Metamorphosis

Author's Note: This response to Jekyll and Hyde is a short story and was inspired by Jekyll's transformations into Hyde and also a question that I had throughout the story: if there is this evil within Jekyll, how did it get there? Obviously, we aren't born evil, but somehow we end up with all of these evil people in the world. This response is basically addressing how we obtain these bad sides of ourselves and what the transformation can do to us.

Life begins so peacefully. With their miniature hands and feet, and skin that has never seen the harsh rays of the sun, it is clear that babies are born pure, innocent, and untainted--blissfully unaware of the trials and hardships to come. Young children are like sponges; they soak up anything and everything that they can. They are not taught to lie, and they are not taught to hit other children, yet somehow when I was a toddler I would lie to my parents about whether or not I broke something, and I when was frustrated with another kid I would give them a shove--sure, these things do not really seem like big issues, but they are the beginning of a transformation, a metamorphosis if you will.

As I grew up, I always had a tendency to rebel. I shoplifted once or twice, and I had locked my younger sister in the basement overnight when we were younger, but I had no remorse for these things--in fact, I liked them. I felt a rush everytime I did something like it, I could feel the darkness wash over my body with every bad action. But now, now I can't bear it. It envelopes me, it follows me, and it haunts me every day so much that I can't help but scream. My shrieks pierce the brisk night air and send ripples through the lake that I stand in front of. The cries are soon muffled by the water, the water that I have now submerged myself in. I feel my lungs gasping for air, but I don't allow myself to reach the surface. I can feel life draining from my body as my sight goes black. I am free, and I am finally peaceful again.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Author's Note: This poem was inspired by the quote below from Jekyll and Hyde. It is about how man's curiosity is so powerful and that the search for truth can be dangerous and may not always be what we expect or hope for.

"Has the greed of curiosity too much command of you?"
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Enslaved by curiosity
Enveloped by questions
Hungering for answers

Mind filled with inquiries
Constantly a reminder
Of the pain that surrounds them

Pushing, pushing, pressing on
Driving forward for knowledge
Driving forward for truth

Answers found
Honest and odious
Painfully cutting deep within\

Desperately aching to take them back
To erase them, to wash them away
Leaving them undiscovered and unknown

We all have curiosities
That we long to be answered..



But sometimes the truth is better left unsaid

JH 2: Faces

Faces--all different, strange and intruiging--are like windows. Peering into them, a person's true nature is revealed--their personality, their fears, their past struggles. Facial features can expose the evil just below the surface, or the hapiness and light that radiates from within. Perhaps that is why our faces and our outer appearances are judged so harshly; people can see what we try so desperately to hide, the good and the bad.

In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, faces are an endlessly used motif. The face of Hyde is shockingly revealing, described as beastly and malformed, giving off a sense of evil and terror that most who observe it cannot explain. Hyde savagely murders a man in a fit of rage, unknowingly leaving behind a witness. The girl, a maid, describes her experience and the prelude to the murder as, "...the moon was shining on his face, as he spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindess of disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded self-content" (46). The face of the old man opposes that of Hyde's so strongly, that it is no surprise that Hyde chose him as the victim of his own fury. Hyde, like the maid, could clearly see the goodness that Carew's features exuded, so his evil rose up from the depths to destroy it. There is nothing more apparent to the outside world than the personality that is emitted from our expression, the expression that evidently determines who we are.

The Evil Within

Author's Note: This is a response to the first three chapters of Jekyll and Hyde about how everyone has an evil side within themselves, and about the struggle that happens when people want to explore that darker side. The poem was inspired by the quote from chapter three, "I have a very great interest in poor Hyde. I know you have seen him; he told me so; and I fear he was rude. But I do sincerely take a great, a very great interest in that young man."

Constantly struggling, continually resisting
The wicked, dark part of my soul
Trying to escape so relentlessly

My thoughts wander
Wander to that darker side
And for a moment it is free
Free to rome, free to conquer

Conquering my mind
Subduing my thoughts
Opposites under attack

Like an inevitable battle
Good against bad
Light against dark
Fighting so desperately

Tired of the endless combat
Broken, shattered into pieces
Good giving in, giving over

Overpowered by wickedness
Letting myself turn to the shadows
Evil triumphantly reigns
No way of ever going back

Short Story

Author's Note: This story isn't really about any real events or any personal experiences, I just came up with an idea and this is the result

Nestled deep within the secluded forests of northern Minnesota, far from any industrialized area, laid an old home. The house was nothing special—it was a ranch-style home with a large, covered front porch that shaded its inhabitants from the sun, and an enormous stone chimney that had smoke constantly billowing from its top. The wooden floors creaked, the doors squeaked, and the sound of the wind whipping against the house could often be heard through the thin walls. Haley Davis had lived in the house her entire life along with her father and her three older brothers. It held endless unpleasant memories--the day she fell down the basement stairs and broke several bones, the day her mother died, and the days that her father would get upset about her mother’s death and take it out on her. The remembrance of those distressing moments caused her to harbor hatred towards the house.

Her father was always a topic of conversation between Haley and anyone who had met the man. Those who came to visit the house would always question her about the bruises that often appeared on her body. They would ask about her father and how he had been coping since her mother’s death. She did not know what the two topics had in common, but she would smile and say that her father was fine and her injuries were due to her constant explorations of the woods surrounding their home--Haley, having always lived a sheltered life, had never had many friends; others always saw her as closed off and distant, so she spent most of her time occupied outdoors. She noticed that her answers never seemed to satisfy visitors, like they did not believe her responses, but Haley loved her father despite his temper. After all, he was the one who had taught her how to navigate the woods. In the years before her mother died, he would take her out into the vast greenery and enlighten her on how one finds their way within the mass of trees and plants. It became the memory that she held onto when he lost his composure, the oasis where she would hide away until his calm returned.

One day, a day that seemed no different from any other, she heard it: noises coming from her father’s room--banging, stomping, and clashing--noises she dreaded to hear. Before she knew what was happening, she felt her feet hitting the ground, one after the other; she was running. Vacant as her head was of thoughts, she was anxiously attentive, and she noted the abundance of trees, the absence and rarity of sunlight, and soon it became unmistakably clear where her feet had taken her. She found herself in the middle of the forest with a gently trickling stream just before her next step. Looking at the water from the bank of the stream, she saw every single undulation, the motion and the splendor of each swell--saw the very creatures within them, the fish, the graciously-growing tadpoles, the water spiders extending their legs back and forth. Haley glanced up from the body of water, through the small opening within the treetops, and there it was: the sun, shining and glowing and promising hope with every flickering ray. It brought a feeling of reassurance to her mind as she continued on past the stream, carrying with her the image of the bright orb not often seen within the endless mass of greenery.

She was tired--tired of walking, tired of hiding and tired of running. The trees around her no longer seemed familiar, and she knew she was lost. Her father had never taken her this far into the woods and she had no indication of where to go next. The sun was setting; hazy shades of purple, pink, orange and yellow melted together into an exquisite spectacle. It looks like a watercolor painting, she thought, each stroke of color purposefully placed to create a work of art.

Suddenly snapping out of her daze, she realized that the sunlight was fading fast. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to find her way home before dark; she decided to continue onward through the path—one of the neighbors’ homes had to be close by.

Finally, after what had seemed like the longest walk of her life, she saw it—a clearing in the trees, a glimpse of sunlight, and a glimmer of hope. A house lay directly in her view. A sense of pride washed over her entire body as she made her way through the clearing to the small abode. She noticed that it had hardly any windows and the ones that it did have were only about a foot wide and half of a foot tall, but it appeared abandoned, so she ventured onward anyhow. Haley opened the front door that towered over her petite frame and made her way inside. The door slammed behind her as she tiptoed onto the wooden floors. Looking around, she didn’t see much—it was even smaller inside than it seemed on the outside. Her fatigue had finally set in so she settled her achy body onto a rug in the middle of the floor and before she knew it, she had dozed off into a more serene slumber than she’d ever known possible.

It was morning—she could make out the sunlight peeking through the small windows, dancing upon her eyelids, as if it was meant to wake her. Her body throbbed with pain, her muscles so sore that she could barely move them. She pulled herself off of the barren floor and trudged her legs—legs that felt like weights tying her body down—towards the door to make her way home. Her hand rested upon the dull doorknob and she began to turn it. After a few moments of turning the knob back and forth, she realized that the door was locked from the outside. Paralyzed with fear, her heart began to beat madly, her breaths became short and choppy, and her thoughts ran wild. She couldn’t open the door, and she couldn’t climb through the windows because they were too small for her body to fit through. The cold, hard truth of what was happening had finally set in: she was trapped—trapped within the one place that had always been her secure sanctuary, and she wasn’t sure that she would ever find a way out.