Metamorfosi proteiforme La metamorfosi nelle arti e nelle scienze

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Utterson has heard bad things of Hyde and disliked him at first sight. The lawyer thinks his friend is being blackmailed. One day, the lawyer is asked to identify the body of a murdered man, Sir Danvers Carew, one of Utterson's clients. Hyde is suspected of the murder, but he has disappeared. Jekyll swears that he has not seen Hyde and has broken with him forever. The case remains unsolved and Jekyll becomes more sociable than he had been. Suddenly, though, he locks himself into his laboratory, yelling to the servants through the door, directing them to gather chemicals for him. The servants recognize a change in his voice and think that their master has been murdered; another man has taken his place in the lab. They call Utterson who breaks down the door. On the floor lies Hyde, who has killed himself with poison. Sadly, Utterson assumes Hyde returned and killed Jekyll, but the doctor's body is nowhere to be found. He does find, however, a letter in which Jekyll explains his relationship with Hyde. Jekyll had sometimes indulged in debauches which, if discovered, could have ruined his reputation and of which he is ashamed. Pondering this split in his personality, he decides to find a way to separate his two beings. Jekyll creates a potion that releases his evil side, Mr. Hyde. Hyde is shorter and smaller than Jekyll, having not had as much “exercise”. For a while Jekyll enjoys his two bodies; he can do whatever he likes without fear of discovery. His pleasure is stunted when Hyde kills Carew, and he resolves never to take the potion again. Hyde is now strong, however, and emerges whether Jekyll will have him or not. Indeed, Jekyll must use the potion to be rid of him if only for a moment. Jekyll knows that it is only by killing his body that Hyde's body, too, will die. pp. 138-148 I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved day-dream, on the thought of the separation of these elements.[...] I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change. But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound, at last overcame the suggestions of alarm. I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a p<strong>arti</strong>cular salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.[...] The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill-race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature. [...] The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prison-house of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse. 1.6.2 The double nature of the setting The setting in place of the novel seems to be halfway between England and Scotland, London and Edinburgh. Both capitals had a “double” nature and reflected the hypocrisy of Victorian society: London had the respectable West End and the appalling poverty of the East End slums; Edinburgh had the New Town with its wide squares, and the Old Town where crime was a pressing problem. 11
This ambivalence is reinforced by the symbolism of Jekyll’s house whose two façades are symbolically the faces of the two opposed sides of the same man: the front of this house, used by the Doctor, is fair; while the back side, used by Hyde, is part of a sinister block of buildings. Most scenes of the novel take place at night: there is no natural daylight, but only the <strong>arti</strong>ficial lighting of Jekyll’s house and of the nightmarish street lamps. The most important events are wrapped up in darkness and fog: when Hyde tramples over the child it is three in the morning; the murder of a respectable Member of Parliament, Sir Danvers Carew, happens at night; as well as Jekyll/Hyde’s suicide. 1.6.3 Good and evil This novel is the portrayal of “good” and “evil” and its characters, Jekyll and Hyde, are the stereotypes of people who are “good” and “evil”. As Jekyll has lived a virtuous life, his face is handsome, his hands white and well-shaped, his body larger and more harmoniously proportioned that Hyde’, since Edward Hyde is pure hate and evil, he is pale and dwarfish, his hands are dark and hairy, he gives an impression of deformity, and the good Mr Utterson reads “Satan’s signature” in his traits. On several occasion Hyde is made to appear dressed in Jekyll’s fine clothes, which are too large for him; this fact points out how much smaller and uglier Hyde is than his alter ego. Though the evil side of Jekyll’s nature is initially less developed, Hyde gradually spoils his good twin. The smaller, slighter Hyde begins to grow in stature and the original balance of good and evil in Jekyll’s nature is threatened with being permanently overthrown. 12
Page 1 and 2: Francesco Faranna VB Metamorfosi pr
Page 3 and 4: Introduzione Perché “Metamorfosi
Page 5 and 6: sia involontaria: Atteone vede acci
Page 7 and 8: Anche Gabriele D’ Annunzio si sof
Page 9 and 10: parole e sangue; ond’io lasciai l
Page 11: Della Metamorfosi si parla, infine,
Page 15 and 16: Un carattere fondamentale delle ope
Page 17 and 18: 3. LA METAMORFOSI IN AMBITO SCIENTI
Page 19 and 20: Dalla legge di Faraday-Neumann , si
Page 21 and 22: Le cause del metamorfismo sono semp
Page 23 and 24: Grado di metamorfismo(20) Molti min
Page 25 and 26: Conclusione La metamorfosi si è du
Page 27 and 28: dal genio poetico e dall’esperien

Metamorfosi proteiforme La metamorfosi nelle arti e nelle scienze

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