KEY FACTS
Split-Personalities and the Representation of Madness.
REVISION WORKSHOP
une oeuvre littéraire: a literary work
a literary production / a body of work : l’ensemble de la production
“We talked about / mentioned / discussed / studied / explored … “
1- What theme did we cover?
Literature themes:
for the bac you introduce 2 themes only > you choose your themes!
1- The Imaginary > Madness / Split Personalities
2- Travel, exile, initiation narratives.
3- The writer in his time.
4- The EYE and the I.
2- More precisely, what did we study?
We commented on / read extracts of imaginary /
fiction stories which were published at the end of the 19th century, which were written by English writers.
They all feature a hero with a dual personality.
For example The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and My Hyde is about a respectable scientist who turns into an evil man.
We also mentioned The Picture of Dorian Gray which is about a man who enjoys eternal beauty, immortality thanks to a painting which gets uglier and uglier as a consequence for Dorian’s crimes.
We also talked about Dracula because he is the epitome / archetype of dual personality. He is both an animal / a vampire and a man.
Intro question ? Why are we fascinated by dual characters?
……
Ccl > We are fascinated by dual personalities because we are also split between our admiration, pleasure for reading and our fear.
We enjoy “delightful horror”, we like being scared.
BAC LIST FOR YOU TO CHOOSE FROM:
- Dracula written by Bram Stoker in 1897.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray written by Oscar Wilde in 1890.
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde written Stevenson in 1886.
- Varney the Vampire by Rymer, 1845-47.
Suggested readings:
- The Island of Dr Moreau by H. G. Wells
- The Yellow WallPaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
- Shutter Island by Denis Lehane
- Nosferatu by Murnau 1921
- The Tell Tale heart by E. A. Poe
http://www.scientificoatripalda.it/dualism/theDoubleInOtherWorks.php
FACTS
Who is Dr Jekyll? Mr Hyde?
> How does the transformation happen?
Takes a drug / potion he created to split his inner self into two different characters / individuals
> Where does he live?
He lives in a house in London during the Victorian period. His house has a secret door and two different entrances and a secret room / laboratory.
> How is the split personality represented in the story? (techniques?)
The narrative is fragmented, there are different narratives contained in a single story.
It’s called an embedded or framed narrative. The narrator acts like a private detective and as readers we feel the same.
Also there are metaphors and similes which play with literal and figurative meanings. For example the city streets are always dark and lit by street lamps, doors are separating the evil and dark world of the private life of Dr Jekyll from his outside moral and respectable reputation in the city.
Who is Dracula?
> How has the legend evolved?
Dracula used to represent evil and the devil in the past, he was a monster embodying people’s fear of the ‘other’, the invader or the sexual forbidden fantasies.
Now vampires are part of pop culture, they’re almost funny when we think of all the gimmicks and Halloween costumes.
> What feelings does he embody?
He is both appealing and scary, sexy and horrifying.
> What techniques are used by Stoker?
The novel by Stoker is a series of letters and ‘real’ documents. It makes the reader want to know more as he is rushed into the characters’ private exchanges and feelings. We feel like detectives or judges: what is good? What is evil? Who can we trust?
Who is Dorian Gray?
> What’s going on with the painting?
> What happens in the end?
> What is the implicit meaning of this story?
The Picture of Dorian Gray is an example of Gothic fiction with strong themes interpreted from the legendary Faust. Dorian Gray is the subject of a portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist who is in love with Dorian’s beauty; he believes that Dorian’s beauty is responsible for the new mode in his art as a painter. Dorian in turn meets Lord Henry Wotton, and is impressed by the aristocrat’s hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual experiences are the most important in life. Understanding that his beauty will disappear, Dorian decides to sell his soul. In exchange for his soul, the portrait grows old and ugly while he stays young and good-looking. Dorian enjoys a libertine life of varied and amoral experiences while his portrait records every soul-corrupting sin.
COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS
Conclusion:
How are split personalities represented in literature?
Similarities
Facts:
Two-faced / Split characters Dracula : animal vs man
Dr Jekyll : respectable doctor / scientist vs evil creature
Dorian Gray: good-looking / successful young man vs criminal
Comments :
We can compare Dr Jekyll / Dracula and Dorian because all 3 protagonists / characters show a contrast / conflict between their physical appearance and their inner self. All three writers used the figure of a respectable man to trick / play with our preconcieved ideas. We are led to think that Dr Jekyll, Dracula or Dorian Gray can be trusted but we are mistaken / mislead. In the end we realize that even the emost rational, respectable men can be evil. So heroes have a dark side and we like it. That’s why Stoker, Wilde and Stevenson are considered to be the ones who envisioned the first anti-heroes in modern literature.
FACTS > reasons why they are split:
Dracula didn’t choose / was born like this
# Jekyll deliberately chose / intended to drink his drug because he designed it himself.
# Dorian Gray chose under the influence of another man.
We can ask ourselves if evil is inside us all or if it is triggered / provoked by circumstances.
Why is this theme interesting for us today?
Which activity / text did you find the most interesting? Why?
The Picture of Dorian Gray is an example of Gothic fiction with strong themes interpreted from the legendary Faust. Dorian Gray is the subject of a portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist who is in love with Dorian’s beauty; he believes that Dorian’s beauty is responsible for the new mode in his art as a painter. Dorian in turn meets Lord Henry Wotton, and is impressed by the aristocrat’s hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual experiences are the most important in life. Understanding that his beauty will disappear, Dorian decides to sell his soul. In exchange for his soul, the portrait grows old and ugly while he stays young and good-looking. Dorian enjoys a libertine life of varied and amoral experiences while his portrait records every soul-corrupting sin.
> implying that Dorian is two men, a refined aesthete and a criminal.
= link to the double in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), by Robert Louis Stevenson, a novella admired by Oscar Wilde.
> reference to hedonistic lifestyle of the Decadents, a late nineteenth century artistic movement that prized beauty and aesthetic experience over everything else. Dorian Gray and its protagonist have become synonymous with the pursuit of pleasure, regardless of its moral consequences.
= can be linked to Orlok’s blood drinking final scene in Murnau’s Nosferatu. Orlok likes Mina’s blood so much he forgets about the coming day. When a rooster crows, Orlok vanishes in a puff of smoke as he tries to flee.
> Our society is obsessed with youth. Because we live in a culture where youth is idolized and age is our enemy – the goal these days seems to be not just to stop aging, but to get younger. In the nineteenth century people also wished for undying youth and beauty.
= can also explain why vampires are so popular and get sexier and sexier over time… Also Mr Hyde is younger and stronger than Jekyll in appearance.
> ” I should fancy that the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich.” Basically, here Lord Henry seems to think that if you can afford to be sinfully self-indulgent, you should go ahead and do it.
= can be linked to the first incident in Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde when Hyde stamps on the little girl and then offers to pay her family a cheque which has the name of Jekyll on it…
> ” Besides, was it really under his control? Had it indeed been prayer that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire, might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity? But the reason was of no importance. He would never again tempt by a prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it?”
= like Dr Jekyll who is determined to take the risk to drink his potion, Dorian doesn’t want to try to undo what he wished for. His choice to leave the portrait as it is and not even try to pray forgiveness means he stepped in the dark side willingly.
> ” One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book.” This book is said to be Huysmans A rebours, a decadent French book. This book as an evil influence on Dorian and is described as dual in itself. The character of the book is both angel and demon, a saint and a sinner and the line between good and evil is blurred by his power of seduction.
= the theme of temptation and dually is everywhere in Dracula as well as in Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. Poisons are aso everywhere: in the form of blood or drugs.
> “Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil,” cried Dorian with a wild gesture of despair.
= like Dr Jejyl & Hyde or Dracula = allegory about the good and evil that exist in all men
http://www.shmoop.com/picture-dorian-gray/
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde. It is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll,[and the evil Edward Hyde. The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often spuriously called “split personality”, referred to in psychiatry as dissociative identity disorder, where within the same body there exists more than one distinct personality. In this case, there are two personalities within Dr Jekyll, one apparently good and the other evil. The novel, a mystery thriller about a respectable man who takes a potion to occasionally become a dark and evil character, was written as a “shilling shocker.” or “penny dreadful”. Popular during the Victorian era (the mid-1800s to about 1900), shilling shockers were short, graphic, and inexpensive books eagerly consumed by the masses –like those cheap romance novels you find in the supermarket. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been in continual publication for over 120 years.
Instead of a Peter Parker/Spiderman deal, Dr. Jekyll went in the opposite direction and created an evil alter ego via some mysterious potion. His alter ego, Edward Hyde, who has a completely different appearance and personality, gets to do all the fun and illegal things that Jekyll, or any normal person, can’t. Although we don’t get the juicy details, it’s pretty clear that Mr. Hyde is a pretty perverse, wicked, sinful, foul guy – all around NOT the kind of person you want to meet in a dark alley.
> ” Both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering.” (10.1)
Good and evil exist in equal parts in Dr. Jekyll.
> ” It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man”
Dr. Jekyll believes that good and evil should be separated from each other because he can not balance them well when they are mingled.
> Importance of the setting in both Jeky & Dorian Gray : VICTORIAN ENGLAND
Notice the servants? The discrepancy between rich and poor? The bachelor living? The religious allusions? The repression? That’s Victorian England. This setting allows Dr. Jekyll to become a more sympathetic character. It also explains why he needed to unleash his inner Hyde.
> Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
http://www.shmoop.com/dracula/
Published in 1897, Dracula is a horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who leaves his native Transylvania (modern-day Romania, in southeastern Europe) to immigrate to England – presumably to feed on the “teeming millions” in the huge capital city of London. Pretty much every vampire book or movie in the twentieth century owes something to Stoker’s novel, from Nosferatu, a silent German film made in 1922, to Blade (1998) to the Anne Rice Interview with the Vampire series. Even vampire Edward Cullen of the Twilight saga acknowledges the impact Dracula has had on our collective imagination.Many critics like to read Stoker’s Dracula as being about the British fear that the people they had colonized and oppressed for so long would come to Britain to take revenge. Some critics think of Dracula as a kind of allegory about the collapse of British imperialism.
Jekyll & Hyde : Third person (limited); the story follows Mr. Utterson. The third person limited point of view picks one character and follows him around – in this case, Mr. Utterson. However, Mr. Utterson’s point of view is supplemented by four other narratives: Mr. Enfield’s story of the door, the maid’s account of the Carew murder, Dr. Lanyon’s story, and Dr. Jekyll’s confession. We get the story this way because it draws out the suspense, and the mystery. Each story is embedded in one another, like Russian Dolls, it’s called an embedded or framed narrative.
Dorian Gray: Third Person (Omniscient) Although we see the story mainly through the lens of Dorian’s opinions, we also dip into the minds of other characters here and there, from Lord Henry to Mrs. Vane. We’re able to see everyone’s thoughts and perspectives, the narration is really thorough and complete.
Dracula: First Person (Multiple Central Narrators) The novel is composed of a series of journal entries, letters, newspaper articles, and memos. This narrative technique puts the reader in the position of a judge or jury (or both): we hear the evidence of a variety of different eyewitnesses, and we’re supposed to interpret the evidence as best we can.
Published in 1897, Dracula is a horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who leaves his native Transylvania (modern-day Romania, in southeastern Europe) to immigrate to England – presumably to feed on the “teeming millions” in the huge capital city of London. Pretty much every vampire book or movie in the twentieth century owes something to Stoker’s novel, from Nosferatu, a silent German film made in 1922, to Blade (1998) to the Anne Rice Interview with the Vampire series. Even vampire Edward Cullen of the Twilight saga acknowledges the impact Dracula has had on our collective imagination.Many critics like to read Stoker’s Dracula as being about the British fear that the people they had colonized and oppressed for so long would come to Britain to take revenge. Some critics think of Dracula as a kind of allegory about the collapse of British imperialism.
Bee O'Clock 