An Unfettered Howl

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is a novel which says much about human nature; throughout the story, a soul is reincarnated throughout time, however the identities (personality, mannerisms, etc.) of the people, the soul inhabits, are not homogenous but rather like malleable vessels: shaped by nature, nurture, and occurrences in life (“You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” C.S Lewis). But the various people the soul inhabits are human beings; human beings, however different they may appear to be, belong to one species. And every human being is always battling against his or her own nature (natural selection (selfishness). Mitchell rhetorically asks, “Why fight the “natural” order of things?” He answers, “Why? Because of this: - one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw... such a world will come to pass. And although your life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean, what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?” (507). Mitchell believes although our lives are limited in power, as a collective whole we can create change; it is possible for Adam Ewing to create a world, “ I want Jackson to inherit,” (508). (Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.”- Lionel Shriver).

Many writers, philosophers, and religious icons dedicated, and continue to dedicate their lives to understanding and shaping human nature. Upon reviewing Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde immediately came to mind. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a novel published in 1886 about a man named Dr. Henry Jekyll, who seeking to separate his immoral desires (Mitchell would describe as the natural) from his philanthropic self creates a potion, transforming him into a malicious and menacing man, free from conscience, named Mr. Hyde. And although Dr. Jekyll enjoys his liberation from morality, he soon realizes he is involuntarily turning into Mr. Hyde when lucid and unconscious in sleep. Unable to concoct the potion which transformed Mr. Hyde back into Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Jekyll locks himself in his laboratory and commits suicide (It is ambiguous whether or not Mr. Hyde or Dr. Jekyll is the culprit of the suicide).

In Cloud Atlas, the duality of man is manifested metaphorically within the rising and falling in every story and in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde it is made visible through the physical transformation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And if Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is read as an allegory about human nature, than David Mitchell's words, “the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction,” (508) are valid. Mr. Hyde is a consequence of an action, created by a desire; he is not the cause of Dr. Jekyll's death any more than smoke is the cause of suffocation. It is the desire (and failure) to transcend morality which is the begetter of the Dr. Jekyll's death; Mr. Hyde is an embodiment of Mitchell's ideas of human nature (selfishness). And if we attempt to divorce ourselves from a moral sense of life and descend into a character like Mr. Hyde, according to Robert Louis Stevenson and David Mitchell we will destroy ourselves. And the world presented in the chapter Sloosha's Crossin' An' Ev'rthin' After in Cloud Atlas may not be far off.

Thoughts on human nature which vary and/or oppose Mitchell's ideas are prevalent in the world and I don't desire to make a case which implies he is surely correct. C.S Lewis believes, "Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it." The Dali Llama has a similar opinion, “Human beings are not intrinsically selfish, which isolates us from others. We are essentially social animals who depend on others to meet our needs. We achieve happiness, prosperity and progress through social interaction. Therefore, having a kind and helpful attitude contributes to our own and others' happiness.” But there are those who oppose this idea. Nietzsche writes, “ This is the antimony: Insofar as we believe in morality we pass sentence on existence,” and Marquis de Sade writes, “ Nature, who for the perfect maintenance of the laws of her general equilibrium, has sometimes need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse, now that one, in accordance with what she requires.” I quote these writers and philosophers to make evident opinions on morality are as varied as personalities within human persons. But like the reincarnations in Cloud Atlas they are strung together by a similarity; they, like all of us, are concerned about morality, ethics, and how to best live one's life.

The last quote I want to leave everyone with (regarding morality) is from George Batailles, “The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil,” Rather than attempting to create moralities, which fans away asphyxiating smoke (not always in the right direction), perhaps we should attempt to locate and extinguish the fire, and its architect. One might argue such a feat is impossible and even if it wasn't, I am but a single person: a single drop of water, a shapeless cloud, or a small tuft of heated air. To which I would reply, have you ever witnessed a hurricane?