The Double in Literature

THE DOUBLE

The idea of a double, or doppelgänger, in literature is a very old concept and one that has brought us many famous works throughout the ages. Doubles are typically used in literature as the kind of ‘evil twin’ of the protagonist (as in Dostoyevsky’s The Double), however the concept can also be used to link two characters together that share the same characteristics and values (as in Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway). Usually when there are instances of a double, there is 

a ‘splitting point’, in other words a pivotal moment in the text where it becomes apparent that the protagonist has suddenly become one of two halves. The presence of the double causes conflict, as there can never be peaceful co-existence between a character and their second manifestation. In many instances where there is a double, it is the embodiment of a specific set of characteristics either that the original character desires to have, or a concentration of their worst characteristics, thus living up to the ‘evil twin’ stigma.

  A key work within English literature is obviously considered The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) by James Hogg, where the protagonist’s second self is the figure of the devil himself, but already in Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Shelley the creature that comes to life can be regarded as the evil alter ego of its creator, the young Genevan scientist. Of course, we cannot forget to mention the two most cited works involving the question of the double and the identity crisis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde, while in the American short story William Wilson (1839) by Edgar Allan Poe the alter ego is interpreted by a perfect copy of the protagonist who carries also his own name. Furthermore, a large and growing body of critical literature has investigated the existing correlation between duplicity and the peculiar characteristics of the Romantic and Victorian periods. These studies show how the themes of duplicity and dichotomy are extremely inherent components of the ages under discussion. The Victorians, in fact, were great moralisers but they promoted a code of values that reflected the world as they wanted it to be, not as it really was, a world based on duty, hard work, respectability and charity. The idea of respectability, in particular, distinguished the middle class from the lower classes. It was a mixture of morality and hypocrisy, severity and conformity to social standards, prudery, sexual repression and rigid social control. In the meantime, however, they strongly believed in self-help, self-control, patriarchal laws and decent conduct. On the surface, therefore, this society appears as the age of reason, social development and charity. But the appearance was very different from reality and many novels of the period portray a society where labour, death, disease, corruption and social injustice reigned almost everywhere. Of course, those themes, together with sexuality, were taboos and the novelists usually employed different literary devices to represent them. Strict moral codes and ethical manners were opposed to corruption, money-making capitalistic interests and fake compassion and what was shown outside began to be inevitably separated from what was felt in the individual’s intimacy and in the private sphere:

The Strange Case also functions as an historically specific moral allegory about Victorian hypocrisy and repression. Dr. Jekyll inhabits a sterile, self-consciously repressed world of male professionals. […] Stevenson’s novella is, among other things, a tale of civilisation and its discontents, which conjures up the dark underside of the repressed world of the male professionals (doctors, scientists and lawyers) who form Jekyll’s circle. Jekyll’s alter ego Hyde, is a version of the id, acting out the libidinal desires which Jekyll’s superego (or Jekyll as superego) would suppress.

(from The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, 2012)

There is more than just a binary relationship between a good self and its evil other. In some cases human identity is shattered into a myriad of pieces: just before the advent of mass society, the individual begins to loose the sense of his/her own value, counting less and less. The twentieth century has been characterized by major changes and particular socio-political circumstances: leaving the old century for the new one, the solid certainties of the previous era and both the faith in progress and the vision of a better future begin to collapse, giving space to a panorama of crisis. Modern man feels to be anonymous and negligible in a non-caring world which resembles much more an assembly line than a jolly place to live in. He begins to feel himself unnecessary, insignificant as a single individual and to make sense only as part of the mass: he is just one of the many tiny grains of sand that form the beach of humanity. In doing this, he loses the sense of his proper self and identity, feels himself to be none or, better, a myriad of fragmented parts that fall apart.

A FOCUS ON THE MAIN VICTORIAN NOVELS ABOUT THE DOUBLE