Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Repressing Our True Desires

Introduction

The phrase Jekyll and Hyde is used to describe a person who has two separate personalities, one good and the other evil. The expression derives from the name of the main character in the novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published 1886, by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). One of the most distinct examples of an individual with a split, or double, personality is embodied in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The duality of an individual personality can be examined in a variety of ways, good versus evil, moral versus immoral, or the conscious self versus the unconscious desires. Stevenson, before Sigmund Freud or Gordon Allport, examined what it meant to have two competing identities. The character of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reflects the division of personality that can plague an individual. In this case, Dr. Jekyll desperately tried to maintain self-control and resilience in order to keep the appearance of a well-respected and privileged doctor within his society. Mr. Hyde, on the other hand, was not concerned with his reputation; he was eager to act out his inner desires, vile cravings, and repressed urges. This paper first briefly discusses the concept of needs, wants and desires, in a holistic context and in the later part the paper discusses how the characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde repress our true desires.

Discussion

The concept of needs, wants and desires:

A need is defined as a circumstance in which something is necessary, a thing that is wanted or required. Want refers to scarcity, the state of being absent, or a desire for something necessary to life. Desire refers to the experience of a lack. Needs therefore are objective, compelling, existential, universal, and, most importantly, essential. This definition allowed both social thought and common sense to transform the concept of need into a powerful political tool since it anchors social claims in the context of necessity and, often, also of nature. Wants, on the other hand, are defined as subjective or as self-centered aims, desires, or pleasures. The concept of desire is one of the best with which to begin an inquiry into the complexity of conceptualizing human behavior. The persistence and the evolution of treatises regarding what desire refers to is enlightening for consumption research and provides a good example of how and why conceptual rigor matters for the field. Indeed, the way that anyone, including academic researchers, understand and interpret desires reflects, at least in part, the desires of that person—for example, whether that relates to viewing desires as a shallow reflection of capitalist-driven consumer cultures or as the freedom of individuals to express themselves through their consumption (Buss, Pp. 13-44).

Consumption related to desire was still confined to the higher order of society. Nevertheless, the changes were significant. Courts during the Renaissance in Italy turned the court into a sort of competitive parade scene using luxury as a means of government (Braudel, ...