to our nation, but
a force that is meant to maintain the laws, and catch the people who disobey them.
Some rule breaking might be more extreme than parking tickets and speeding
tickets, and might requires the intervention of specialists, like private
detectives, criminal profilers, forensic scientists, swat teams, and all other
types of specialists. So many different people are needed to help upkeep our
laws, and our social laws, because we make so many to chain ourselves with.
Also, most citizens don’t even know what laws and rights they have, when they
are being taken away, and the ones we take for granted. That is why the
profession of lawyers exists. If law abiding citizens don’t know many of our
own laws, if regular people break so many laws every day, that so many
different types of professionals are needed to keep them in line, is it strange
that an animal, like Mr. Hyde, couldn’t adjust to our society? Therefore, Dr.
Jekyll, being a man of science, and society, knew the only way to stop the Mr.
Hyde was to kill him, and in so killing himself.
Dr.
Jekyll’s struggle is one that will be eternal, even after he has long since
passed away in this story. The reason being, is that society will always have
to fight with the animal instinct it was created to control, and the people who
do not wish to control it. While most people aren’t as obvious as Mr. Hyde,
there isn’t one person on this planet that hasn’t succumbed to their Hyde side
to help better themselves, or just out of anger or passion. Some people hide it
better than others, learning to release this pent up aggression through
exercise, hidden violence, sex, or drugs; all to satisfy those violent urges. Therefore,
Mr. Hyde will never truly be dead, not as long as humans have free wills.
