William Wilson (Poe)
William Wilson is a strongly autobiographical tale by Edgar Allan Poe from 1839, which uses the literary motif of the doppelganger to dramatize the contradiction between actual action and conscience.
content
The narrator introduces himself and explains that he only picked up the name William Wilson because his real name was too tainted with misdeeds. He openly states that he is writing this report to help understand why he became a villain, "worse than Heliogabal ". The story begins with the amiable description of the years Wilson spent at a school in England . The winding Elizabethan building, the strict rituals and the principal Bransby are portrayed as part of a school idyll that only gets a break because there is a second William Wilson there, who is completely like the narrator in appearance, posture and clothing, who even strives is to imitate him in all these points as detailed as possible; who entered school on the same day as the narrator and also shares his birthday with him, but without being in the least related to him.
This second William Wilson resists the narrator at every opportunity, but since the narrator is prone to vice, to evil, he has to admit that it would have been good if he had followed the suggestions and advice of his doppelganger more often. Apart from his higher morality, the latter only differs from him in one point: he cannot speak aloud, only whisper. The narrator's ambivalent feelings for his alter ego - sometimes he almost wants to be his friend, other times he feels violent hatred - ultimately intensify in a negative direction. One night he sneaks to the bed of his doppelganger to carry out a malicious attack on him. But the renewed awareness of his extreme resemblance makes Wilson shrink back, yes, he leaves the school of the principal Bransby and goes to the college of Eton , where he wasted three great years.
But there, too, his doppelganger seeks him out and whispers the common name in his ear with a tone of reproach that soberes the drunken narrator and hits him like an electric shock. He investigates and learns that the second William Wilson left Headmaster Bransby's school on the same day as the narrator due to a family event. This moves to the University of Oxford . There his slovenliness takes on criminal proportions. In spite of his lavish outfitting of money, he begins to play wrong through his generous parents. When he's just gutted a wealthy fellow student, his doppelganger shows up and reveals that he was playing with marked cards. The narrator flees to the continent from the reputation of dishonor that haunts him . In the Carnival of Rome he chases after the beautiful young wife of the Duke of Broglio - and is disturbed by the hated doppelganger who wears the same mask and rapier as him. The narrator drags him into an adjoining room and gives him a fatal stab. But he is distracted in the process; When he looks again, there is a mirror in which he sees himself, and from the mirror his doppelganger now speaks to him:
- It was Wilson; but his language was no longer a whisper, and I could have imagined that it was myself who said: “You have won and I am defeated. Nevertheless, from now on you too are dead - dead to the world, heaven and hope! You lived in me - and now I'm dying, see here in the picture that is your own, how you murdered yourself. "
interpretation
Bransby was also the name of the head of the Manor House school in Stoke Newington, England, which Poe attended from the age of 7 to 11. It was this school trip to England that provided him with the material for the contemplative beginning of the story. The two WW were born on January 19, 1813; So Poe makes her exactly four years younger than he was. Who or what is embodied in the second WW is made almost abundantly clear by Poe: It is the whispering voice of conscience. Poe, who hides more clearly than usual in the narrative figure, must have often regretted that he lost the benevolence of his rich foster father John Allen through carelessness and drunkenness during his stay at the University of Virginia , that he was no longer willing to listen to his whisper Heard the doppelganger:
- I must also confess that at least his moral feeling, if not his general talent, was far stronger than mine and that I could be a better and therefore happier person today if I had less the advice that his meaningful whisper implied often rejected.
The narrator accuses himself of monstrous crimes in strong words - he speaks of his shame, calls himself the outcast of all outcasts , compares his actions with the enormities of a Heliogabal, compares his waste with that of Herod ( I out-Heroded Herod ). However, if you look at what he really did, it is comparatively minor and a student could easily be forgiven - his greatest offense is cardsharing. An exchange seems to have taken place through the duel - the almost ridiculously oversensitive conscience of the second WW has moved to the first.
The Roman Duke of Broglio is a throwback to Poe's only attempt to write a play for the stage. In the play Politian, the eponymous hero meets the duke's humiliated wife and challenges her to a decisive duel .
Film adaptations
- Extraordinary stories ( Spirits of the Dead ), episode film (1968): Episode William Wilson by Louis Malle with Alain Delon as the title character and Brigitte Bardot as Giuseppina
- The Broken by Sean Ellis (2008): William Wilson's free interpretationbegins with the last lines of the story: “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. "
reception
- In the cycle, The Dark Tower by Stephen King , there is an American with a strikingly low voice named William Wilson. The allusion to Poe's William Wilson - in the sense of an homage - is unmistakable.
- In the novel City of Glass (first part of the New York trilogy ) by Paul Auster , the main character takes the pseudonym William Wilson and publishes his books under this.
- In Andrew Taylor's novel The sleep of the dead is about two boys who see each other strikingly similar, without being related. In addition, one is called "Edgar Allen" based on Edgar Allan Poe.
Web links
- Original English text
- Translation by Hedda Eulenberg
- Translation by Gisela Etzel at Projekt Gutenberg