American Literature: Romanticism Student Midterm Submissions 2016 (midterm assignment) 2b. Short Essay 2b. Choose a previously-read literary text . . .

Jessica Myers

10/12/2016

Doppelganger: Splitting of Selves

          In Romanticism, the doppelganger represents a dark, gothic element of a moment of the uncanny. Although this moment was first seen in the European Romantic movement, it carried over to American Romanticism. One of the first doppelgangers appears in Heinrich Heine’s German poem, “Still ist die Nacht, es ruben die Gassen.” Heine explores the uncanny moment where a past and present self behold one another. Whereas, in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “William Wilson,” the narrator physically grapples with his conscience. In both pieces, a splitting of the self occurs that questions the individuality of the speaker.

Heine questions the individuality of the speaker by splitting him into past and present selves. In his poem, “Still ist die Nacht, es ruben die Gassen,” the speaker experiences a moment of the uncanny when he beholds the “pale face” of a person he believes to be a stranger until the “the moon shows [him] [his] own features again!” (Heine 7,8). The experience of coming face to face with himself allows the speaker to see pain from the past that he’s currently feeling in the present. This odd moment gives the speaker the opportunity to explore both past and present emotions of grief. The speaker cries out, “You [doppelganger], you specter with my face / Why do you mock my love-pain so / That tortured me here, here in this place / So many nights, so long ago?” (Heine 9-12). By combining the past and present selves in one moment, Heine examines how the past self informs and guides the present self. Although the speaker feels mocked by this shadow from his past, he is given an outlet to probe his grief and seek resolution. Here, the schism of the self is less hostile because it brings about closure and potential healing of the individual.

Poe, on the other hand, explores the idea of whether or not an individual can be a complete person if he cuts himself off from his conscience. In “William Wilson,” the narrator begins a rivalry with a fellow student who not only happens to share his name but also looks similar to himself, thus causing him to question his own temperament and actions as the two attempt to thwart one another. The narrator confesses, “I secretly felt that I feared [Wilson] and could not help thinking the equality which he maintained so easily with myself, a proof of his true superiority; since not to be overcome cost me a perpetual struggle” (14). In Wilson, the narrator glimpses something that is familiar, yet foreign. The goodness of the doppelganger makes Wilson foreign to the narrator. The narrator is concerned with Wilson’s superiority of character which brings into question the narrator’s own ability to be dominant over his doppelganger. He wants to escape from Wilson who questions his actions and challenges him to be a better man. Is he really being true to himself if he allows Wilson to interfere with his questionable actions?

Although Poe sets up Wilson to be the narrator’s better half, the phantom doppelganger causes the narrator to face the consequences of his despicable actions by outing him in his own dubious way. In the end when the narrator violently stabs Wilson to death, Wilson warns the narrator by saying, “‘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’” (57).  By killing his conscience, who takes the person of Wilson, the narrator creates a schism within himself. This schism destroys the narrators’ personhood because he is no longer a whole complete person. The endless struggle between both halves of the self created a space for the complete individual. However, with only one half remaining, the narrator will only be a shadow of his former self, which transforms him into a ghostlike figure. Poe creates the dilemma of whether or not a person can be an individual if they only have half a self.

          Both Poe’s short story, “William Wilson,” and Heine’s poem, “Still ist die Nacht, es ruben die Gassen,” question the wholeness of an individual by splitting the individual into different selves. The speaker’s encounter with his past self allows him to grapple with his grief and potentially find closure. However, the narrator’s murder of his doppelganger permanently creates a rift in his psyche. These two experiences reveal that the wholeness of an individual is dependent upon the ability to create balance within the subconscious. Struggling within oneself is healthy, but cutting oneself off completely can lead to ruin.