Sunday, October 29, 2017

Dr. Jekyll and His Conscience


The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

By Robert Louis Stevenson

"In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are."

Thursday, October 26, 2017

The Role of Conscience in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"


"Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!"

Possibly the most obvious and most stated of all themes presented in this tale is one of guilt. The guilty conscience of the narrator is typically viewed as the central, overarching theme of the entire story. It presents a very unique set of questions about the duality of the narrator's character, and perhaps Poe's point is that fine line that exists between the good and evil in all of us. This being, if the narrator is the insane, horrible, psychopath that we think he is, does the sane part of his being show through in his guilt? Is this a redeeming quality, or is this just the act of a raving lunatic, thinking he can hear the heart of a dead man through the floorboards?

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Dorian Gray and His Conscience



"It had brought melancholy across his passions. Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it."

- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ch. 20