My Inner "Hyde"

After discussing the book The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, I made the connection that everyone is a little like Jekyll and Hyde. Everyone has a part of Hyde, or evil rather, inside of them. One of my “evils” that has been consuming me lately is the case of “senioritis.” Throughout my senior year, I have noticed that I have not been trying as hard in school as I normally would have. I used to be productive and motivated to do my school work, but as graduation nears, I become more and more unproductive and less motivated. Before my senior year, I would occasionally procrastinate but I would eventually get the work finished and turned in on time. Now I sometimes, unfortunately, procrastinate and end up not doing the work at all. The first few times I began to slack off, it was easy for me to pick my work right back up again and continue. The more I slack off though, the harder it is for me to get back on the studious track I used to be on. I find myself like Jekyll in that aspect. The more Jekyll began to drink the potion to transform into Hyde, the harder it was for him to stop. The more I slack off in school, the harder it is for me to pick back up my school work again. Jekyll was not able to control his transformations at the end of the novel. I do believe, although it is hard for me to pick up my schoolwork again and it is difficult for me to find the motivation to do it, that I will be able to get back on the studious track I once was on again. I won’t let indulging in not doing all of my school work control me, especially once I begin college. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m not so good at taming my inner Hyde right now and I am indulging in the evil of not doing all of my school work, like Jekyll indulged in drinking the potions and transforming into Hyde. However, unlike Jekyll I will stop indulging in this evil before it controls me.

Gender Inequality

          Every book we read that focuses on the inequality of the treatment of women makes me so much more thankful to be a woman in today’s time period. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is another book we read that exposed how poorly women were treated. Woolf focused her essay about how women were treated unequally compared to men when writing fiction, but beyond just writing, her essay demonstrates how women were considered inferior to men just in general back in her day.

Often times when women wrote, women would “preach” about the inequalities between the two genders. Instead of society actually reading and listening to the real discrimination's of the world so the problems could be fixed, no one would give the book a chance. If a woman wrote a book it was automatically deemed “unworthy” to be read since “a woman wrote it.” Woolf showed in her essay how unfair women were treated when writing literature. Aside from just in literature, women were treated unfairly and were dehumanized compared to men just in everyday life. Women were thought of as housewives and nothing more. Women had very little to no chance to be successful during Woolf’s era, unlike men. 

Thankfully, the world has evolved and accepted women’s writing and their success. Today if a woman is an author, people are willing to read the book and usually do not judge the work due to the gender of the author. Both women and men read a work of literature written by women now. Women authors are just as successful as men when writing literature as proven by J.K Rowling, Danielle Steele, Stephanie Myer, Alice Walker and many others. Not only have women advanced in writing, but we also have the ability to excel in any area we want to. Women, today, are given about just as many opportunities as men are. Women are successful and close to equal to men. Of course there will always be injustices in our society, but I am so thankful for how far our society has evolved and am so appreciative to be a woman in today’s society where women aren’t inferior to men any more.