Stevenson’s Aesthetics of Entanglement and Non-Disjunction in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Bratislav Milošević

Abstract


The paper engages with Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from the perspective of essential duality embedded in every one’s nature: it explicates the entangling nature of binaries and the aesthetics of non-disjunction of the binary self/Other as embodied in the figures of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde respectively. By the novel’s end, the two aspects, the Jekyllean and the Hydean, are perceived not only as “innately responsive and relational”[1](Schapiro 1995: 128) to each other but also as entangled and non-disjunctive within the synthesizing model of the Hegelian dialectic.

[1] In her book Literature and the Relational Self Barbara Ann Schapiro argues that individual human beings are fundamentally “responsive and relational” (Schapiro 1995: 128). Accommodating her insightful argument on the interpersonal level, I argue that it can likewise be applied on the intrapersonal level – the two opposing aspects of every one’s nature are not only responsive but also relational. Put differently, the Jekyllean aspect and the Hydean aspect are mutually ‘responsive and relational’ in a complex, entangling, and intertwining way.


Keywords


self; binaries; entanglement; non-disjunction; duality; bothness

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2016.40.1.36
Date of publication: 2016-07-27 14:57:57
Date of submission: 2016-03-05 18:22:33


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