The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hide

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by Robert L. Stevenson that was first published in 1886. Only in 1912 James Cruze made the movie.
The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often spuriously called split personality , wherein within the same person there are two distinct personalities. In this case, the two personalities in Dr Jekyll are apparently good and evil, with completely opposite levels of morality. The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next.

Portrait of Dorian Gray

The novel is set in London of the nineteenth century. Talk of Dorian Gray, a young man of extraordinary beauty, purity, simplicity, capable of transmitting unique feelings to those around him. The story begins in the studio of painter Basil Hallward, a man endowed with special sensitivity and test strong feelings for this guy, which is running the portrait. Along with him is Lord Henry Wotton, cynical and mentor with particular elegance.
Lord Henry will have a decision role in the life of Dorian,who know their Hallaward in fact, with his speeches very articulate, capture the attention of yhis guy,making him, little by little, almost the embodiment of his way of thinking.
Dorian in fact, after a long conversation with Lord Wotton, begins to look to youth as something really important, so try to be the envy of his portrait, beautiful and eternally young. This led him to conclude a "pact with the devil", by which remain eternally young and beautiful, while the picture will show signs of physical decline and moral character.
Will never reveal to anyone the existence of the painting, only to Hallward, then kill in a moment of madness fueled by criticism of the painter. Every so often, however, goes secretly in the attic to check and taunt his portrait that ages more and more every day, but that also creates many regrets and fears. Until, at the end of the novel, tired of the weight that the picture makes him feel, hoping to free himself from the wicked life he was leading, with a knife pierces the framework, the same with whom he had killed Hallward, considering it because of its evils as creator of the work.
His servants will find next to the pristine picture, an unrecognizable and prematurely withered Dorian Gray, who died at the foot of the painting with a knife stuck in his heart.

Hamlet

« To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep…
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. »

(Hamlet, act three, scene one)


It is one of the most famous phrases of the literature of all time, and was the subject of several studies and different interpretations. The existential questions of life (being) or die (not be) is at the root of Hamlet's indecision to act to prevent.

Il fù Mattia Pascal, Pirandello. The tribute of a live man to a private grave.

"But you are dead! Your legal domicile is in the cemetery of Musocco, common field 44, No pit 550 ...

Any protest of the man who said he wanted to be living in vain. The Casati is proposed to recognize its rights to ... resurrection, and as soon rectified, as he is concerned, marital status, the alleged widow remarried will annulled the second marriage.

Meanwhile, the strange adventure has plagued the point Casati: indeed it seems that he put in a good mood and eager for adventure, he wanted to make a trip to ... his tomb in homage to his memory, he laid on the mound a fragrant bouquet of flowers and lit a candle votive you! "

(Il fù Mattia Pascal, Pirandello)