Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real appellation.
"William Wilson"
is a Short Story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1839. The titular William Wilson is not actually named William Wilson but we're going to call him that because his actual name embarrasses him. Wilson's weird adventure begins during his school days where he finds another student with the same name as him, who was born on the same day as him and looks just like him. Wilson narrates us as he goes through his life and his mysterious "friend" seems to keep following him.
A short film adaptation of this story directed by Louis Malle is included in Anthology Film Spirits of the Dead.
Tropes in "William Wilson":
- Doppelgänger: The main theme of the story of William repeatedly meeting his other William.
- Enemy Without: An interesting twist on this idea. The narrator is a complete Jerkass, and the story describes his torment as his schemes are frequently thwarted by another person identical to him, even down to having the same name. It turns out that this second character is the personification of his conscience, whom he murders at the end of the story.
- Evil Twin: Inverted. Our narrator believes that the other William Wilson is his Evil Twin. However, in reality, William Wilson himself is a Villain Protagonist, and the other Wilson is actually his conscience. This gets confusing and symbolic when the evil Wilson murders his twin.
- Killing Your Alternate Self: The probable Ur-Example, as William Wilson murders his Doppelgänger... or perhaps is Driven to Suicide. The ending is ambiguous.
- Significant Name Overlap: The narrator and antagonist share the same name, and birthday, and even appearance. He claims that it's inconsequential at first, but the story implies that they actually have a very deep connection. The latter seems to be the embodiment of Wilson's conscience, whom he murders.
- Start of Darkness: Wilson's life story begins with his school days, when he first established his overbearing and rapacious character, and then he goes on through other, later parts of his life, and therefore this would be a rather condensed example of this trope, as his whole life is as well.
- Tomato in the Mirror: William Wilson discovers that the mysterious Doppelgänger who has been constantly foiling his schemes is himself, or rather the personification of his conscience.
- Unreliable Narrator: Is William Wilson telling us the whole truth? Does he really have a Doppelgänger, or are these just the delusions of a dying man who personifies his long-repressed conscience?
- Villain Protagonist: By the time that William Wilson becomes the narrator of his own story, he has honestly come to terms with himself and the readers that he's never been exactly a noble guy. The life that he led was fraught with cons and taking advantage of others, trying to strip at least one person of his lifesavings and as he admits, rather apprehensively, always reacting with aggression and threats towards anyone who could put him in his place — and to no one more than the other Wilson, who stopped plenty of such schemes dead into their tracks.
