LITR 4328 American Renaissance / Model Assignments

Sample Student Research Project 2015: Journal

Tamara Valencia

The Psychology of the Doppelganger in Romantic Literature

Introduction

After doing the discussion lead on Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, I developed a curiosity regarding inquiring deeper into the use of “twinning” or the doppelganger in Romantic works. Authors use various methods to make specific points, or to convey a certain meaning to their prose. Devices like symbols such as the eyes might represent something dark and mysterious. While themes can be analogous to love and hate, death over living, or self-versus-other. Taking this idea, I want to inform and surprise readers with examples of “joining” throughout literature. My intent is to focus on Edgar Allan Poe’s works, Ligeia, William Wilson, and The Fall of the House of Usher, as well as Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and Shelley’s Frankenstein, to draw attention to, and explain the use of twinning, or the doppelganger in Romantic works.

Terms and devices

Color codes (light/dark)

Esoteric/mysterious

Mimesis

Phenomena/Spectacle

Double entendre

Mirroring

Twinning/joining/doppelganger

Mimesis and Twinning in Literature

When researching about twinning or the doppelganger, I happened to come about information related to mimesis on Dr. White’s terms pages. Introduced first in Aristotle’s Physics, mimesis is art as it imitates reality, nature, and life. Being as the human condition is developed within the psyche of an individual, and being as great authors are, of course, inherently human, I have come to the conclusion that this interest or fascination with twinning lies within the human psyche as mimesis, or imitation. I mean it is akin to imitation. For it is my opinion that humans do indeed repeat and imitate their parents and nature, well-naturally as a part of learning.  Twinning is both gothic and psychological because it explores the interior maze within the human mind.

Interplay of twinning in Literature

          What draws me in, what fascinates me is the various devices used by authors to irradiate and enlighten. Some examples are, the light and dark as it interplays with shades of gray, in gothic novels and tales. There are so many Gothic notations and images of the dark lady and the fair lady, the interchange and comparison of death and life, and doubling or twinning of things and people in gothic tales. This interplay can be examined and lead me to look at how authors use devices that allow the reader a sense of being intertwined within the novel as explained on our website (White terms and themes, Gothic).  Dr. White adds the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a double entendre: which is “A double meaning; a word or phrase having a double sense, esp. as used to convey an indelicate meaning” (White web, terms and themes, Double entendre). A double understanding of the text. These devices are used as foreshadowing to the climax of a novel, and phenomena or spectacle in literature. In my research on the subject I came about an article from Ball State University by Mathew Fisher. He reviews John Herdman’s article where the “composition of the double itself” is examined “The content expressed by the fiction double,” as he puts it, which, according to Herdman, is mostly theological and psychological (Fisher, Reviews), I note that, this play between representations of what is good and bad are used in gothic literature in setting, characterizations, and internal conflicts (opposition) within oneself. The battle between good and evil, what is considered divine and demonic all are ingrained within the human experience.

Poe and his doppelgangers and other devises

In Poe’s theory of poetics, the author discusses poems as “termed [as] a long poem, [but] in fact [it’s] merely a succession of brief ones . . . of brief poetical effect” (White website, Poe-The Philosophy of Composition). Thus, Poe points to repletion, joining stanza to stanza, which can be thought of as a form of psychological twinning, aesthetically anyway, formed in such a way to intensify, and excite the soul however briefly (White website, Poe-The Philosophy of Composition). Poe is a master of suspense, and the macabre and he uses twinning throughout his works to create a sense of foreboding. Poe expresses his belief that, “the most perfect subject for poem is the death of a beautiful woman” (White website, Poe). In many of his poems and tales, the narrator is the grieving lover of the beauty who lived, but died, and lives again within the heart. Poe does not limit twinning to characterizations though. In As I stated previously, Poe uses Gothic notations and images of the dark lady and the fair lady, the interchange and comparison of death and life, and doubling or twinning of things and people to submerge his readers within the story.

Ligeia

Here is a passage from the text of Ligeia, where one can see doubling developing: “The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building . . . the many melancholy and time-honored memories connected with both, had much in unison with the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and unsocial region of the country” (White, website, Poe, Ligeia, 14). The theme in Ligeia that is most prominent is Poe’s representation of psychic survival through reincarnation (White, Ligeia). Poe presents Ligeia - the character of the dark; the mysterious one. The narrator’s memories haunt as he recalls her strangely brilliant and clever mind as reflected through her dark mysterious eyes and raven hair. He compares in a description of his new bride: “my bride—as the successor of the unforgotten Ligeia—the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine”; who is light with blond hair and blue eyes, beautiful and intelligent in her own right, but alas, she dies as well (White website, Poe, Ligeia 14. She lies in her crypt and her husband sees her with color to her face, Rowena awakes, recovering from death but for a moment, but who? Who is this creature before him?  It is Ligeia, incarnate. It is Ligeia, not Rowena he sees; a half of the other half—dead but half dead.

William Wilson

          “'You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead—dead to the World, to Heaven, and to hope! In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself’” (White, Poe ).

Psychology of the mind? Separate but together? Two but one? Is it imagined or a true second, cloned self. Doubling and twinning, are prominent in Poe’s work, and William Wilson is a prime example of psychological twinning or doubling. As Francavilla, notes in his article Double Voice and Double Vision: Doubling in Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka, “Psychologists Otto Rank and Sigmund Freud see the double as an uncanny manifestation of the return of the repressed. These double figures are always bound together by the principles of similarity and contiguity” (Francavilla). He also notes how, when examining the doubling in works by these authors, that the twinning, “is involved in a reciprocal relationship with the other self . . ., in Poe’s stories, the victimizer and victim . . . identify with each other and . . . exchange roles” (Francavilla). I concur.  Let us look at the text for clues:

Gasping for breath, I lowered the lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these—these the lineaments [features] of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were his, but I shook as if with a fit of the ague in fancying they were not. What was there about them to confound me in this manner . . .? Was it, in truth, within the bounds of human possibility, that what I now saw was the result, merely, of the habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation? Awestricken, and with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp, passed silently from the chamber, and left at once, the halls of that old academy, never to enter them again (White, Poe, 28).

The narrator is confronted with himself. His alter ego, his angelic side, speaking out against the darkness within his heart. Ah, the darkness so does try to repress the light. To no avail. The battle between evil and good continues.

The fall of the House of Usher

True to his romantic style, “gothic relation in his writings prevail, but his works continue past setting with an expansion of the twinning of two things” (White, Poe). Mirroring as in The Fall of the House of Usher" the narrator notices the “insufferable gloom [upon his first view of the mansion] [which] pervaded my spirit"(3). The “estate” is mirroring the “state” (my emphasis) of the family of Usher which has been declining for quite a time period. Poe “twins” the house and the family, and the deterioration is mirroring the familial “House of Usher”, as the blood line comes to an end, with no heir.  The Narrator, observes this decay- [and] “A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins” (25). After some close scrutiny, he realizes the master and his sister are twins. More of Poe’s doubling is apparent. “Their correspondence is so near that you can't tell one's feelings or ideas from the others” (White, Poe, House of Usher).

Other Literary Works with Twinning or Doubling

Jane Eyre

The novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is sometimes labeled as a bildungsroman, or coming of age story, but Jane Eyre is the quintessential Romance novel. It can also be labeled as a Gothic romance, with the climax occurring at the dark, classic, gothic home of Rochester, Thornfield Hall. Filled with several floors, suits, and long drapes, tapestries hide secret doors to curiously forbidden, dangerous suits that Jane perceives as containing monstrous creatures. This monstrous being is Jane’s doppelganger, the mad wife of Rochester, Bertha. My research on the subject discovered an article by Nicole Diederich, from the University of Findlay, entitled Gothic Doppelgangers and Discourse: Examining the Doubling Practice of (Re) marriage in Jane Eyre. The article covers a variety of doublings that can be studied including race, marriage, gender, and social class. She quotes Gilbert and Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic: “Bertha has functioned as Jane’s dark double throughout the governess’s stay at Thornfield. Specifically, every one of Bertha’s appearances—or, more accurately, her manifestations—has been associated with an experience (or repression) of anger on Jane’s part” (1). Here, Bronte uses an altar ego, one who represents Jane’s frustrations with social gender and class restrictions.

Frankenstein

          I could not leave the subject of doppelgangers in romance novels without covering Shelley’s Frankenstein. The doubling is obvious and can be studied from so many angles. It is a subject that continues to fascinate. A point I like to examine is the doubling or twinning of the monster and Dr. Frankenstein. It is the main theme. For, even modern day, the two are confused with the monster being called Frankenstein, when Frankenstein is the sir name of the doctor. Who is the true monster? In his article an overview of Frankenstein, George V. Griffith, says this:             

His hope to create a being “like myself” is fulfilled in the monster whose murders we must see as expressions of Victor's own desires. . . Driven by remorse, he wanders “like an evil spirit,” his own wandering a mirror image of the monsters. When we see both in the outer frame of the book, Victor pursues the monster, but it is the monster who has pursued Victor, whom he calls “my last victim.” Since Victor's story is a story of creation, murder, investigation, and pursuit, Frankenstein is ultimately a book about our pursuit of self-discovery, about the knowledge of the monster within us (7).

Conclusion

Wow, it is exciting that I chose to research doppelgangers in romance literature, because I have found a vast array of sub-topics to explore further. I hope that my study can be used in some manner to encourage others to pursue their own “doppelgangers” for future knowledge and wisdom. Art mimics life and poets and writers transliterate that which is within the heart and soul of man.

Works Cited

Aristotle’s Physics,

          Diederich, Nichole A. "Gothic Doppelgangers and Discourse; Examining the Doubling Practice of (Re) Marriage in Jane Eyre." Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 6.3 (2010): 9. Web. 1 May 2015.

Fisher, Mathew David. "Reviews." Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (1993): 204. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 May 2015.

Francavilla, Joseph Vincent. "Double Voice and Double Vision: Doubling in Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka." Order No. 8812339 State University of New York at Buffalo, 1988. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 17 May 2015.

Griffith, George V. "An overview of Frankenstein." Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2015. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 May 2015.

White, Craig, website, Poe- Ligeia,

White Craig, website, Poe-the fall of the house of usher

White, Craig, website, Poe-William Wilson

White, Craig, website, Poe-The Philosophy of Composition)

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