Ok. So I’ve been wanting to do this post for awhile, but only remembered that I am late posting. So I’ll dive right into the heart of this post. One of the key elements in both From Hell and Hawksmoor is the loss of sanity that each character undergoes throughout the course of the novel. I don’t know how many of you might know this, but I love video games. I cannot simply get enough of them. As such, my friends and I stayed up one night playing through a video game called “Amnesia: The Dark Descent.” The progression of the game involves the main character slowly losing his sense of self and his sanity, much in the same way that Sir William Gull and Hawksmoor lost themselves in their work. The game starts out fairly slow, the main character seems to have recently taking a potion that gave him amnesia (hence the game’s title). The main plot of the game is that protagonist has to figure out who he is/was and why he gave himself amnesia. The player comes to find out that he began studying under a man who seeks the secret to life, replication of the Philosopher’s Stone. His studies cause the main character to start experimenting and learning his masters art and soon the protagonist decided to began murdering and studying the physiology of humans. The descriptions are quite graphic in nature, much like the murders in From Hell. The ending involves the main character redeeming himself and killing his former master. Like Hawksmoor and Gull, the main character starts to lose sight of who he is and begins swaying towards the dark and mystical side of “witchcraft.” For Hawksmoor, his Pagan beliefs profoundly shaped his concept an perception of reality. For Gull, the same can be said of his Freemason background. The only difference in the character from “Amnesia” and Gull/Hawksmoor is that the protagonist eventually rediscovers his inner-humanity and works to fix his wrongs. Both Hawksmoor and Gull embrace their darker sides and express themselves through their mysterious cults. Gull and Hawksmoor are proud of what they both achieve and believe that their respective ideologies are noble and just. In this way, both characters lost themselves, but managed to create new versions of themselves that they found preferable.
Another structural concept that Hawksmoor (From Hell somewhat) and “Amnesia” both incorporate is the distortion of time within events of the story. In Hawksmoor, this effect was created by having two separate, but parallel timelines, one in the past and one in the future. This concept is discussed in more detail in the Derive part of this blog. From Hell barely approaches this aspect, but the story has some sense of time dilation. For instance, the majority of the novel takes place in a pseudo-flashback depicting the origin and rise of Jack the Ripper. The novel also has large nuances of Gull’s dark and mysterious personality. Witnessing his transformation into possibly the most famous serial killer in history has kind of the same effect as the parallel timelines in Hawksmoor. In “Amnesia,” the player has no idea what is going on for certain until almost the very end. Tis lack f understanding and comprehension causes the player to be more jittery and tense than anyone would be if he were playing say Mario or Halo where there isn’t much need for a well structured plot. Because “Amnesia” has a plot AND you don’t actually find out about it almost halfway through the game, the player has no sense of what is going on and what to expect.
Mapping London 
I found it extremely interesting how you compared two very different mediums that actually possessed a lot of similar qualities and traits. You mentioned that in this game, the main character loses his sense of self in addition to his sanity. I would most definitely agree that this is the case especially in the novel, From Hell. Although Dr. Gull does not suffer from amnesia like the character in the game, he suffers for numerous other reasons. Furthermore, you also mentioned that the main character in the game must try to determine his identity, and Dr. Gull learns more about his persona as the novel advances. In fact, Gull’s actions are directly impacted as he learns more about his true self.
I do see the connection in both books as a journey to insanity. Gull as well as Nicholas Dyer both lose their sanity, oddly enough almost in the same way. Gull starts his killing spree with clear intentions, but as time goes on he starts to lose clarity and fades in and out of reality. Nicholas does this very same thing. He kills for ritual and purpose, but as his murders continue on he slowly slips into madness.
There is also the connection between both books in that each likes to journey to the future. Both though are rather confusing to me as novel devices, especially From Hell. I understand that in Hawksmoor that’s the gimmick that its two stories interwoven together through locations in different time spaces, but with Gull’s flash forwards I do not understand the point. I feel it distracts from the novel’s conclusion of a sad dramatic ending.
I have heard of the game amnesia and I liked the sound of it. Your opinion has added to me letting go of my wallet and shelling out twenty bucks. This is all a side note of course.
Interesting how you compared a game to two novels. Although I have never played the game before, but it does seem like there are a lot of similarities between the two novels and the game. I like how you compared the different characters view of murder. In the three stories, Dyer, Gull, and the main character were initially all proud of the murders they were doing. This reminds me of people like Hitler, and I started to wonder how can these people cause more harm when their intentions, at least to themselves, were good? It made me think that good and bad is a very subjective thing and as humans we tend to define good as those things that are beneficial to ourselves. This would lead to decisions that can harm others.
This brings up a question I just thought of. A lot of people commit sin in the society, some repent like the main character in Amnesia and others die without guilt, like Dyer, but can the fact that a person repent make him a good person again? Or just the fact that someone committed murder makes him a horrible person forever? I am asking this question because some countries approve of execution and I was wondering how an execution, a democratic form of murder, can clean the sins of a murderer. But another question would be I know that there are people who are jailed for life. They are jailed for life because people don’t think this person is beneficial in the society. But what’s the point? If a person will never provide good to the society and we decided to keep him in jail for life, how would that differ from murdering him? In fact why should we even keep people, jailed for life, alive when all they are going to do is consume our scarce resource but provide no benefit at all?