Category: Coffeehouse #3 (Page 1 of 2)

When it comes to the idea of “redemption”, I feel as if it is usually thought of as a way to self validate for past mistakes, another way of thinking about redemption in a religious example would be repenting for your sins. In the story, characters that could be considered “redeemed” would be Jekyll and Hyde. In the story, Jekyll and Hyde are referred to as two separate characters, but there ends up being a moment of realization where it becomes apparent that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. When Dr. Jekyll decides to create this new “persona” to delve into a darker version of himself, he ends up creating Mr. Hyde and essentially doesn’t feel the personal guilt of committing a crime because it’s “Mr. Hyde” committing the crime. Eventually, Dr. Jekyll becomes aware of the fact that he cannot control his dark side (Mr. Hyde) anymore and realizes that the only way that Hyde would be stopped would be by ending his life, but since they are two personalities within the same body, Jekyll would in turn ending his own life as well. When you relate the idea of redemption to both Jekyll and Hyde, the reason as to why they are redeemed would be because they live in the same body, Jekyll deciding to take the life of Hyde is essentially considered suicide because he needs to rid himself of this evil that has overcome his life and cannot control anymore, and back to my religious example, Jekyll is essentially repenting for his sins by getting rid of this personality that he created when exploring the deeper and darker sides of himself to understand how it is to commit crimes, but in a way not commit them since it is not being directly committed by Dr. Jekyll, it is being committed by Mr. Hyde.

In the ending of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the rest of the characters are finally aware of what is going on with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; they find out that they are one individual instead of two. This is made clear in the letter Dr. Jekyll writes to Utterson when he explains the process of exploring his darker nature which he states he has had to conceal all his life. By finding a way to transform into Mr. Hyde, he does not feel guilty or wrong for committing heinous and criminal acts. Although, after a couple of months, Jekyll learns that he is not able to control the switch that occurs between him and Hyde anymore and realizes the only way to end this is to end Hyde’s life which is also his own. 

Redemption, according to the Oxford dictionary, is the act of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil. In the ending, you can say that both Jekyll and Hyde were both redeemed. I say both and not just one because although it is one person, they are referred to as two separate entities; Jekyll physically and sort of mentally becomes a different person when turning into Hyde even though he acknowledges the fact that it is still his own evil side. Jekyll killing himself means that he is also killing Hyde and therefore saving himself from committing sin or being evil since Hyde is his evil self. The error that is corrected is Jekyll putting a stop to his own evil that he brought out with the medicine he created. This is an error because it is a disruption of the natural order or intended outcome for Jekyll’s control over the transformation of his two selves. 

Since killing himself also means killing someone else, Jekyll can be seen as redeeming Hyde from sin and evil. Hyde dying means he will no longer be able to overpower Jekyll’s body and mental state, which is his only vessel that allows Hyde to execute his malicious acts.

when we talk about redemption we often mean the act of atoning ones mistake. dr. jekyll can be used as an example as a redeemed character. in chapter 10, Dr Jekyll confesses in a letter that he created mr.hyde with a potion he invented. the potion brings out jekyll dark side and his lightside. jekyll knowing about the murders that Hyde committed did not sit right with his conscience. he knew Hyde was a evil being that he created. he wanted to fix his mistake but Hyde became too powerful and eventually took over. knowing he was gonna meet his demise very soon jekyll could only do what he was able to do. he wrote a letter confessing the whole truth to redeem him self for his actions and all the evil and bloodshed that came with it

In the  end of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll express his feelings about his redemption while he was confessing in a letter to Mr. Utterson. Dr. Jekyll was confessing about his experiment, the creation of Hyde, and Hyde’s crimes which were also his. Dr. Jekyll is redeeming about the creation of Hyde, his other half. At the end he wanted to reverse the transformation from Hyde to Jekyll but wasn’t able to because the drugs were killing him and making Hyde stronger. Jekyll tried to get rid of Hyde, however, Hyde was getting stronger and Jekyll couldn’t control the transition between the transformations of the two characters. Jekyll feels guilty that his other half is evil and that he is capable of really unforgettable things such as the the death of Sir Danvers who Hyde killed with a wooden stick and the little girl he walk over in the street. Jekyll confesses of how he had to lived a dual life with two different houses and with two different bodies, and very different characters. At one point Jekyll realized that he needed to choose on of his half. And at the end he chose his original self even if he was old and his other half was younger. Therefore, he chose himself because Hyde was pure evil, a very angry man who people didn’t give much attention, someone who was alone without friends who didn’t exist while he was  Jekyll a man with a fine figure and many friends, someone well known. Jekyll feels guilty because whatever Hyde did he did too because at the end they were the same person. Hyde did things that his other half would have never done like being a murderer or treating people badly by being rude and angry with so much rage.  

  Redemption is an act of atoning for a fault or mistake or making up for the errors that were done by a person in the past. Dr. Jekyll most definitely redeemed himself. His redemption was about him putting an end to the sinful acts of Mr. Hyde when Mr. Hyde takes over his body. Dr. Jekyll did this by writing a letter to Mr. Utterson not only confessing but also explaining to him about his experiment which has gone totally wrong. The experiment brought about his evil side (Mr. Hyde) which was not the result he was looking for. As time went on Mr. Hyde started to take full control over him till the point where he thought he was losing power and authority over himself. Mr. Hyde went on to kill, and harm others which were not what Dr. Jekyll will do or even think about. Dr. Jekyll couldn’t live with himself knowing he poses a threat to everyone so he decides to end his life knowing its the only way to put an end to Mr. Hyde’s thirst for blood and devious acts. He explains the reason why he ended his life at the end of his narrative in the letter to Mr. Utterson by saying “Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”  The killings that were done by Mr. Hyde showed he had no remorse and feel no guilt towards them. Even though the sinful acts and murders were done by Dr. Jekyll’s evil side he still has blood on his and he is definitely guilty and should be held accountable for every treacherous deed done by Mr. Hyde. After all its was his own experiment and he should have known that it wasn’t a good experiment to approach when his good friend Dr. Lanyon went against him on it till the point where they ended their friendship.

The ending of this story really threw me off in more ways than I ever expected. It was talking about the death of a character, but I couldn’t tell who it was at first. I thought that it was Hyde, but Hyde was barely mentioned in the story so I knew that it couldn’t be him. However, once Jekyll was mentioned, my heart started to hurt because I thought Jekyll was a good person. He seemed the most composed out of everyone in the entire story whenever Hyde was mentioned. The one thing that surprised me most was that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person. Hyde was Jekyll’s alter ego that he uses to trick other people so they don’t find out his secret. I feel like now that Dr. Jekyll is dead, Mr. Hyde died with him but the ending itself just made me more confused.

We talked about the term redemption throughout this class which in this case deals with proving oneself or making up for something that was done in the past. I personally think that Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll redeemed themselves the most through this entire story. Dr. Jekyll redeemed himself because this whole time he was searching for Mr. Hyde but he seemed to be hiding who he was from everybody for a long time. Now at the end of the story, Dr. Jekyll kind of revealed who Hyde was in a way through his death because Hyde was able to show himself to everyone once Dr. Jekyll was dead. I also think that Mr. Utterson was redeemed as well because he began to open his mind a little more and began to believe in the impossible. He was so close-minded during the story but by the end he began to open his mind and believe in things a little more.

Redemption is hard and as hard as you try too there are just some cases when you rely cant be redeemed because the action where far to grave but still you try and that was Dr.Jekyll. He tried to redeem himself due to the wrong doing of his dark counterpart called Mr.Hyde. This Dark counterpart all cam about because of an experiment designed to split a persons good and bad and Dr.Jekyll went through with this experiment and made a potion to bring about the success of the experiment. In the begging it kinda worked out the way he wanted still Jekyll was excited about it and like his new form of Hyde while he had control and saw he didn’t have to restrain himself as Hyde but later he lost control of Hyde and saw that what that potion instead of separating the good and bad like was thought to happen, instead it brought out ones dark part and gave it a identity its own person to be and that was Dr.Jekyll’s Mr.Hyde. Mr.Hyde was younger than Dr.Jekyll and more evil and started getting stronger and getting control of Dr.Jekyll’s body by turning into himself even when Jekyll didn’t permit or want to. Even though Jekyll wasn’t the one who committed the horrendous acts he still felt responsible because he was the one who brought Hyde in to existence and was the one who gave him so much control over him by getting addicted to drug /potion which made him feel good even though the first time he took it it was a bad feeling but from then on he felt great every time which caused his addiction to it and made him turn into someone younger and evil Hyde himself. What Dr.Jekyll did to try and redeem himself was by writing a letter to Utterson to let him and everyone know of his actions and the truth about Hyde and himself and to take responsibility for the deaths caused by Hyde and gives in the letter a hint of himself committing suicide if he couldn’t find a solution like how he used the salt and it didn’t work he had to find a new solution or else it was his only option and that was exactly what he did because he couldn’t bare anymore of those sins or not being able to remain himself and saw that there was no other solution other than that.

The character that was redeemed was Dr. Jekyll, and the redemption is about his other dark side that had made a multiple sins. Dr. Jekyll was the one redeeming it, by writing a letter to Mr. Utterson and confesses everything that has been happened between him and Edward Hyde. Dr. Jekyll wrote it in the letter himself, how he was testing an experiment and how he added the last ingredient which was salt, and how he drank it and see whether he will die or not; will all depend on his experiment. As he started to developed fever, his face become pale and he began to have nausea, and all of the sudden there was no mirror in his laboratory to see what was happening to him. But he knows that he went through changes, and those changes was that he felt young, short, and happy, but also wicked inside him. Until finally, Dr. Jekyll manage to see an appearance in his room and it was indeed Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll turned into Mr. Hyde, and over changes of two complete different person changing back and forth Dr. Jekyll has no clue to what can happen when he black out and Mr. Hyde took over his body. Mr. Hyde has committed many sins of killing, and without feeling remorse nor guilt, Mr. Hyde has slowly become stronger over the body, and when Jekyll transform back he started to grow weaker, and he finally realizes that Mr. Hyde has done, and he admit that he was also afraid of his dark side and what could happen next. So Dr. Jekyll chose to redeem himself, knowing that Mr. Hyde might rip the letter that he was going to send to Utterson, so he choose leave the letter where Mr. Utterson can find it.

  Redemptions is when someone redeems themselves from sin or wrong fullness and I believe that Dr. Jekyll committed a few errors however redeemed himself in chapter 10. In chapter 10, before Mr. Jekyll’s death and last time being Henry Jekyll, he writes a letter to his good friend Utterson, which explains his side of the story. Dr. Jekyll believed he had a bad side and was guilty of his dark side. He became curious about separating the two sides that everyone has: Good and evil. Dr. Jekyll mixed a few liquids and salt to create a potion and decided to drink it. Jekyll knew that drinking this potion meant that anything could have happened.    

When he drinks the potions in hopes of splitting his good and bad side, he ends up giving his dark side a form. His dark side is ruthless and is evil enough to trample over little girls, hurt an old friend, and murder innocent people. He went by the name of Mr. Hyde. Jekyll would drink a potion to get his dark side but over time he ended up losing control and Mr. Hyde would come out whenever he wanted. The more he transformed, Mr. Hyde would get strong and Dr. Jekyll would get weaker.   

The wrong that Mr. Jekyll has done was giving his suppressed dark side shape and form. By doing this he didn’t just risk himself but for others around him. When Hyde made his sins with no remorse, Mr. Jekyll suffers from the feeling of guilt and tries to redeem what his evil side did. Dr. Jekyll redeemed himself by getting rid of Hyde once and for all while sacrificing himself. In the end, Dr. Jekyll which is stuck in Hyde’s body drinks poison and is found on the floor. Overall, in this story, I believe there is a hidden message which is also known as allegory. The message is that we all have a good and bad side, the important thing is to never let our bad side take us over or else we will self-sabotage ourselves.  

The meaning of redemption in the literature can be defined as the salvation of a soul from a sin committed by a character usually from an evil error. In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” there was a various moment where it seemed like Dr. Jekyll was defending and trying to cover Mr. Hyde and it was not until the very end of the novel that we got a full view of the transformation of Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde in Dr. in Lanyon’s narrative, in chapter 9, even though we suspected it in previous chapters. After the death of Dr. Jekyll (Mr. Hyde after he drank poison to end his life), we were presented in chapter 10 with the letter written by Dr. Jekyll explaining his experiment and what was he trying to create but at the end, he could not control the transformation. He reveled and clarified to us various moments that kept us wondering throughout the novel for a while. In this chapter, Dr. Jekyll tried to redeem himself to avoid putting everyone in danger and avoid suffering but eventually, it became powerful and Hyde was taking over him until a point that he could not control it. It was becoming part of his nature. At the end of the narrative he explains the reason for ending his life by saying “Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.” at the end of his letter, which reveals to us that he lived very unhappy throughout his life and there was nothing else he could do to avoid the danger to society. Now, a question to think about, was this experiment another failure of his? Now we are able to think about the disagreement between the two doctors.