The Engrossing Problem

I'm starting to realize that my natural tendencies are at odds with what I stand for.

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one that pretty much everyone knows. A guy meddling too far into the realm of science ends up creating a monster of himself, unleashing a part of him that is meant to stay hidden for the safety of all concerned. No one pays much attention to the meaning or the warning of the story.

In fact, no one seems to pay much attention to the meaning behind most monster movies. My favorite example would be zombie films. George Romero created the genre in earnest when he made Night of the Living Dead. In it, a group of unaffected people try to fight off the zombie horde that constantly closes in on them. The protagonist, a black man, escapes with his life only to be gunned down by racist rednecks at the end. Most audiences see it as a frightening story filled with great intensity and surprises that make girls leap out of their seats and into their boyfriends' arms.

I see the political message behind it. After all, what are zombies? There's no threat to them - they aren't fast, agile, intelligent. In fact, they are the opposite of what most great monsters are. But the thing that makes them scary is their numbers. They just keep coming. They are frightening because there are just so damned many of them.

Beware of stupid people in large groups.

They represent the herd mentality that is present in us all. The cues we take to follow the crowd and see where it takes us. At the end of the movie, the main character is killed not because of a supernatural threat, but because of a very real one (one incredibly real for when the film was made in the 1960s). The movie was a statement to stop following blindly and to start thinking humanely about people. Of course now, the idea can be applied to anything. We even use the word zombie from time to time to describe cultural phenomena.

For Jekyll and Hyde, the joke is that they are the same person. Scary movies tend to play off of our fears well because they focus on the most well rooted parts of our personalities. We all fear in some way that there's a part of us that's dangerous. A part that should be left in the dark. A part that should never manifest itself outside our minds.

And in some ways, we let it out. Shooting the middle finger at the guy that cut us off. Being short with a coworker because we've had a stressful day. Wanting to punch the ass that spilled beer on us at the party.

The message of the tale is that keeping your primal urges caged is the only safe thing. In the end, Jekyll is destroyed completely and several people are killed. It is a struggle, though, a daily struggle to keep those urges under wraps. I envy people who so effortlessly adhere to a moral structure. They are few and far between, but there are a few people in life who just seem to be free to live how they please because their upbringing instilled so deeply in them a sense of unshakable morals. It is one thing to act morally and another to think morally.

My thoughts tend to be all over the place, which is why they are often at odds with what I stand for. The pain there in doing what it right despite it going against my natural tendency is a palpable one. I can feel it physically sometimes. That's when I try to remember the cautionary tales of what happens when you let those natural tendencies out.

And they don't always work.