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Gothic fiction features some perfect examples of split personalities and doubles, but what is their significance in the genre?
Dichotomy of lust and virtue
Dorian Gray is a man living a criminal and immoral existence indulging in London drug dens and orgies whilst also attempting to be perceived as a model of society. The two parts of his personality are in conflict with one another. Desire versus moral standing. In Victorian society there was a belief that immoral criminal acts were only performed by the low classes and thus Dorian inhabits and closes the divide between the upper and lower classes.
Picture of Dorian Gray exhibits a subtle example of the conflict between righteous living and repressed desires. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is the more obvious choice of text. Mr Hyde is seen trampling a young girl to death which he then holds his alter ego, Mr Jekyll, responsible. Hyde was an interesting choice of names for the villain who hides within the respectable gentleman Jekyll.
Such works could be said to demonstrate need of an outlet for sexual behaviour in a hypocritical 19th Century society that considered itself pure.
Gothic texts also encompass shape shifting human/ beast transformations to represent the savage desires within us. Human by day, beast by night!
