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William Wilson (1839)

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Inventor of the detective story. Born in Boston to professional actors; his ... Wilson is wearing the same 'white cassimere morning frock' as narrator (30) ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: William Wilson (1839)


1
William Wilson (1839)
  • Edgar Allan Poe

2
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
  • American Romantic poet, short story writer, and
    critic famous for portraying states of horror and
    perversity. Inventor of the detective story.
  • Born in Boston to professional actors his father
    deserted the family in 1810, mother died in 1811
  • Adopted by John Allan, a Richmond, VA, merchant
    attended schools in England U of Virginia
    (dropped out) West Point (dropped out)
  • Published 3 vols. of poetry by 1831
  • Secretly married his cousin Virginia Clemm when
    she was 13, in 1835 she died in 1847
  • 1830s-40s worked as editor and newspaper man in
    Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York

3
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4
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
  • Fiction the short novel Narrative of Arthur
    Gordon Pym (1837) and stories like Ligeia, The
    Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the
    Rue Morgue (first detective story)
  • Poetry The Raven (1845) made Poe a famous
    poetopened doors for him in New York
  • Criticism Poe aspired to be an influential
    critic he believed both poems and stories should
    achieve a unity of effect and should be
    sufficiently short to be read in one sitting
  • Poe had a drinking problem for much of his adult
    life in 1849, he was found passed out in
    Baltimore and died several days later

5
Doubles
  • William Wilson is the classic tale of doubles
    in American Literature
  • Double a mysterious, haunting look-alike, often
    appearing in literature folklore
  • Doppelgänger (German) a ghostly look-alike who
    bodes ill-fortune or death
  • Freuds uncanny the strange thing/person that
    is also familiar, suggesting a connection that is
    repressed or historically remote

6
Doubles
  • In this course, a double will comprise not only
    a physical look-alike, but a person who resembles
    another in more covert or subtle ways
  • In popular culture, a double is often an evil
    twin, but here the double is more ambiguous,
    presenting a moral challenge to the protagonist
  • In William Wilson, the double is morally
    superior

7
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8
Narrators Childhood
  • Family of imaginative and easily excitable
    temperament (4 numbers refer to numbers)
  • Parents weak-minded, no authority narrator
    is master of my own actions (4)

9
Setting 1 Bransbys School
  • Narrator associates the school (where he spent 5
    yrs, ages 10-15) with his later destiny he
    remembers it in detail it is in England, where
    Poe also attended school
  • Architecture irregular, with capacious
    recesses, windings, incomprehensible
    sub-divisions (10) in short, the building is a
    labyrinth, a maze

10
Bransbys School
  • Principal Dr. Bransby is also a pastor narrator
    sees him as hypocrite, playing contradictory
    roles benign pastor but Draconian principal
    corporeal punishment
  • School is authoritarian, but narrator himself
    practices despotism of a master mind in boyhood
    over the less energetic spirits of his
    companions (14)

11
William Wilson
  • William Wilson is the one exception to the
    narrators supremacy (for clarity, I will refer
    to the narrator as narrator, and his double as
    William Wilson, though they both share this name)
  • The same given name, surname, date of entering
    St. Bransbys, date of birth (Jan. 19, 1813 Poe
    also born Jan. 19, 1809, but claimed 1813),
    physical stature
  • Narrator hates the name William Wilson because
    it is common (see 14, 19)

12
Wilson?Narrator
  • Competes in studies, sportsrefuses to accept
    narrators arbitrary dictation (14)
  • Injuries, insults, with affectionateness of
    manner (15) but also gives advice (23)
  • Imitates the narrator in words, actions, gait,
    manner, and voice, but in a whisper (due to his
    weakness of voice), the very echo of my own
    (21)
  • No one seems to notice this imitation but the
    narrator himself

13
Narrator?Wilson
  • I secretly felt that I feared himfeels
    Wilsons true superiority because not to be
    overcome cost me a perpetual struggle (15)
  • No one seems to notice this superiority but the
    narrator
  • Anxiety but not hatred toward Wilson rather
    animosity, esteem, respect, fear and uneasy
    curiosity (17)

14
Narrator??Wilson
  • speaking terms
  • the most inseparable of companions (17)

15
Crisis 1
  • Last conversation at Bransbys an altercation
    reveals in Wilson dim visions of my earliest
    infancy, as if they had been acquainted at some
    epoch very long ago (25)
  • Then, narrator regards Wilsons face while
    sleeping and sees lineaments that shock
    himpresumably his own image quits Bransbys

16
Setting 2 Eton College
  • Age 15-18 here, narrator falls into vortex of
    thoughtless folly
  • Indulges in cards and drinking lifestyle adds
    to my bodily stature (he gets fat)

17
Eton College
18
Crisis 2
  • Wilson appears at one of narrators secret
    parties whispers William Wilson in his ear and
    points his finger at narrator in admonition
    (30-31)
  • Wilson is wearing the same white cassimere
    morning frock as narrator (30)

19
Setting 3 Oxford University
  • Age 18-20 now is utterly fallen from the
    gentlemanly estatea gambler who profits from
    the weak-minded among my fellow collegians (34)
  • Remember that he called his parents Weak-minded
    (4)

20
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21
Crisis 3
  • Narrator attempts to cheat Lord Glendinning at
    ecarte (card game) in chambers of fellow commoner
    Mr. Preston
  • Narrator beats Glendinning and effects his total
    ruin (36)
  • William Wilson enters and exposes narrator as a
    cheaterreveals his hidden tricks
  • Wilson is carrying the same style fur cloak

22
Setting 4 Europe
  • Narrator fleas to Europe to escape his
    humiliation at Oxford Paris, Rome, Vienna,
    Berlin, Moscow, Naples, Egypt (43-45)
  • Wilson trails him, continually interfering with
    his mischief narrator asks himself, Who is
    Wilson?
  • Wilson is always dressed the same as the
    narrator, but he never shows his face

23
Crisis 4
  • Narrator resolves, I would submit no longer to
    be enslaved (47)
  • Note political language Wilson represents
    arbitrary will (46) denying his natural rights
    of self-agency (44)
  • Narrator confronts Wilson at masquerade party in
    Rome, where he is pursuing the wife of an old
    duke
  • Wilson wears the same cloak and mask

24
Crisis 4
  • Narrator demands a duel Wilson reluctantly draws
    his sword
  • Narrator stabs Wilson with the energy and power
    of a multitude (51)like revolution
  • When he looks again, narrator sees in Wilson his
    own face, but dying (52)
  • Wilson You have conquered, and I yield. Yet
    henceforward art thou also deaddead to the
    World, to Heaven and to Hope! (55)

25
Who is Wilson? Clues
  • Narrator wonders at outset if he has been living
    in a dream (3)inviting psychological
    interpretation
  • Bransbys, where Wilson first appears, is
    described as being in a dream-like town
    (5)also psychological
  • Bransbys architecture, like Poes House of
    Usher, could be a symbol of the narrators minda
    maze, with Wilson in a remote corner

26
Who is Wilson? Clues
  • Wilson whispers advice and admonition to the
    narrator narrator respects Wilson, but often
    doesnt heed advice
  • No one except narrator notices Wilsons imitation
    and superiority
  • Narrator associates Wilson with the remote past
  • Epigraph What say of it? what say (of)
    CONSCIENCE grim, / That spectre in my path?
    Chamberlaynes Pharronida (1)

27
Who is Wilson?
  • Thus?Wilson is, on one level, the narrators
    conscience
  • the moral authority he never respected as a
    child, but which he, on one level, constructs in
    his own mind as a rival to himself
  • the moral authority he wants to overthrow as
    arbitrary will, but which he respects
    nonetheless
  • Politically, too, narrator is divided against
    himself he hates his name for being common, and
    lives like an aristocrat however, he doesnt
    respect aristocrats finally, he imagines his
    revolt against Wilson as a populist revolution of
    natural rights against arbitrary will
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