The Special Types Of Jekyll And Hyde Motif In The 19^th Century Western Literature

Searching for selfhood is a constant theme in western literature. In many writers' opinions, a self is a divided self or, more precisely, a self that has been divided. Many writers' works are a study of splitting self in an impassioned concentration especially in the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century western literature is characterized by dualistic psychology. Mostly these works concern the Jekyll and Hyde motif which addresses the deep problems of human life such as doubleness and split personality. The "hybrid nature" of doubles can be represented in a general way or a special way. The general way is exhibiting the fierce inner conflicts within the protagonist .The special way includes three types: firstly, portraying two dichotomous individuals bearing a "physical resemblance" to one another; secondly, metamorphosing the protagonist into another one or even a thing; thirdly, projecting or externalizing the protagonist.This paper divides into four parts. The first part summarizes the current research concerning this motif both at home and abroad and the methods used in this paper.By adopting French School's Influence Research ,the second part explores the inter-influence relationship between these works concerning the special types of Jekyll and Hyde motif. Works selected include: Hoffmann's The Devil's Elixirs, Dostoyevsky's The Double, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.The third part attempts to use the mythical and archetypal theories to probe into the biblical and mythical archetypes with some close textual analysis in the novels mentioned above, which focus on their themes, structures, protagonists , plots and images .In these novels, four writers use the biblical themes-"fall", "confess" and "redemption" or "fall", "struggle" and "death". In accordance with the archetypal themes, there are two archetypal structures , namely, the biblical comic structure and the biblical tragic structure. With regard to the protagonists of these novels, these writers mould the main protagonists in their novels-Medardus, Golyadkin, Jekyll, Dorian Gray-upon the mythical or biblical characters. All these protagonists share two common archetypes-double-faced god and twin. A more detailed archetype I have concluded is that Medardus is portrayed as Gain. The archetype of Golyadkin senior is Esau and that of Golyadkin junior is Jacob. Jekyll's archetype is Rudra and Dorian Gray is portrayed as Narcissus.In the plot, these writers mainly adopt the biblical plot of conflicts between the virtuous and the evil, and transform the conflicts into multifarious kinds-good men and villains, the background between Paradise and Abaddon, the "internal conflicts" within the protagonist.Besides the archetypal themes, structures, protagonists and plots, there also exist in the novel numerous archetypal images. Of the dominant images, these novels focus on the "road", "water", "fire", "plants", "inorganic world" and other images. These archetypal images give the novels a mysterious coloring and highlight the themes.The fourth part analyses the relationship between the divided parts of a self in these novels and the different methods the writers used to portray their protagonists. At last, the author points out other perspectives to do this research.