Samantha Ehle Week 3: Half of a Whole

An inevitable question that comes up with identical twins is, Which twin am I talking to? or I’m close with one twin but not the other, but I can’t tell which one I’m talking to is… or What if they were to swap places in their classes or jobs? In the standalone manga My Gemini, twins Jekyll and Hyde—originally from gothic horror novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson—in fact do pretend to be each other, with outsiders being unable to tell who is who, bar the protagonist, John Utterson.

In this game of theirs, they deliberately created two different personalities with different quirks, ranging from slightly different hairstyles to polar opposite personalities. 

This distinction strangely leads to the question that their friend John, the only one who can tell them apart, has: after one of the twins die, which one was the one who was remaining?

Hyde, duh.

The one who is dead is Jekyll. Everyone says this, it’s the name on the gravestone, the other twin directly says that he’s Hyde.

Still, one time when John and Hyde were walking together, inexplicably, John felt the twin left alive was Jekyll, acting as Hyde.

This little moment of unsurety paints the plot for the rest of the book. John undergoes a series of strange circumstances in his journey to figure out which twin was left alive: “Jekyll” sent him letters from beyond the grave, Hyde got bedridden from sickness despite his robust constitution, and John saw a “ghost” of Jekyll through a window of an abandoned building. Sure, these all could have reasonable explanations: prank, overexhaustion from grief, and a painting. In the end, this culminates in a reveal of the true identity of the twin that was left alive through, of all things, a cryptic message from one of the school’s prefects that was simply informing Hyde of his upcoming eye-doctor appointment.

Throughout this book, Morikawa discusses topics ranging from being an identical twin, pretending to be other people and motivations for such, a wish to be anyone else but yourself, and the manifestations of grief after losing half of who you are.

Comments

  1. AudreySeptember 30, 2026 at 9:23 PM

    Hi Samantha! I found your summary of the book pretty interesting. I don’t read many novels, but I found it interesting how the book created a vision for the reader on what it’s like to mistake identical twins from a third person (kind of supernatural) perspective. In relation to getting confused with identical twins, I can relate to how they visually appear the exact same at first. However, once I got to know the pair, I started to notice all the small differences that build their persona. I find it quite interesting in how the mind takes notes of all these little details to build someone’s character.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shon Week 1 - 🧿

Image
My grandma, who lives in India, came to stay with us this past summer, bringing various traditions and, most importantly, great snacks from my ancestral homeland. Even though I am ethnically Indian, all these traditions seemed foreign to me, since I have not visited India in the last fifteen years.  The one thing that stood out to me was one day when I was getting prepared to take my daily shower. While I was picking up my towel and outfit for the day, my grandma suggested that I mix in some kitchen salt in a bucket of water and douse myself in the mixture before starting my shower to remove my “nazar”.   Nazar, a Hindi word, directly translates to evil eye (🧿), or in other words, all the bad juju from all the jealousy, envy, and malice wished upon you by other people. Don’t worry, submerging yourself in salt water is not the only way. Through hearing my friends’ stories, I learned a couple more defenses : circling red chillies and lemons around your head then burning th...
Read more

Naeva Week 1 - Slang: Identity or Impersonation?

Image
Week 1: Slang: Identity or Impersonation? - 08/26 [9:13 PM] Slang has always been an incredibly important factor in identity. Slang can be a defining factor on how people are perceived, the groups that people surround themselves with, and the individuality that is promoted within specific regions. This article by American University Magazine, titled “ 3 Minutes on Slang ”, explores the connection between slang and how it influences identity, generational language, and regional differences.  For a brief summary, the article starts off by characterizing slang as language that changes from below. Rather than learning language from teachers and institutions, slang comes from different youth subcultures and builds over time generation by generation. The article explains how slang creates individuality, whether it be generational differences in slang or culture-specific dialogue. The example cited is one we are all very familiar with, the “67” meme, coined by Gen Alpha to mark the shift ...
Read more

Sanshray Vakkalagadda Week 1 - Losing Yourself

Image
     Identity is such a powerful tool that everyone possesses, but is so easily squashed under the influence of those with enough “power” to preach to others what to believe. I think that more of us need to start respecting our identities. I especially hate to see people replace their own beliefs with propaganda promoted by some slop media company.      At the same time, I’m not saying that people should have a rigid set of beliefs and thoughts, but people should think critically about the media they consume and persuasive ideas that they come across. When people let themself outsource their idea and belief generation to someone else, they lose important parts of their identity that they might not be able to get back. Once they stop creating their own sense of identity, are they the same person they were before, or are they nothing more than a product of their algorithm? Is their algorithm even tuned to them at that point or tuned to what a media company wa...
Read more