Consumption of Shame

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The Consumption of Shame This powerful quote, excerpted from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has both a literal meaning, and figurative meaning, plummeting into the depths of the Victorian-age setting this novel was written in. During the Victorian time period, religion, and people within those religions, took the idea of sins and wrong-doings seriously, and also searched to find the idea of man’s counter-identity and they explored the evil and wicked wrong-doings inherent in all human beings. Therefore, this line from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reflects the time period the novella was written. Ultimately, the past can always be seen in regret, denial, or even forgetfulness, but, the future is inevitable and the past in unchangeable. The only matter that could change in the past is the human being’s own mind and how they construct their own perspectives of the past. For example, a person may see a wrong-doing in their past as a regret, or they may have seen it as an opportunity, or even in a case of denial. People can shape the past to their own brain’s boundaries, but human beings cannot change the EVENTS in the past, nor can they prevent events from happening in the future. If someone distances oneself from terrible reality of the inevitable (like age and death) by doing so, one only serves to amplify the damage upon oneself. If reality is inevitable, and there is nothing one can do to stop it, change it, alter it, or make it happen, one may want to distance them self or even ignore the possibilities of inevitable events. This only hurts people in the long run because not only did the inevitable happen, but the reality of the inevitable and the occurrence can cause people even more doom and burthen rather than them preparing and adapting and accepting inevitable events. There is an idea of shame when one thinks of “burthen….forever on a man’s shoulder.” Shame
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