THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

1.2 Fantastic Psychoanalysis and the Doppelganger The Avatar in Panamatwins, found in other fiction: “Hyde was so much smaller, slighter, andyounger than Henry Jekyll. Even as good shone upon the countenanceof the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other”(44). Hyde’s hirsute, dwarfish, apelike stature reinforced the basicinstinct in all humans, a man-to-beast transformation, a universaltheme, drug addiction and the fear of the double. 47Stevenson’s personal experience of mood altering substancesassisted him doubly; providing the transformation symbolism of thestory by the use of what would become a classic representation of thedouble, and giving a ring of realism to the symptoms described duringthe metamorphosis. The objective in this instance was to fulfil the urgesof “the animal within”. 48 The circumstances under which Jekyll suffersthe transmutation reveal, to a degree, the post-Darwinianconsciousness of man’s bestiality; and the lengths to which Jekyll goesin order to continue his double life highlight the importance of hismaintaining a reputable position in society.Jekyll’s first impression of the evil side of his nature isnarcissistically an uncanny one. He encounters his alter-ego with eeriefamiliarity and is far from repelled by his transformed image in themirror: “And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I wasconscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, wasmyself. It seemed natural and human” (44). Jekyll’s initial reaction isshort-lived and the incoherency that pervades his persona grows moreunwelcome. Particular images portraying the increasing malevolence ofthe second identity are found throughout the novella. Classically, lightand darkness symbolise good and evil, the overt and covert, and theimage of the monstrous is heightened by mention of the concealingmask, a symbol of identity: The dual protagonist “had a mask on hisface”, and is referred to as “the masked figure, that masked thing” (30-31). 49 In his confession, Jekyll discloses: “The pleasures which I madehaste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would47McNally and Florescu 132.48 Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), who had been plagued by illness in the formof a pulmonary condition since childhood, took the popular laudanum and understoodsomewhat the psychotropic effects of drugs. His condition forced him to move to moretemperate climes, namely Samoa, where he died of a brain haemorrhage in a scenereminiscent of his famous novella: “He was helping his wife on the verandah, and gailytalking, when suddenly he put both hands to his head and cried out ‘What’s that?’Then he asked quickly. ‘Do I look strange?’ Even as he did so he fell on his kneesbeside her [his wife].” He was dead within hours (270).49 “Todas las transformaciones tienen algo de profundamente misterioso y devergonzoso a la vez, puesto que lo equivoco y ambiguo se produce en el momento enque algo se modifica lo bastante para ser ya «otra cosa», pero aún siendo lo que era.Por ello, las metamorfosis tienen que ocultarse, de ahí la máscara”. Juan-EduardoCirlot, Diccionario de Símbolos. Décima edición (Barcelona: Labor, S.A., 1994) 299.49