Dualities & Multitudes Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

English 10 Honors Unit 2

Dualities and Multitudes Table of Contents

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Poem: Cross by Langston Hughes

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“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

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“Of Our Spiritual Strivings” from The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. DuBois -> for digital readings on Identity, Dualities, and Multitudes, visit the class website

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Podcast: Radiolab, “The Story of Me”

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Creative Writing: Soul Collage

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Introduction to The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Questions and Notes on Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Close Reading of Dualistic Language in Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Vocabulary: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Seminar: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Article: “Monsters and the Moral Imagination” by Stephen T. Asma

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Psychology: Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

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Cross Langston Hughes My old man’s a white old man And my old mother’s black. If I ever cursed my white old man I take my curses back. If I ever cursed my black old mother And wished she were in hell, I’m sorry for that evil wish And now I wish her well My old man died in a fine big house. My ma died in a shack. I wonder where I’m going to die, Being neither white nor black?

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selected verses from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (1892)

1 I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.

2 Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes, I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it, The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it, I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked, I am mad for it to be in contact with me. The smoke of my own breath, Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine, My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs, The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn, The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind, A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag, The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides, The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun. Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,) You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

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3 I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. Urge and urge and urge, Always the procreant urge of the world. Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex, Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life. To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so. Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery here we stand. Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul. Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age, Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself. Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest. I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing; As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread, Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with their plenty, Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes, That they turn from gazing after and down the road, And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent, Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?

4 Trippers and askers surround me, People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation, The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new, My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues, The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations, Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events; These come to me days and nights and go from me again, But they are not the Me myself.

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Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait. 5 I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other. Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat, Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best, Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice. I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, [. . .] Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love, And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed. 6 A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps, And here you are the mothers’ laps. This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,

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Darker than the colorless beards of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps. What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas’d the moment life appear’d. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

7 Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself, (They do not know how immortal, but I know.) Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female, For me those that have been boys and that love women, For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted, For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the mothers of mothers, For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears, For me children and the begetters of children. Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded, I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no, And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.

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50 There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me. Wrench’d and sweaty—calm and cool then my body becomes, I sleep—I sleep long. I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid, It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters. Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is Happiness. 51 The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them, And proceed to fill my next fold of the future. Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.) Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab. Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper? Who wishes to walk with me? Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late? 52 The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

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The Afterthought 189

XIV. The Sorrow Songs 177

XIII. Of the Coming of John 162

XII. Of Alexander Crummell 153

147

XI. Of the Passingof the First-Born

X. Of the Faith of the Fathers I34

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'From "The Crynngof Water" (1903),by Arthur Symons. tFrom "Nobody Knowsthe Trouble I',re Seen." I Site of a Civil War battle, fought in |une 1862,outsideRichmond,Virginia

BnrwnnN MEANDTHEother world there is ever an unaskedques_ tion: uraske{ through feelings of delicacy;by ot}rers !y --" of rightly framing it. AIl, nevertheless, through the difficulty flutter round it. They approachme in a half-hesitantsort of way,eye me curiously-orcompassionately, and then, insteadof sayingjirectly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say,I lrnow "i ""cellentcoloredman in my town; or, I foughtaiMechanicsville;t or, Do not these Southern outragesmake your blood boil? At these I

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Unrestingwater, there shall neoer be rest TilI the last moon droop and the last tid"efail, And thc flre of the end begin to bunr in the raest; And the heart shall be weary and uonder and cry like the sea, AII life long crying tpithout aoail, As the water aII night longis cryingto me. Arthur S)rmons.o

As I lie ond listen, and cannot undnrstand The ooiceof my heart in my sid.eor the ooiceof the sea, O oater, cryi,ngfor rest, is it I, is it I? All night long the utater is crying to me.

O water,ooiceofrny heart,crying in the sand, AII nightlongcrying u.titha moum.fulcry,

Of Our Spiritual

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'River in Great Barrington ,Massachu setts, Du Bois'sbirthplace . rReferenc eto the Bible, Exodus2:22. Mosesstates,"I havebeen a stranqerin a strangeland" (KlV).

smile,or am intereste d,or reducethe boiling to a simmer,as the occasionmay require.To the real question ,How doesit feel to be a problem ?I answerseldoma word. And yet, being a problem is a strangeexperien ce,-pecu liar even for one who has never been anythingelse,saveperhapsin babyhoo dand in Europe. It is in the early daysof rollichng boyhood that t}re revelation {irst bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I rememb erwell when the shadowswept acrossme. I was a httle thing, awayup in the hills of New England, where the dark Housato nicowinds betweenHoosacand Taghkan icto the sea.In a wee wooden schoolho use,somethin gput it into the boys' and girls' headsto buy gorgeousvisiting-cards-ten cents a packageand exchange.The exchangewas merry till one girl, a tall newcomer,refusedmy card,-ref used it perempt orily,with a glance. Then it dawnedupon me with a certain suddennessthat I wasdifFerentfrom the others;or like, in he-aLan dlife and longing, but shut out from t}rei -ayhap, lfl I had thereafte r no desireto tear down that ygtl, to creep through; I held all beyqnd it in commoncont e skv and great wandering shadows.That s\ was bluest when I could beat my mates at examinati,ontime, or beat them at a footrace, or even beat their stringy heads.Alas, with the yearsall this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportun ities,were theirs, not mine. But they shouldnot keep theseprizes,I said;some,all, I would wrest from them. Justhow I would do it I could neverdecide:by readinglaw, by healingthe sick,by telling the wonderfu l talesthat swamin my head,-some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tastelesssJge@nq, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mochng distrust of everythingwhite; or wasted itself in a bitter cry Why did God makeme an outcastand a strangerin mine own house?tT he shadesof the prison-h ouseclosedround about us all: walls strait and stubbornto the whitest,but relentles slynarrow tall, and unscalableto sonsof night who must plod darkly on in resignat ion,

W. E, B. Du Bois

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both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closedroughlyin his [ace. This, then, is the end of his striving:to be a co-worke rin the hngdom of culture,to escapeboth deatli and isolationto , husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.Thesepowersof body and mind havein the pastbeen strangel ywasted,disperse d, or forgotten.The shadowof a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the Shadowyand of Egrpt the Sphinx.Throughout history the powers of single black men flash here and there like fdling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gaugedtheir brightne ss.Here in America ,in the few dayssince Emancip ation,the black man'sturning hither and thither in hesitant and doubtful striving has often made his very strengthto lose effectiveness,to seem like absenceof power, like weakness.And not *g k""r:.-f yrt . Th" it=it double-a imedstruggleof the blackartisan-- -onthe onehand to escape white contemp t for a nation of mere hewersof wood and

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ize America.for Americahastoo much toEE-1f,;:mand

tapeof a world that lookson in amusedcontempt and pity. One ever feelshis @-ness,-an American,a Negro; two souls,two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings;two warring ideals in one dark body, whosedoggedstrengthalonekeepsit from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,-th is longing to attain self-cons ciousmanhood ,to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishesneither wishes neitherof the the older older selves selvesto be be lost. lost. fle He would would not African: \ not African:

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or beat unavailin g palms against the stone, or steadily, half hope-

lesslv.watch the streak of blue above. After the Egrptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman,the Teuton and Mongolian,the Negro is a sort of seventhson,born with a veil, and eifted with second-sighCin thiq:\rnericanworld,-a world

Of Our Spiritual Striloings

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'From "Shout O Children.

"Shout, O children! Shout,you'refree! For Cod has boughtyanr liberty!""

drawersof water,and on the other hand to plough and nail and dig for a poverty-strickenhorde--could only result in mahng him a poor craftsman,for he had but half a heart in either cause.By the poverty and ignoranceof his people, the Negro minister or doctor wastempted toward quackeryand demagogl; and by the criticism of the otler world, toward ideals that made him ashamedof his lowly tasks.The would-be black saoant wasconfronted by the paradoxthat the knowledgehis people neededwasa twice-told tale to his white neighbors,while the knowledge which would teach the white world was Greek to his own flesh and blood. The innate love of harmony and beauty that set tlre ruder souls of his people adancingand a-singingraisedbut confusionand doubt in the soul of the black arbist;for the beauty revealedto him was the soul-beauty of a racewhich his larger audiencedespised,and he could not arof anotler people.This wasteof doubleaims, ticulatethe message to this seehng satisft two unreconciledideals,has wrought sad havocwith the courageand faith and deedsof ten thousandthousandpeople,-has sent them often wooing falsegodsand invohng false meansof salvation,and at times has even seemedabout to makethem ashamedof themselves. Awayback in the daysof bondagethey thought to seein one divine eventthe end of all doubt and disappointment;few men ever worshippedFreedom with half such unquestioningfaith as did the American Negro for two centuries. To him, so far as he thoughtand dreamed,slaverywasindeed the sum of all villainies, the causeof all sorrow,the root of all prejudice;Emancipationwas the key to a promisedland of sweeterbeautythan ever stretched before the eyes of wearied lsraelites. In song and exhortation swelledone refrain-Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand. At last it came,-suddenly, fearfully,like a dream. With one wild carnival of blood and passioncamethe messagein his own plaintivesxdsngs5;-

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oFrom act 3, scene 4 of Macbeth., by William Shakespeare. lwhite-supre,nacist terrorist organization founded in I 866. lDerogatory term for opportunistic northerners who came to the South following the Civil War; refers to tJre type of luggage they carried.

The Nation has not yet found peacefrom its sins;the freedman hasnot yet found in freedom his promised land. Whatever of good may have come in theseyearsof change,the shadowof a deep disappointmentrestsupon the Negro people,-a disappointmentall the more bitter becausethe unattainedidealwasunboundedsave by the simpleignoranceo{'a lowly people. The first decadewas merely a prolongationof the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,-like a tantalizingwill-o'-the-wisp,maddeningand misleadingthe headlesshost.The holocaustof war, the terrorsof the of the disorganization Ku-KlL Klan,t the Liesof carpet-baggers,t industry and the contradictory advice of friends and foes,left the bewildered serf with no new watchwortl bevond the old crv for freedom.As the time flew,however,he beganto grasp n"*id"u. " The ideal of liberty demandedfor its attainmentpowerful means, and thesethe Fifteenth Amendmentgavehim. The ballot,which beforehe had looked upon asa visiblesignof freedom,he now regarded as the chief meansof gaining and perfectingthe liberty with which war had partiallyendowedhlm. And why not? Had not votesmadewar and emancipatedmillions?Had not votesenfranchised the freedmen? Was anything impossible to a power that had done all this? A million black men started with renewedzeal to vote t}emselvesinto the kingdom. So the decadeflew away,the revolutionof 18764came, and left the half-free serf weary wondering, but still inspired. Slowly but steadily, in the following

"Takeany shapebut that, and my firm nen)es Shall neoer tremble!""

Yearshave passedaway since then,-ten, twenty, forty; forty yearsof nationallife, forty yearsof renewal and development,and yet the swarthyspectresits in its accustomedseatat the Nation's feast.In vain do we cry to this our vastestsocialproblem:-

Of Our Spirituol Striaings

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years,a new visionbegangradua llyto replac ethe dream of political power ,-a power ful movem ent,the rise of anothe r ideal to guidethe unguid ed,anothe rpillar of fire by night after a cloude d day.It wasthe idealof "book- learnin g";the curios ity,born of compulsoryignorance,to know and test the power of the cabalisticlet-

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I Corinth ians13:12:"For now we seethrough a glass,darldy; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (KIV).

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^tn;" longer than l-ravebeen discoveredthe mountain path to Canaa the highway of Emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight,leading to heights high enough to overlook life. Up the new pat} the advance guard toiled, slowly, heavily , doggedly;only those who have watched and guided the falterin g feet, the misty minds, the dull understandings,of the dark pupils of these schoolsknow how taithfully, how piteously, this people strove to learn. It was weary work. The cold statistician wrote down the inches of progress here and there, noted also where here and there a foot had slipped or some one had fallen. To the tired climbe rs,the horizo n was ever dark, the mists were often cold, the Canaanwas alwaysdim and far away.If, however,the vistasdisclos edasyet no goal,no resting -placelittle , but flatteryand criticism, the joumey at least gave leisure for reflection and selfexamination;it changed the child of Emancipation to the youth with dawnin gself-co nsciou sness, self-re alizati on,self-re spect.In thosesombr eforestsof his strivin ghis own soul rosebefore him, and he sawhimse lf,--da rklyas throug h a veil;t and yet he sawin himse lf some faint revela tionof his power , of his missio n.He *,1 beganto havea dim feeling that,.to attain his place i ld, For the first time he sough t 4> he 1q{be himse ll and no n ^.^srto analyzethe burden he bore upon his back, that dead-weightof tv'r'* social degradationpartially masied behind a half-named Negro proble m. He felt his povert y; withou t a cent, withou t a home, withou t land, tools, or saving s,he had entere d into compe tition with rich, landed ,skilledneighb ors.To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor racein a land of dollarsis the very bottom of hardships.He felt the weight of his ignora nce,-n ot simply of letters ,

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Strir:ings IJ

'The full names,birth and death dates (when available),and brief biographical notes for historical figures are provided in the Appendix.

A peoplethus the world, but rather allowed to give all its time and thought to its own social problems. But alas!while sociologistsgleefully count his bastardsand his prostitutes,the very soul of the toiling, sweating black man is darkened by the shadow of a vast despai r.Men call the shadowprejudice, and learnedly explain it as the natura l defence of culture againstbarbarism, learning againstignorance, purity agains tcrime, the "highe r" agains tthe "lower " races.To which the Negro cries Amen! and swear sthat to so much of this strang eprejud iceasis founde don just homag eto civiliza tion, culture, righteo usnes s, and progre ss,he humbl y bows and meekl y doesobeisa nce.But before that namel essprejud icethat leaps beyond all this he standshelpless,dismayed,and well-nigh speech less;before that personaldisrespectand mockery the ridicule and systematichumiliation, the &stortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterouswelcomin gof the worse ,the all-per vadingdesireto inculca tedisdai n for everyt hingblack, from Touss aintoto the devil,- before this there risesa sicken ingdespa irthat would disarm and discou rage any nation savethat black host to whom "disco uragem ent" is an unwritten word. But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring the inevita ble self-qu estion ing,self-di sparag ementand , loweri ng of idealswhich ever accom panyrepres sionand breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate. Whisperings and porten ts came borne upon the four winds: Lo! we are diseasedand dying, cried the dark hosts;we canno twrite, our voting is vain; what need of edjrca tion.sincewe must alwayscook and serve?And the Nation

but of life, of busine ss, of the human ities; the accum ulated sloth and shirhng and awkwardness of decades and centuries shackled his hands and feet. Nor was his burden all poverty and ignoran ce. The red stain of bastardy, which two centuries of system atic legal defilem ent of Negro women had stampe d upon his race, meant not only the loss of ancient African chastity, but also.the herediof co from white adulte rers.threat-

Of Our Spirittnl

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W. E, B, Du Bois

*Storm and stress (German); the name given to a German literary movement whoseautlors Du Bois greatly admired.

echoedand enforcedthis self-criticism,saying:Be content to be servants,and nothing more; what need of higher culture for halfmen? Away with the black man'sballot, by force or fraud,-and behold the suicide of a race! Nevertheless,out of the evil came somethingof good,-the more careful adjustment of educationto real life, the clearer perception of the Negroes'socialresponsibilities, and the sobering realizationof the meaning of progress. So dawnedthe time of Sturm und Drang:ostorm and stresstoday rocksour little boat on the mad waterso[ the world-sea;there is within and without t}le sound of conflict, the burning of body and rending of soul;inspirationstriveswith doubt, and faith with vain questionings.The bright ideals of the past,-physical freedom, political power, the training of brains and the training of hands,-all these in turn have waxed and waned, until even the last grows dim and overcast.Are they all wrong,-all false? No, not that, but each alone was over-simple and incomplete,-the dreams of a credulous race-childhood,or the fond imaginings of the other world which does not lnow and does not want to know our power.To be really true, all theseidealsmust be melted and welded into one. The trainingof the schoolswe need to-daymore than ever,-the training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and above all the broader, deeper,hlgher culture of gifted minds and pure hearts. The power of the ballot we need in sheer selfdefence,-else what shall save us from a second slavery?Freedom, too, the long-sought,we still seek,-the freedomof life and limb, the freedomto work and think. the freedom to love and aspire. Work, culture, liberry,-all thesewe need,not singlybut together, not successivelybut together,each growing and aiding each,and all striving toward that vasterideal that swimsbefore the Negro people, the ideal of human brotherhood,gainedthrough the unifying ideal of Race; the ideal of fostering and developing the traits and talentsof the Negro, con@I temot for other races-butratlrerin largeco4 ter ,@ubhc, in orderJhatsomedayon Americ ach thosecharacteris-

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And now what I havebriefly sketchedin large outline let me on coming pagestell again in many ways,with loving emphasisand deeper detail, that men may listen to the striving in the soulsof black folk.

of dollars and smartness.Will America be poorer if she replace her brutal dyjppli" blundering with light-hearted but determined Negro humility? or her coarse and cruel wit with loving jovial good-humor?or her vulgar music wit}l the soul of the Sorrow Songs? Merely a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic is the Negro Problem, and the spiritual striving of the freedmen'ssonsis the travailof soulswhoseburden is almostbeyond the measureof their strength, but who bear it in tle name of an historic race, in the name of this the land of their fathers' fathers, and in the name of human opportunity.

tog"thoGp$Eiird"d' tr of Q tl-reFrrrehumanspiritof the Declarationof Independencthan e .l*i-"rilNd"*' ,h"re is no ttu" A-filiEGidE.rl-th" *ild s*eet tnel,cdies of the Negroslave;the Americii-fuiryleles andfolk-loreare IndianandAfrican;and,all in all,we blackmen r""rnffile in a dustydesert -o@e

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tics both so sadly lack. We the darker ones come even now not al-

Of Our Spiritual

The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson a novella Radiolab: The Story of Me Vocabulary and phrases from the podcast: sense of self introspective consciousness imagining and abstracting imagining ourselves Questions that arise from the podcast: What is peculiar about Robert Louis Stevenson’s consciousness, as he described it?

How is our “sense of self” a story?

In what way do you contain dualities or multitudes?

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Soul Collage

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The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson a novella The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • written 1885; pub. 1886 • dreamt the novel; wife woke him • wrote it in a frenzy • burnt it • rewrote it in three days • William Brodie? Felida X? Robert Louis Stevenson • from Edinburgh, Scotland, family of lighthouse engineers, “Velvet Coat” • travelled frequently to find better climate for ill health; 1887 in Saranac Lake, where he wrote “Pulvis et Umbra” • 1888 travelled the Pacific from San Franciso; 1890-death at 44 in Samoa; “Tusitala” • also wrote Treasure Island to amuse his stepson when they visited his parents in the Scottish highlands Victorian Novel: • Victoria, 1837-1901 • prolific activity in literature, especially novels • more female novelists emerge: Jane Austen, George Eliot, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Lewis Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens • concern with contemporary social problems: industrial revolution, theory of evolution, political and social reform • sometimes epistolary (in letters) Gothic Literature: • emerged in the early 1800s (Poe, Dracula, Shelley’s Frankenstein) but persisted in contemporary ghost and horror stories mystery, horror, glimpse at the dark side of life typically hidden • Victorian society was morally rigid on the exterior. Behaviors considered immoral were hidden from the public view; people did not acknowledge or discuss them

Across the Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 8. “A Chapter on Dreams” I can but give an instance or so of what part is done sleeping and what part awake, and leave the reader to share what laurels there are, at his own nod, between myself and my collaborators; and to do this I will first take a book that a number of persons have been polite enough to read, the STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. I had long been trying to write a story on this subject, to find a body, a vehicle, for that strong sense of man's double being which must at times come in upon and overwhelm the mind of every thinking creature. I had even written one, THE TRAVELLING COMPANION, which was returned by an editor on the plea that it was a work of genius and indecent, and which I burned the other day on the ground that it was not a work of genius, and that JEKYLL had supplanted it. Then came one of those financial fluctuations to which (with an elegant modesty) I have hitherto referred in the third person. For two days I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two, in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers. All the rest was made awake, and consciously, although I think I can trace in much of it the manner of my Brownies. The meaning of the tale is therefore mine, and had long pre-existed in my garden of Adonis, and tried one body after another in vain; indeed, I do most of the morality, worse luck! and my Brownies have not a rudiment of what we call a conscience. Mine, too, is the setting, mine the characters. All that was given me was the matter of three scenes, and the central idea of a voluntary change becoming involuntary. Will it be thought ungenerous, after I have been so liberally ladling out praise to my unseen collaborators, if I here toss them over, bound hand and foot, into the arena of the critics?

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The Genre of Mystery: Following the Thread

Please use the questions and chart below to guide your notes on the novel. 1. In the beginning, the narration is third person, limited to Utterson. Describe his characteristics. Why do you think Stevenson characterized him as he did? Describe Utterson’s relationships to the other characters, specifically Enfield, Dr. Jekyll, and Dr. Lanyon. What do Utterson’s relationships reveal about his strengths, weaknesses, and motives? 2. What does Utterson learn from Dr. Jekyll’s will in Chapter Two? What does he learn from Dr. Lanyon? 3. Describe Mr. Hyde as Mr. Utterson sees him. 4. In Chapter Three, what promise does Mr. Utterson make to Dr. Jekyll? 5. Describe the weapon that Mr. Hyde uses to murder Sir Danvers Carew. What happens to it? Why does Mr. Utterson recognize it? 6. In Chapter Five, Mr. Utterson draws a conclusion about the relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but then details surrounding the letter make him doubt that conclusion. What leads him to his initial conclusion on page 19, and what makes him question his assumptions on pages 20-21? 7. What seems to have caused the death of Dr. Lanyon? 8. What do you think has happened in “The Incident at the Window?” 9.What does evidence on page 33 suggest? What does Utterson’s correction of verb tense at the bottom of page 34 imply? 10. On page 35, Utterson syas, “Because I fear,” and then he leaves the thought incomplete. Why do you think Utterson fears? Why won’t he state it? 11. How and why does the point of view change over the course of the novel?

narrative point of view

clues and answers

pp. 1-35

pp. 36-41

pp. 42-54

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mysteries and limits

Dualities & Dualistic Language

Close analysis of dualistic language on page 2: Stevenson’s language draws out dualistic contrast in the world of the novel so that light and dark, good and evil not only vie for dominance in the characters; they also do so in the setting, the imagery, and the symbols of his world. Most of the physical details of Stevenson’s fictional world reflect the dualistic tension of its underlying metaphysical reality. For example, as Utterson and Enfield approach the door that calls to mind Mr. Hyde’s having “calmly trampled” a young girl, Stevenson contrasts a “smiling” neighborhood of light, hope, and “cleanliness and gaiety” with a “sinister block of building” marked by “sordid negligence.” A lack of windows, bells, and knockers, personified in the building’s “blind forehead,” indicates the antisocial building is impervious to light and unwelcoming of visitors. Even Stevenson’s verb choice heightens the contrast: whereas the other shop fronts of the neighborhood “stood smiling,” the building associated with Mr. Hyde possesses a subtle violence: it had “broken” the row of inviting, “smiling” shops and “thrust forward its gable on the street.” The attributes of the building associated with Hyde add to his characterization as much as any direct description. Even when he isn’t present, we find emblems of his destructive, malevolent character in the landscape.

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Dualities & Dualistic Language

Close analysis of dualistic language on page 8: Traditional symbolism has cultivated an association of the intellect with the light of day, with reason and rationality; while the imagination inhabits a world of mystery and darkness. Like the sleeping Mr. Utterson, the imagination lies “curtained” off from everyday reality, a source of monstrous visions and irrational fear. Utterson’s imagination traps him in this haunting vision. Stevenson’s correction of “engaged, or rather enslaved,” brings attention to the latter word: it is the imagination that is “enslaved,’ denoting a lack of control. Utterson’s imagination holds him hostage, projecting visions of his kind friend Jekyll stamped out by the detestable Hyde.

Directions for Close Analysis: Use an index card, sticky notes, or your notebook. As you encounter phrases or passages containing strikingly dualistic language, please note the page. Later, copy out the key phrases and do a close analysis of language and theme.

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Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Vocabulary (Treasure!)

Directions: All of the words below appear in The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Highlight those you already know. As you encounter new words in the text, highlight them and look them up or guess them from context. For our unit assessment, you will select at least ten new words to learn. austere affirmative apothecary apocryphal abominable audibly anatomical apparatus allusion amities abject anguish annotated aspiration aura aversion avidity astute amorphous abjection acquiescence benefactor balderdash brandishing baize besiege blasphemies bravos bestial brutish beneficent countenance catholicity coquetry cronies conflagration carbuncles calamity cerebral connived composite capricious callousness circumscription discourse demeanor divinity domestic disquietude deformity diaphanous draughts disinterred duplicity degradation denizens duality diabolical doff depravity despondency eminently excursion emulously exorbitant eccentric ether enigma extraneous effulgence ebullition efficacy--florid fortnight fugitive feint---gable geniality gaunt gallows gesticulated harpies holograph hypocrisy hansom hypocrite---indignation inclination iniquity insensate inscrutable incipient idiosyncratic imperious incongruous immateriality idol insidiously infamy inducements inorganic insurgent Juggernaut---ken---loathing labyrinths lurid lawny lamentation ludicrous--mortify malformation melancholy maladies mottled malefactor metamorphoses morbid multifarious mantle malign--nocturnal---odious obliterate obsequiously pedantically protégé perplexity pallor pious pungent phosphorus prodigy perennial polity penitence pavilion pecuniary propensity provocation penitence poignant prudence quaint---remark recluse radically repugnance renunciation reindue---symbols sinister sordid Sawbones sullenness soberly scroll stealthily sedulously stringent surgical scruple timidity troglodytic transfigure trifling tincture transcendental transience tabernacle throes usury vengeance volatile vestment vicarious vainglorious

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Seminar: Three Approaches to the Jekyll & Hyde

I. Novel as Allegory The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an allegory. What does this allegory mean to you? Can it be read more than one way? What ethical questions and lessons are conveyed by the allegory? Cite specific details and passages from the novel to develop depth and insight.

II. Literary Monsters Consider Stephen T. Asma’s article, “Monsters and the Moral Imagination” and Guillermo del Toro's assertion that monsters "externalize" our deepest fears and most primal drives. What are Hyde’s monstrous characteristics? What does this literary monster tell us about our humanity? What moral lessons do we find in the fate of this monster?

III. Psychology Read the excerpt from Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents. What is Freud saying about the relationship between the human being and his or her society? How does Freud explain the dualistic nature of human beings? How do these ideas illuminate the struggles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

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Monsters and the Moral Imagination by Stephen T. Asma from the Chronicle of Higher Education, October 25, 2009 By Stephen T. Asma Monsters are on the rise. People can't seem to get enough of vampires lately, and zombies have a new lease on life. This year and next we have the release of the usual horror films like Saw VI and Halloween II; the campy mayhem of Zombieland; more-pensive forays like 9 (produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov), The Wolfman, and The Twilight Saga: New Moon; and, more playfully, Where the Wild Things Are (a Dave Eggers rewrite of the Maurice Sendak classic). The reasons for this increased monster culture are hard to pin down. Maybe it's social anxiety in the post-9/11 decade, or the conflict in Iraq—some think there's an uptick in such fare during wartime. Perhaps it's the economic downturn. The monster proliferation can be explained, in part, by exploring the meaning of monsters. Popular culture is re-enchanted with meaningful monsters, and even the eggheads are stroking their chins—last month saw the seventh global conference on Monsters and the Monstrous at the University of Oxford. The uses of monsters vary widely. In our liberal culture, we dramatize the rage of the monstrous creature—and Frankenstein's is a good example—then scold ourselves and our "intolerant society" for alienating the outcast in the first place. The liberal lesson of monsters is one of tolerance: We must overcome our innate scapegoating, our xenophobic tendencies. Of course, this is by no means the only interpretation of monster stories. The medieval mind saw giants and mythical creatures as God's punishments for the sin of pride. For the Greeks and Romans, monsters were prodigies—warnings of impending calamity. After Freud, monster stories were considered cathartic journeys into our unconscious—everybody contains a Mr. Hyde, and these stories give us a chance to "walk on the wild side." But in the denouement of most stories, the monster is killed and the psyche restored to civilized order. We can have our fun with the "torture porn" of Leatherface and Freddy Krueger or the erotic vampires, but this "vacation" to where the wild things are ultimately helps us return to our lives of quiet repression. Any careful reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula, for example, will reveal not only a highly sexualized description of blood drinking, but an erotic characterization of the count himself. Even John Polidori's original 1819 vampire tale The Vampyre describes the monster as a sexually attractive force. According to the critic Christopher Craft, Gothic monster tales—Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles— rehearse a similar story structure. "Each of these texts first invites or admits a monster, then entertains and is entertained by monstrosity for some extended duration, until in its closing pages it expels or repudiates the monster and all the disruption that he/she/it brings," he writes. A crucial but often-ignored aspect of monsterology is the role those beasties play in our moral imaginations. Recent experimental moral psychology has given us useful tools for looking at the way people actually do their moral thinking. Brain imaging, together with hypothetical ethical dilemmas about runaway trolley cars, can teach us a lot about our real value systems and actions. But another way to get at this subterranean territory is by looking at our imaginative lives.

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Monsters can stand as symbols of human vulnerability and crisis, and as such they play imaginative foils for thinking about our own responses to menace. Part of our fascination with

serial-killer monsters is that we (and our loved ones) are potentially vulnerable to sadistic violence —never mind that statistical probability renders such an attack almost laughable. Irrational fears are decidedly unfunny. We are vulnerable to both the inner and the outer forces. Monster stories and films only draw us in when we identify with the persons who are being chased, and we tacitly ask ourselves: Would I board up the windows to keep the zombies out or seek the open water? Would I go down to the basement after I hear the thump, and if so, would I bring the butcher knife or the fireplace poker? What will I do when I am vulnerable? The comedy writer Max Brooks understands that dimension of monster stories very well. In books like The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, Brooks gives us painstaking, haunting, and hilarious advice about how best to meet our undead foes. For its April Fools' edition, the otherwise serious journal Archaeology interviewed Brooks, asking him (tongue firmly in cheek): "Does the archaeological record hold any zombie-related lessons for us today? What can our ancestors teach us about meeting and, ultimately, defeating the undead menace?" Brooks replied: "The greatest lesson our ancestors have to teach us is to remain both vigilant and unafraid. We must endeavor to emulate the ancient Romans; calm, efficient, treating zombies as just one more item on a rather mundane checklist. Panic is the undead's greatest ally, doing far more damage, in some cases, than the creatures themselves. The goal is to be prepared, not scared, to use our heads, and cut off theirs." Brooks is unparalleled in parodying a well-worn monster tradition, but he wouldn't be so funny if we weren't already using monster stories to imagine strategies for facing enemies. The monster is a virtual sparring partner for our imagination. How will I avoid, assuage, or defeat my enemy? Will I have grace under pressure? Will I help others who are injured? Or will I be that guy who selfishly goes it alone and usually meets an especially painful demise? In a significant sense, monsters are a part of our attempt to envision the good life or at least the secure life. Our ethical convictions do not spring fully grown from our heads but must be developed in the context of real and imagined challenges. In order to discover our values, we have to face trials and tribulation, and monsters help us imaginatively rehearse. Imagining how we will face an unstoppable, powerful, and inhuman threat is an illuminating exercise in hypothetical reasoning and hypothetical feeling. You can't know for sure how you will face a headless zombie, an alien face-hugger, an approaching sea monster, or a chainsaw-wielding psycho. Fortunately, you're unlikely to be put to the test. But you might face similarly terrifying trials. You might be assaulted, be put on the front lines of some war, or be robbed, raped, or otherwise harassed and assailed. We may be lucky enough to have had no real acquaintance with such horrors, but we have all nonetheless played them out in our mind's eye. And though we can't know for sure how we'll face an enemy soldier or a rapist, it doesn't stop us from imaginatively formulating responses. We use the imagination in order to establish our own agency in chaotic and uncontrollable situations. People frequently underestimate the role of art and imagery in their own moral convictions. Through art (e.g., Shelley's Frankenstein, Hitchcock's Psycho, King's and Kubrick's The Shining), artists convey moral visions. Audiences can reflect on them, reject or embrace them, take inspiration from them, and otherwise be enriched beyond the entertainment aspect. Good monster stories can transmit moral truths to us by showing us examples of dignity and depravity without preaching or proselytizing. But imagining monsters is not just the stuff of fiction. Picture yourself in the following scenario. On the evening of August 7, 1994, Bruce Shapiro entered a coffee bar in New Haven, Conn. Shapiro and his friends had entered the cafe and were relaxing at a table near the front door. Approximately 15 other people were scattered around the bar, enjoying the evening. One of Shapiro's friends went up to the bar to get drinks. "Suddenly there was chaos," Shapiro explained in The Nation the next year, "as if a mortar shell had landed." He looked up to see a flash of metal

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and people leaping away from a thin, bearded man with a ponytail. Chairs and tables were knocked over, and Shapiro protected one of his friends by pulling her to the ground. In a matter of minutes, the thin man, Daniel Silva, had managed to stab and seriously injure seven people in the coffee shop. Using a six-inch hunting knife, Silva jumped around the room and attacked with lightning speed. Two of Shapiro's friends were stabbed. After helping some others, Shapiro finally escaped the cafe. "I had gone no more than a few steps," he recalled, "when I felt a hard punch in my back followed instantly by the unforgettable sensation of skin and muscle tissue parting. Silva had stabbed me about six inches above my waist, just beneath my rib cage." Shapiro fell to the pavement and cried out, "Why are you doing this?" Standing over him, Silva plunged the knife into Shapiro's chest, beneath his left shoulder. "You killed my mother" was the incoherent response that Silva offered his victim. Silva then pulled the knife out of Shapiro and rode off on a bicycle. He was soon apprehended and jailed. Was Silva a monster? Not exactly. He was a mentally ill man who snapped and seemed to think that his mother had been wronged and felt some obscure need to avenge her. (She was, in fact, in a nearby hospital at the time, being treated for diabetes.) But from the perspective of raw experience, this horrifying event shares many qualities with the imagined monster attack. Shapiro and his unfortunate company were suddenly presented with a deadly, irrational, powerful force that sent them reeling for mere survival. And yet the victims demonstrated an impressive ability to reach out and help each other. While the victims were leaping away from Silva's angry knife blade, I suspect that he was for them, practically speaking, a true monster. I would never presume to correct them on that account. In such circumstances, many of us are sympathetic to the use of the monster epithet. One of the fascinating aspects of Shapiro's experience is how people responded to his story after the fact. I have been suggesting that monster stories are encapsulations of the human feeling of vulnerability—the monster stories offer us the "disease" of vulnerability and its possible "cures" (in the form of heroes and coping strategies). Few monster stories remain indefinitely in the "threat phase." When fear is at a fever pitch, they always move on to the hero phase. Hercules slays the Hydra, George slays the dragon, medicine slays the alien virus, the stake and crucifix slay the vampire. Life and art mutually seek to conquer vulnerability. "Being a victim is a hard idea to accept," Shapiro explained, "even while lying in a hospital bed with tubes in veins, chest, penis, and abdomen. The spirit rebels against the idea of oneself as fundamentally powerless." This natural rebellion may have prompted the most repeated question facing Shapiro when he got out of the hospital. When people learned of Daniel Silva's attack on seven victims, they asked, "Why didn't anyone try to stop him?" Shapiro always tried to explain how fast and confusing the attack was, but people failed to accept this. Shapiro, who was offended by the question, says, "The question carries not empathy but an implicit burden of blame; it really asks 'Why didn't you stop him?' It is asked because no one likes to imagine oneself a victim." We like to see ourselves as victors against every threat, but of course that's not reality. Believers in human progress, from the Enlightenment to the present, think that monsters are disappearing. Rationality will pour its light into the dark corners and reveal the monsters to be merely chimeric. A familiar upshot of the liberal interpretation of monsters is to suggest that when we properly embrace difference, the monsters will vanish. According to this view, the monster concept is no longer useful in the modern world. If it hangs on, it does so like an appendix—useful once but hazardous now. I disagree. The monster concept is still extremely useful, and it's a permanent player in the moral imagination because human vulnerability is permanent. The monster is a beneficial foe, helping us

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to virtually represent the obstacles that real life will surely send our way. As long as there are real enemies in the world, there will be useful dramatic versions of them in our heads. In 2006, four armed men in Kandahar, Afghanistan, broke into the home of an Afghan headmaster and teacher named Malim Abdul Habib. The four men held Habib as they gathered his wife and children together, forcing them to watch as they stabbed Habib eight times and then decapitated him. Habib was the headmaster at Shaikh Mathi Baba high school, where he educated girls along with boys. The Taliban militants of the region, who are suspected in the beheading, see the education of girls as a violation of Islam (a view that is obviously not shared by the vast majority of Muslims). My point is simply this: If you can gather a man's family together at gunpoint and force them to watch as you cut off his head, then you are a monster. You don't just seem like one; you are one. A relativist might counter by pointing out that American soldiers at Abu Ghraib tortured some innocent people, too. That, I agree, is true and astoundingly shameful, but it doesn't prove there are no real monsters. It only widens the category and recognizes monsters on both sides of an issue. Two sides calling each other monsters doesn't prove that monsters don't exist. In the case of the American torturer at Abu Ghraib and the Taliban beheader in Afghanistan, both epithets sound entirely accurate. My own view is that the concept of monster cannot be erased from our language and thinking. It cannot be replaced by other more polite terms and concepts, because it still refers to something that has no satisfactory semantic substitute or refinement. The term's imprecision, within parameters, is part of its usefulness. Terms like "monster" and "evil" have a lot of metaphysical residue on them, left over from the Western traditions. But even if we neuter the term from obscure theological questions about Cain, or metaphysical questions about demons, the language still successfully expresses a radical frustration over the inhumanity of some enemy. The meaning of "monster" is found in its context, in its use. So this Halloween season, let us, by all means, enjoy our fright fest, but let's not forget to take monsters seriously, too. I'll be checking under my bed, as usual. But remember, things don't strike fear in our hearts unless our hearts are already seriously committed to something (e.g., life, limb, children, ideologies, whatever). Ironically then, inhuman threats are great reminders of our own humanity. And for that we can all thank our zombies. Stephen T. Asma is a professor of philosophy at Columbia College Chicago. Oxford University Press is publishing his most recent book, On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears, this month.

Annotation & Reading Focus: Note the major psychological, ethical, and artistic roles of monsters in our lives.

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Sigmund Freud from Civilization and Its Discontents

WHY do the animals, kin to ourselves, not manifest any such cultural struggle? Oh, we don’’t know. Very probably certain of them, bees, ants, termites, had to strive for thousands of centuries before they found the way to those state institutions, that division of functions, those restrictions upon individuals, which we admire them for today. It is characteristic of our present state that we know by our own feelings that we should not think ourselves happy in any of these communities of the animal world, or in any of the roles they delegate to individuals. With other animal species it may be that a temporary deadlock has been reached between the influences of their environment and the instincts contending within them, so that a cessation of development has taken place. In primitive man, a fresh access of libido may have kindled a new spurt of energy on the part of the instinct of destruction. There are a great many questions in all this to which as yet we have no answer. Another question concerns us more closely now. What means does civilization make use of to hold in check the aggressiveness that opposes it, to make it harmless, perhaps to get rid of it? Some of these measures we have already come to know, though not yet the one that is apparently the most important. We can study it in the evolution of the individual. What happens in him to render his craving for aggression innocuous? Something very curious, that we should never have guessed and that yet seems simple enough. The aggressiveness is introjected, internalized; in fact, it is sent back where it came from, i. e., directed against the ego. It is there taken over by a part of the ego that distinguishes itself from the rest as a super-ego, and now, in the form of conscience, exercises the same propensity to harsh aggressiveness against the ego that the ego would have liked to enjoy against others. The tension between the strict super-ego and the subordinate ego we call the sense of guilt; it manifests itself as the need for punishment. Civilization, therefore, obtains the mastery over the dangerous love of aggression in individuals by enfeebling and disarming it and setting up an institution within their minds to keep watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city. As to the origin of the sense of guilt, analysts have different views from those of the psychologists; nor is it easy for analysts to explain it either. First of all, when one asks how a sense of guilt arises in anyone, one is told something one cannot dispute: people feel guilty (pious people call it ““sinful””) when they have done something they know to be bad. But then one sees how little this answer tells one. Perhaps, after some hesitation, one will add that a person who has not actually committed a bad act, but has merely become aware of the intention to do so, can also hold himself guilty; and then one will ask why in this case the intention is counted as equivalent to the deed. In both cases, however, one is presupposing that wickedness has already been recognized as reprehensible, as something that ought not to be put into execution. How is this judgment arrived at? One may reject the suggestion of an original——as one might say, natural——capacity for discriminating between good and evil. Evil is often not at all that which would injure or endanger the ego; on the contrary, it can also be something that it desires, that would give it pleasure. An extraneous influence is evidently at work; it is this that decides what is to be called good and bad. Since their own feelings would not have led men along the same path, they must have had a motive for obeying this extraneous influence. It is easy

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to discover this motive in man’’s helplessness and dependence upon others, it can best be designated the dread of losing love. If he loses the love of others on whom he is dependent, he will forfeit also their protection against many dangers, and above all he runs the risk that this stronger person will show his superiority in the form of punishing him. What is bad is, therefore, to begin with, whatever causes one to be threatened with a loss of love; because of the dread of this loss, one must desist from it. That is why it makes little difference whether one has already committed the bad deed or only intends to do so; in either case the danger begins only when the authority has found it out, and the latter would behave in the same way in both cases. We call this state of mind a bad conscience but actually it does not deserve this name, for at this stage the sense of guilt is obviously only the dread of losing love, social anxiety. In a little child it can never be anything else, but in many adults too it has only changed in so far as the larger human community takes the place of the father or of both parents. Consequently, such people habitually permit themselves to do any bad deed that procures them something they want, if only they are sure that no authority will discover it or make them suffer for it; their anxiety relates only to the possibility of detection. 27 Present-day society has to take into account the prevalence of this state of mind. A great change takes place as soon as the authority has been internalized by the development of a super-ego. The manifestations of conscience are then raised to a new level; to be accurate, one should not call them conscience and sense of guilt before this. 28 At this point the dread of discovery ceases to operate and also once for all any difference between doing evil and wishing to do it, since nothing is hidden from the super- ego, not even thoughts. The real seriousness of the situation has vanished, it is true: for the new authority, the super-ego, has no motive, as far as we know, for ill-treating the ego with which it is itself closely bound up. But the influence of the genetic derivation of these things, which causes what has been outlived and surmounted to be re-lived, manifests itself so that on the whole things remain as they were at the beginning. The super-ego torments the sinful ego with the same feelings of dread and watches for opportunities whereby the outer world can be made to punish it. At this second stage of development, conscience exhibits a peculiarity which was absent in the first and is not very easy to account for. That is, the more righteous a man is, the stricter and more suspicious will his conscience be, so that ultimately it is precisely those people who have carried holiness farthest who reproach themselves with the deepest sinfulness. This means that virtue forfeits some of her promised reward; the submissive and abstemious ego does not enjoy the trust and confidence of its mentor, and, as it seems, strives in vain to earn it. Now, to this some people will be ready to object that these difficulties are artificialities. A relatively strict and vigilant conscience is the very sign of a virtuous man, and though saints may proclaim themselves sinners, they are not so wrong, in view of the temptations of instinctual gratifications to which they are peculiarly liable—— since, as we know, temptations do but increase under constant privation, whereas they subside, at any rate temporarily, if they are sometimes gratified. The field of ethics is rich in problems, and another of the facts we find here is that misfortune, i.e., external deprivation, greatly intensifies the strength of conscience in the superego. As long as things go well with a man, his conscience is lenient and lets the ego do all kinds of things; when some calamity befalls, he holds an inquisition within, discovers his sin, heightens the standards of his conscience, imposes abstinences on himself and punishes himself with penances. 29 . . . It is curious how differently a

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savage behaves! If he has had bad fortune, he does not throw the blame on himself, but on his fetish, who has plainly not done his duty by him, and he belabours it instead of punishing himself. Hence we know of two sources for feelings of guilt: that arising from the dread of authority and the later one from the dread of the superego. The first one compels us to renounce instinctual gratification; the other presses over and above this towards punishment, since the persistence of forbidden wishes cannot be concealed from the super-ego. We have also heard how the severity of the superego, the rigour of conscience, is to be explained. It simply carries on the severity of external authority which it has succeeded and to some extent replaced. We see now how renunciation of instinctual gratification is related to the sense of guilt. Originally, it is true, renunciation is the consequence of a dread of external authority; one gives up pleasures so as not to lose its love. Having made this renunciation, one is quits with authority, so to speak; no feeling of guilt should remain. But with the dread of the superego the case is different. Renunciation of gratification does not suffice here, for the wish persists and is not capable of being hidden from the super- ego. In spite of the renunciations made, feelings of guilt will be experienced and this is a great disadvantage economically of the erection of the super-ego, or, as one may say,of the formation of conscience. Renunciation no longer has a completely absolving effect; virtuous restraint is no longer rewarded by the assurance of love; a threatened external unhappiness——loss of love and punishment meted out by external authority——has been exchanged for a lasting inner unhappiness, the tension of a sense of guilt.

Annotation and reading focus: Follow what Freud says about the relationships between different parts of the psyche and how they help us live in civilized society. Critical Reading: Freud is the “Father of Psychoanalysis,” and as such deserves to be studied, but new paradigms have called his work into question. Are there parts of Freud’s explanation that you reject?

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