Chels

An iconic horror trope, and one that I personally love, is the alter ego. It encompasses everything from the evil twin, to the sleepwalker or even the werewolf. My first ever introduction to the trope was in Scooby-doo and the Ghoul School, and the Evil Mirror Monster (that’s it’s official name – I checked) that takes Shaggy’s place still scares me a little as an adult.

I’m not very good with horror – Scooby-Doo is scary enough for me – but I have always been really fascinated by horror films and horror tropes. During my film degree, I remember learning about the reciprocal relationship horror media has with our cultural concerns. Horror films go through cycles of popularity, that’s why there’s often a few years of films that feel very similar – we’ve had really popular slasher cycles, as well as nuclear monsters, apocalypse settings, and zombies. These cycles reflect the cultural concerns of the time – Godzilla represents the anxieties around nuclear warfare that were especially felt in Japan in the mid-20th century, for example.

The alter-ego trope acts as a manifestation of our fear of the unconscious mind. The fear that we could be responsible for something and have no awareness of it, or that we are unknowingly causing harm to ourselves or others. In its various forms, it tackles specific anxieties: the typical alter-ego; two personalities in one body, reflects our personal anxieties, whereas the evil twin or clone explores social responses – the inability to prove one’s own innocence, and the lack of control over a separate individual who acts as oneself. It’s very interesting to think about just why the idea of an alter-ego can be so alarming to us. Is it because it could be anyone? Because it could be us? 

This, of course, is where the reciprocal relationship comes into play. While these tropes develop from existing anxieties – that of selfhood, and the duality of man, they can often incite further social anxieties. Fears that were once an abstract concept, and especially in the case of early horror, were potentially only discussed in philosophical circles, suddenly became accessible to mass audiences. They’re no longer abstract, either. What was once a conceptual anxiety about the duality of man is now a material fear that a doppelgänger could exist to ruin one’s life, or that one might cause destruction while sleepwalking or otherwise unaware.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a story of two halves. The first portion of the narrative, told largely through Mr Utterson’s perspective, deals with the alter-ego as a mysterious entity. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are presumed to be two separate people, one of whom is mysterious and violent, and the other normal, but behaving unusually. As the novella unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that the two men are somehow connected. Mr Utterson begins to suspect that Hyde is threatening Dr Jekyll’s life, and it is only at the final chapter of this first narrative, told in a letter by Mr Lanyon, that Hyde is actually seen transforming back into Dr Jekyll. The horror in the novella is in the mystery, the unknown figure who cannot be traced, who appears to be a threat to a friend of the narrator, and the inability to solve the case or stop the violence.

The second half of the narrative is told from Dr Henry Jekyll’s point of view, and solves the mystery and answers questions from the first half of the novella. Dr Jekyll created a potion to isolate the good and evil in himself, due to his concern with the duality of man. In this, we see another very common theme in 19th century horror – the increasing power of science. We made great leaps in the development of science and medicine throughout the 19th century, and while it was ultimately for good – curing diseases, improving transport and lifestyles – it was also a frightening concept (much like our reservations about AI in the last few years – while the developments are certainly scientifically exciting, there’s also a fear that experiments and improvements will get out of hand, and become unmanageable). The inclusion of a scientific experiment gone awry signals this societal anxiety, and given the nature of Jekyll’s experiment, it also indicates anxieties around morality in an increasingly secular Britain, especially as science began to overtake Christian teachings as a primary belief system for many.

Jekyll’s own experience of the development reflects the more personal fear of a loss of control. At first, his experiments are exciting – it’s a scientific discovery that will potentially bring him notoriety and wealth. However, his hubris leads him to push his experiment too far – sometimes taking double or triple the doses of his potion in order to transform into Mr Hyde. The turning point for Jekyll was not the violence of Hyde, but the loss of control when he woke up expecting to be himself, Jekyll, again, but had become Hyde. Eventually, he began waking as Hyde more frequently, and required his potion to revert back to his original self.

Outside of the theme of science going awry, this sequence could be interpreted as Jekyll becoming the evil self as he manipulates science beyond what is necessary – it’s not a side effect of the potion that causes Hyde to appear more often, but a result of his willingness to sacrifice the lives of others in order to be Mr Hyde – the goodness in him is lost through his apathy.

The way that horror can encapsulate societal and personal fears will always be fascinating to me. Unfortunately, I can’t engage with a lot of horror. Even a modern horror novel can have me on edge for weeks. Luckily, early horror novels, and their early film adaptations, aren’t quite as terrifying to me. I used to think it was just because special effects weren’t as good, and perhaps the same logic worked for novels – writing techniques have evolved, and maybe early horror writing was just naturally less scary. Now, though, I definitely think the concept of cultural anxieties has a lot of impact – I’m not as frightened by the concepts that scared Victorian or 1930s audiences, because they’re not as prevalent in modern life. Contemporary horror taps into contemporary anxieties, so of course it would have a greater effect on my experience.