Our World of Secrets

Author’s Note: Like always, I had a hard time getting this started. But after hearing the topic, I knew I wanted to do something along the lines of secrets. Because afterall, being two people at once is one major secret. We all have Jekyll and Hyde sides to us, however, that we cover up behind secrets and lies. So this is what I managed to spit out of what I read from the three chapters so far.

We live in a world of secrets. Not the small ones about crushes; those we don’t mind to share, but the ones that not even those we trust most can know. Behind the masks we display, there’s always something more to everyone’s story. Perhaps, it’s shame that drives us to secrecy or the fear of being exposed, but either way, there’s two sides to every person. Robert Louis Stevenson shows through Jekyll and Hyde, how little we really know what’s going on in others lives. Driven by curiosity, Mr. Utterson assumes Jekyll is being black mailed by Hyde because of the means of his will. Mr. Utterson presumes, “’This Master Hyde, if he were studied,’ thought he, ‘must have secrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him; secrets compared to which poor Jekyll’s worst would be like sunshine” (54). The very dark secret of Hyde, however, is that of Jekyll’s. Each living in their own twist of a secret, they are one, but act as two. While the absurdity of this lie may seem extreme, it only represents all of our very own ways of living.
Stevenson’s character may have had two opposite faces, but so do we all. Forced to be ideal in this orderly world, we strain for perfection. There’s no denying our other side, however, it is ever present and impossible to ignore. Almost daily, it releases itself in small doses, but in attempt to mask our flaws, we create secrets; hiding, not only our regrets, but our very disgrace of our second self.