Identity In Edgar Allan Poe's William Wilson

Edgar Allan Poe’s 1839 short story “William Wilson” explores a human psychological feature, the alter ego- inhabited by a separate body, much like a doppelganger, following the main character from his childhood to adulthood. Our narrator conceals his identity through the name William Wilson and he considers his alter ego as a whole other individual, therefore alluding that his imagination has gotten the better of him. Poe uses his trademark unreliable narrator and the fact that the narrator’s story is based on his life events to achieve a unified effect of suspense, as the audience is left to question if they should trust this strange man and why he has a ghostly double following him around.
The narrator first characterizes himself as

troubled once he states “Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson” and he declares “that is not my real name”(1).

William Wilson, or what he wishes to be entitled as, continues with a tale of a haunting boy who coincidentally is born the same day as he, goes by the same name and as he became older, “grew more powerful” than him(3). As he guides the audience through his experience at the school of Dr. Bransby, William Wilson constantly repeats how the boy has made many efforts to hold him back, but “no one else saw the battle going on between” them (13). This implies that the boy is part of an imagination and our narrator is most likely insane due to the fact that he cannot distinguish his mental musings from reality. Poe has cleverly utilized the senseless speaker to construct anxiety. For example, Wilson testifies that his double’s “voice, of course could not be as loud as mine, but he

made his manner of speaking the same”(21). We begin to realize that this man has allowed his suspicious imaginings to convince him that his alter ego is a real human being. Poe achieves an uneasy tone as soon as William Wilson states “my knees trembled, my whole spirit was filled with horror” and he describes the sight of his evil twin’s face much like “looking at myself in a looking glass”(29). Leaving his reader hanging off a cliff of uncertainty, Poe writes that William Wilson “left the room and the school forever” once he was frightened by what he saw that night he paid a visit to his doppelganger’s room (30). How is the audience going to rely on a narrator who has a split personality disorder?
Throughout the rest of the story, which is sequentially based on William Wilson’s life, we are left trying to determine reality at the same time that our narrator doubts what he remembers. Thus consolidating that we should not rely on what he says to be the truth. Wilson was sure that escaping his childhood school would also mean he is abandoning his ghostly twin. His thoughts change when he tells about the very short period of time he was Eton, he first says he was delighted, but then becomes uneasy when he “could see the form of a young man” about his “own height, wearing clothes like those I myself was wearing”(35). The audience knows Wilson is attempting to correctly interpret what he sees, and he could possibly be inaccurate. We can relate to his nervousness since all of the proceedings occur in the heat of the moment. Poe manipulates and associates his character’s feelings with his audiences’, which effectively stirs our emotions. The narrator becomes vexed as he was suddenly grasped by the arm and heard a whisper of “William Wilson!” in his ear, realizing it had come from the peculiar man across the room (35). Before leaving for Oxford University, William Wilson had analyzed the event for multiple weeks and was not sure of this stranger’s purposes or where he had originated from. Since he was unable to recognize that the mysterious character was from his childhood, it allows us to question his state of mind even further, however, we are able to understand his increased emotional state due to the connection of tension felt between the audience and Poe’s character.
At the very end of William Wilson’s narrative, he illustrates another part of his life at Oxford University where he was peacefully indulging in card games and dominating over all his opponents.

We begin to wonder why he is dominating since it is questionable that a man with a split personality disorder could intelligently think straight, perhaps the other half of his mind has either given up or does not exist anymore. Then out of nowhere, “the wide heavy doors of the room were suddenly opened. Every light in the room went out”(46). Wilson “had seen that a man entered”(46). The atmosphere created before the man entered solidifies the anticipation that something wicked may happen, but as the narrator realizes the unexplained figure was again very similar to him, the audience concludes that William Wilson from his childhood days has returned once again. Going mad, Poe’s unreliable narrator struggles to escape the presence of his eerie spirit. He stated, “I went from city to city, and in each one Wilson appeared. Paris, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow- he followed me everywhere” (54). Wilson had come to realize that his twin was purposely restricting him both mentally and physically. In one final action he stabbed the immoral figure through the heart thinking it would rid him forever of this wretched individual. Poe cunningly writes passage to put the audience and his character at ease but he then launches them off the edge as William Wilson spots himself standing in a mirror,

covered in his own blood, finally realizing that this paranormal character troubling him had been merely a figment of his imagination. The audience is left relying on the last grain of salt when the doppelganger tells Wilson through his own voice that “In me you lived- and, in my death- see by this face, which is your own, how wholly, how completely, you have killed- yourself!”(63).
Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson” is one of his first short stories to explore a psychological double but still cleverly uses his signature insane narrator to ignite a strong sense of trepidation in his audience. Through the technique of relating the character’s emotions to those of the audience, there is a connection made that ensures thrill and excitement throughout the plot. Poe’s motif of suspense helps to caution his reader about taming their inner emotions, otherwise leading to the death of one’s sane state of mind.