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The purpose of this paper is to examine the problem of two selves or split personality in Dickens's last uncompleted work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The work begins with a description of John Jasper's confused and opium-dreaming consciousness. The contrast of the oriental imagery with the grim Cloisterham cathedral in the opening suggests the theme of this work, which turns out to be Jasper's division between "the outwardly respectable choirmaster" and "the inwardly hopeless opium-addict and murderer." Under the cover of respectability he is suppressing his dark ambition or aspiration, which asserts itself as an ardent love for Rosa Bud, fiancée of Edwin Drood. This "return of the repressed" also explains his murdering Edwin Drood, his only nephew. Jasper makes up a conspiracy to attribute the homicide to Neville Landless, a blackish English from Ceylon, who is re-created as the demonic and savage Neville according to Jasper's scheme. He doesn't hesitate to devise a plot and distort reality to serve his dark purpose. Jasper, compared with Bradley Headstone, another split character in Our Mutual Friend, receives no sympathy from readers, which not only explains his utter diabolism but reflects Dickens's deepening pessimism.
