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Theme Of Innocence And Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

Decent Essays

Duality Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience, by Blake, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Stevenson, are two stories, which present a case of duality. At the beginning of each of these novels, the author presents two different extremes: Blake presents innocence and experience and Stevenson presents good and evil. In both of these novels, as the story progresses, their two extremes struggle to coexist and one ultimately dominates over the other. Both Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde understand duality as the struggle of two things to coexist, however, one ultimately ends up dominating over the other. The first extreme in Blake’s Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience is innocence. The Songs of Innocence is comprised of poems of young children who have a naïve perspective of the world around them. In The Lamb, the young child is compared to a untainted lamb who has not been corrupted by the world. In The Chimney Sweepers the orphaned child is sold to be a chimneysweeper. The child clearly has no hope for any future, however the naïve child listens to the voice of the angel and makes peace with his situation. He blindly accepts the comfort without coming to the recognition that he will ultimately die. In The Little Black Boy, the child doesn’t recognize the prevalent racism of his time. He believes that he and the white child can sit together in the light of G-d and together they will be like innocent sheep. These children encounter

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