how do they see themselves? - for both, but also how do they see each other?
For Jekyll, how he sees himself changes based on whether or not it is pre-Hyde or post-Hyde:
PRE-HYDE, Jekyll sees himself as a brilliant but misunderstood scientist. He’s confident in his knowledge and his scientific pursuits. But he’s not at all confident in his looks, his personality, or anything like that. He sees himself as A GOOD PERSON who’s trying to do the right thing, but… he also kind of sees himself as someone who’s strange or weird, disguising himself to try and fit into society. Smart, but misunderstood.
POST-HYDE, Jekyll sees himself as a man who’s made a MASSIVE MISTAKE. He sees himself as careless for not thinking harder about the experiment. He sees himself as a good man who’s created a MONSTER… and as time goes on, he starts to realize that he himself might also be a monster. He questions his sanity a LOT, and he often wonders whether or not his critics were right to call him a MAD SCIENTIST. But he pities himself. He sees himself as a tortured soul, like the ones poets describe. But it’s important to note that he also sees himself as RESILIENT, unwilling to give in to Hyde’s demands without a fight. That resilience slowly starts to decline as time goes on, but that’s a topic for another day. But in conclusion, post-Hyde… JEKYLL HATES HIMSELF.
JEKYLL SEES HYDE as the monster, the beast, the embodiment of EVERYTHING EVIL in all men. He wanted to separate good from evil; in his eyes, Hyde IS said evil. He despises Hyde with every fiber of his being, but I think he knows deep down that Hyde is a part of him, and that all the evil things he does were once contained within Jekyll. He just refuses to ACCEPT THAT. Jekyll sees absolutely no redeeming qualities in Hyde and regrets the experiment COMPLETELY.
HYDE SEES JEKYLL as an absolutely moronic idiot of a man, a mad scientist, and everything in between. Hyde sees Jekyll as the force that’s holding him back from reaching his FULL POTENTIAL. He thinks Jekyll is suppressing him, trapping him, SUFFOCATING HIM… but he also thinks Jekyll is weak for not being able to FULLY hold him back. He sees Jekyll as absolutely DELUSIONAL — a man that pretends to be good, but is actually not too far from evil himself. Hyde taunts him about this all the time, which brings me to ANOTHER point: in a strange, off-putting way, Hyde sees Jekyll as HIS PLAYTHING, a man he’s free to torture and taunt whenever he wants to. He sees Jekyll as a challenge: a challenge to BREAK HIS SANITY. But he also despises Jekyll with every fiber of his being, and he wants nothing more than to TAKE OVER Jekyll’s body for himself.
HYDE SEES HIMSELF as someone powerful, unstoppable, dangerous, and just plain EVIL. He also sees himself as extremely intelligent, able to play his cards JUST RIGHT. He thinks he can survive almost anything, and he doesn’t see danger as problem; rather, he sees it as a CHALLENGE. He’s cocky and way too overconfident, but in his mind, everything has always worked out before, so why should he doubt himself? He sees himself as someone EXCITING, someone who enjoys life, and someone who gets pleasure from the pain of others — A SADIST. He owns that title with pride. He sees himself as an irresistible challenge for potential lovers, and as someone who’s very skilled with a knife. Overall, he LOVES HIMSELF and everything about himself — except for the fact that Jekyll keeps him suppressed.
