Individual Walks
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As an individual walks on a sunny, bright day, and turns around, what is seen? Maybe a building, another individual, wildlife, but what is guaranteed to always be there? Our shadows. We see our own shadow behind us as we walk to our destination, but we often overlook it. Our shadow follows us wherever we go; it is our other half in a sense. According to Robert Johnson, a Jungian therapist, ones shadow represents “that part of us that we fail to see or know”(Johnson 415). The qualities that individuals decide to remove from their overall characteristics are not exactly removed; they are shoved into the shadow. In the novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Hyde and Other Tales of Terror by Robert Louis Stevenson, the main protagonist named Dr. Jekyll finds a way to hide his overwhelmed shadow from his society. As a wealthy being, Jekyll likes to portray himself as a well being, mannered individual with absolute seriousness in his approach. Anything beyond his perfect vision of himself is prohibited from view. However, as his hidden characteristics take a hold on him, he discovers a way to separate his persona from his
shadow. Jekyll, with the help of a serum, transforms into another character, named Hyde. Jekyll finds that it is rather difficult to control this process as his transformations start to have a mind of its own, and as Hyde, his other half, becomes more powerful. The unknown character in the poems and Jekyll both have a similar dilemma with their inner beings as they try to hide their true selfs from others around, until it is too late. In the previous three poems, I organized the themes in a manner in which showed a link between Johnsons idea of the shadow and Stevensons idea of the uncontrollable and unmanageable monster.
The unknown character in the poem finds himself trapped as he hides his malice emotions inside as Hyde tried to do. As the narrator hides his self proclaimed burden states, “I hide away this uncontrolled being from anyone to see but It grows beyond my utter belief”. The narrator finds himself acknowledging his being as it transforms into something far from his regular persona, yet he fails to reveal himself to anyone he comes across with. Like Dr. Jekyll, the narrator notices his well being fall into pieces but comes to his decision into keeping it to himself. Both characters, because of this decision come to drastic measures to continue to keep their transformed beings a secret. Another instance in which the narrator proves to hide his trapped self from others is when he states, “I hide away pain from rejection, hate, and loss”. Both characters find themselves trying to remain as civil as possible in order to satisfy their persona as well as what society finds as normal. Without coming to their true identity, both characters fall into a hole and devour their intuitions for topics less important in the eyes of others.
In the second poem, there are instants where Johnsons and Stevensons ideas are shown as the