Saggio in inglese sul tema del doppio

The theme of the double is a constant of the Victorian writers, in particular of those of the second generation and through it they reveal the hypocrisy of their own time. Even if Mary Shelley didn't live in the Victorian Age, she underlines the duplicity of the same character. In fact Frankenstein and his monster can be considered one person and the same Frankenstein says of his monster that he is "my own spirit". But both Frankenstein and the monster, after his contact with the human society, reveal the two different aspects of the human soul, the good and the evil ones, separated through science. The theme of the double will be dealt also by Stevenson at the end of the XIX century. In his novel "The strange case of Dr. Jackill and Mr. Hide" the duplicity of the human nature becomes more explicit, in fact the same man, drinking a potion, can make dominant the one or the other disposition of his soul. The theme of the ambivalence is reinforced by the symbolism of Jeckyll's house, whose two façades are symbolically the two opposite sides of the same man: