Metaamorphosing Mr Hyde Analysis

Metamorphosed: Tracing Mr. Hyde in Jame Gumb and Francis Dolarhyde. Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 “shilling shocker”, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has been subjected to various interpretations over the years. While some have assessed the trope of duality in the light of racism, colonization and cultural ‘other’, others have drawn on psychological references of split personality or ‘dissociative identity disorder’(i.e. existence of more than one personality in one body). The popularity of the novella and the idea of binaries existing in one being, has given birth to the phrase ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ which associates itself to a person whose attitude is vastly different from situation to situation. The respectable Dr. Jekyll, in his

Henry Jekyll underwent a physical and mental metamorphosis when he swallowed the potion he had concocted in his laboratory, thereby affirming the Lombrosian notion that criminality is not merely a state of mind but is also manifest in the physical body. The physical changes that occur in Dr. Jekyll clearly gets infused with racial overtones which bring to light the colonizer-colonized aspect of the novel. Dr. Jekyll in his confession letter to his lawyer and friend Mr. Utterson, states that he was aware of the fact that these changes projected his repressed desire which is why the “ugly idol” of Mr. Hyde’s reflection generated a “leap of welcome” in him. It is this awareness that hastens his doom as he is incapable of balancing between his radically different selves. It is in this light that I would like to mention the characters from Hannibal Series-JameGumb (also nicknamed ‘Buffalo Bill’) from The Silence of the Lambs and Francis Dolarhyde or Mr. D (nicknamed, ‘Tooth Fairy’) from Red Dragon. In Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the psychiatrist and the cannibalistic psychic serial killer merge sophisticatedly. However, in the context of the above mentioned films, we turn to look at the antagonists- JameGumb and Francis Dolarhyde, respectively. Though both are psychopathic killers, Jame is quite different from Hannibal. Jame’s personal history and behaviour correspond well to Griffin’s description of the pornographic mind created by a culture which fears and denies the body. Gumb’s