The_Shadow

The Shadow The Awakening of the Unconscious The shadow, a psychological concept introduced by Carl Jung, is seen throughout the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by, Robert Louis Stevenson. It exemplifies everything in us that is unconscious and is the repressed impulses that are generally unacceptable to society. Dr. Jekyll’s inability to occasionally indulge in his iniquities led his own shadow to creep up on him and take control. The shadow can be explained that “all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil” (39). Upon becoming Mr. Hyde “even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides…had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay” (39). As “the shadow” further descended upon Jekyll he found that taking the elixir was no longer necessary at times in order to transform into Hyde, once more illustrating the ill effects of the repressed feelings. Although Jekyll is able to control Hyde’s outbursts he gives in after only 2 months, he declares, “I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and hyde, shadow, jekyll, evil, jekyll’s, hyde’s, upon, unconscious, once, mr, life, good, dr, control, began, yet, wicked, while, unacceptable, take, sleep, repressed, psychological, out, one, occasionally, nature, longer, impulses, ill, himself, exemplifies, everything