Psychoanalysis and duality in Stevenson's 'The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and in David Lynch's film 'Blue velvet'

Abstract

The official title of this dissertation is ' Psychoanalysis and Duality in Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde and David Lynch's film Blue Velvet. In the dissertation, the focus will be on the literary and artistic elements of the Gothic and its' notion of the sublime or the abject against the social and moral respectability of the middle-class life. Gothic fiction portrays a kind of evil that is more disgusting and distasteful rather than fearful or threatening. A 'compare and contrast' analysis will be carried. out to show how the two different media of film and novel bring out the elements of the sensual and the violent within the gothic genre in the contemporary period and in the Victorian period, respectively. Themes such as the duality of light and dark, good and evil; and the notion of the double life will be discussed extensively. Psychoanalytic interpretations such as Lacan' s distinction between the 'imaginary' and the 'symbolic' and his concept of the mirror-stage; together with Freud's theories of the 'Oedipus Complex' and the 'ego and the id' will be applied to the theme of schizophrenia in Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'. Baudrillard's Simulations will be used to discuss the role of postmodemism in the 1986 film Blue Velvet. According to Norman K. Denzin with reference to Baudrillard, films such as Blue Velvet bring the 'unpresentable' in front of the viewer in ways that challenge the common boundaries between public and private life.