NAME: JULIÁN ANDRÉS TENORIO ORTIZ

CODE: 4306012

DATE: June- 8TH- 2010

RESEMBLANCE CHARACTER’S ID AND EGO THROUGH THE AUTHORS.

During the Victorian period known by it´s double moral in the high society, appeared
greats writers that caused big impact in their time, like : Charles dickens, bran stoker,
Oscar Wilde and Robert Stevenson this last “Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson (1850-
1894) was born in Edinburgh. He was the only son of Thomas Stevenson, a prosperous
joint-engineer to the Board of Northern Lighthouses, and Margaret Balfour, daughter of
a Scottish clergyman“.1 And best known by his famous book “the strange case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde “.

Similarly the Victorian period gave a lot to the psychology field this thanks to Sigmund
Freud “who was born in Freiberg, in Moravia, on 6 th of May 1856. People from here
were Czechs, but Jewish people were talking German and were mostly assimilated to
the Austro-Hungarian ruling class.” 2 He developed the psychoanalytic theory which
studies the structure of the personality (ID, EGO and SUPER-EGO); in this essay it will
use the ID personality that according to Freud “is the primitive mind. It contains all the
basic needs and feelings. It is the source for libido (psychic energy). And it has only
one rule the pleasure principle”.3

To show this kind this kind of personality it will use the book “the strange case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, using Mr. Hyde behavior in contrast with a superhero from our
times the incredible hulk created by Stanley Martin Lieber ( Stan Lee ) “born on
December 28, 1922 is an American writer, editor, former Chairman of Marvel Comics,
and memoirist, he created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Hulk, Thor, Iron
Man, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and many other characters, introducing complex,
naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books”.4

In this case, MR Hyde and the Hulk both fictional characters expresses author`s
feelings in a different way, Stevenson criticized the double moral at his time creating
MR. Hyde, Hyde “appears repulsively ugly and deformed, small, shrunken, and hairy.
His physical ugliness and deformity symbolizes his moral hideousness and warped
5
ethics” this is a symbolic representation of Victorian society.

1
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/rlsteven.htm

2
http://www.freudfile.org/childhood.html

3
http://wilderdom.com/personality/L8-4StructureMindIdEgoSuperego.html

4
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/Stan-Lee/biography/

5
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/jekyll/themes.html
Whereas the Hulk is a green giant being with super strength and when he is angrier,
he is stronger. currently the incredible Hulk is pursuit by the army, who wants to hunt
him no matter what; Stan lee expressed through Hulk what he felt when fought in the
second world war: “ he believed all time he could be attacked by the enemy army”6
And this is suffered by Hulk the most of time.

Stan lee created Hulk based in Mr. Hyde, Stan lee always wanted to be a famous writer
like Stevenson, so he took Stevenson’s character and made Hulk with some differences
like the size and some appearance aspects, but with the same animal behavior and the
same ID.

Nevertheless both characters have a remarkable behavior in many situations, the ID

just is unleash in particular moments; Mr. Hyde unleash his ID at nights when all
horrible things are allow since hit a little girl until murder a person, carried by his ID;
in the book it can observe the evil in Mr. Hyde, while he talks with Utterson, Mr. Hyde
claims: “you make laugh you have saved” 7. It is possible to see how ID control Mr.
Hyde all time, at any time he could kill regardless of who is in front him, in this case
was Utterson a close Dr. Jekyll’s friend.

Likewise, the incredible Hulk is manage by his powerful strength when is angry or
stressed and when this occurs the ID takes the control destroying everything around
him, Dr banner used to say:“ don´t make me angry, you wouldn´t like me when I am
angry” 8. This phrase is used to warn to his enemies about the danger when ID is
unleashing inside him.

In this way is possible to recognize that in both characters the ID is the main behavior
and the only way to give a solution to the problems is unleashing the ID without
regard rules.

Even though, during the book “The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and during
Hulk’s life it has seen evolutions in their personalities, Mr. Hyde with the pass of the
time achieved to manipulate Dr. Jekyll mind, moreover, from here is Mr. Hyde who
decides what will happen with his life, creating a new behavior, he passes from ID to
Ego, because at the very beginning of the story Hyde is just a figure to carry out things
that Dr. Jekyll could not do, but, after Mr. Hyde has the domain of mind and body to
be free of performing.

Additionally, this was carried with Hulk’s as well, although, a little more different and
complicated through story Hulk has suffered many changes at the beginning and just
like Mr. Hyde at nights Bruce Banner became in Hulk, somehow, “Bruce banner has a

6
THE MARVEL ENCYCLOPEDIA (2007).

7
THE BOOK THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.

8
THE MARVEL ENCYCLOPEDIA (2007).
fragmented personality and different Hulks has covered such personality, GREEN
HULK, in the same way, the most famous, animal, besides childish, an intelligent but
weaker GRAY HULK and the most intelligent and the strongest Hulk, PROFESSOR
HULK, as the result from the fusion between Dr. Banner, Gray hulk and Green Hulk.”9
Hence, this process can be compared with Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, where the
Hulks are the ID and Bruce Banner is the Ego, in this way, Stan Lee continued the Mr.
Hyde steps from an ID characters toward an Ego personalities.

Finally, Stevenson showed his thoughts and how he hated his period, when he wrote
the famous book “The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, where he spoke about
the double moral without speak out plainly and he was praised by people of his same
time, while Stan Lee could make a tribute to one of his favorites writers “Stevenson”,
at the same time he showed his worries about war and being pursued by enemies,
obtaining good comments about his creation Hulk who conscious or unconscious he has
resemblance with Mr. Hyde, both terrible appearance as thought evolution; in short,
the incredible Hulk is a Mr. Hyde in our days.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• THE MARVEL ENCYCLOPEDIA (2007).

• THE BOOK THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.

9
THE MARVEL ENCYCLOPEDIA (2007).
 WEBGRAPHY

• http://kirjasto.sci.fi/rlsteven.htm

• http://www.freudfile.org/childhood.html

• http://wilderdom.com/personality/L8-4StructureMindIdEgoSuperego.html

• http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/Stan-Lee/biography/

• http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/jekyll/themes.html