At a time when questions of science and the early stirrings of psychiatry were in the air ... they suggest three different but closely related ways to split moral evil (particularly but not only sexual evil) away from oneself, three variants of the split-level alibi.
Stoker’s novel says: ‘It was not I who did the evil act; it was a dead (or sleeping) form of me.’ Stevenson’s says: ‘It was not I who did the evil act; it was a drugged form of me.’ Wilde’s says: ‘It was not I who did the evil act; it was an artistic form of me.’ This search for freedom from evil was shared by a triad of fin de siècle writers who invented their own ideologies of the splitting of good from evil – Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Stoker’s novel says: ‘It was not I who did the evil act; it was a dead (or sleeping) form of me.’ Stevenson’s says: ‘It was not I who did the evil act; it was a drugged form of me.’ Wilde’s says: ‘It was not I who did the evil act; it was an artistic form of me.’ This search for freedom from evil was shared by a triad of fin de siècle writers who invented their own ideologies of the splitting of good from evil – Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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