Short Horror Story Review Edgar Allan Poe William Wilson

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1839 – Spoiler alerts. William Wilson is a classic unreliable witness story and an early doppelganger story. It explores similar themes of madness, guilt and self-loathing to Poe’s later tales, The Tell Tale Heart, Fall Of The House Of Usher. And The Masque Of The Red Death. Its influence affects future stories including The Picture Of Dorian Grey and Fight Club. William Wilson starts his seemingly written narrative by telling us that he is not really called William Wilson, so fictions and dishonesty is injected into what he tells us from the outset. Sent to an English boarding school, he is better at all lessons and sports than all other students, except one, another William Wilson, who looks like him, shares his birthday, and somehow does better than he does. Intent on hurting his mysterious seemingly superior doppelganger as the boy sleeps, Wilson sees something unrecognizable in his face and flees in terror. He may have realized that he is mistaking another boy for the alternative Wilson, or seen some projection of his own monstrosity. The same figure turns up at Eton when Wilson goes there, and later again at Oxford University. Here, Wilson has become a hustler, cheating men out of their fortunes at cards until the other Wilson turns up and exposes him in front of the other players, and Wilson leaves Oxford in disgrace. In Rome, Wilson tries educing his way into a love affair with a rich society woman, when his doppelganger again spoils his plans. Wilson angrily chases his alter-ego into another room, and stabs him through with a sword. Suddenly, the other Wilson turns into a huge mirror and Wilson sees that he has only stabbed himself. He shares his last words with us while he bleeds to death. At the start of the story, he is seemingly writing, but by its end he is speaking, and to no one in particular. His nemesis has been entirely in his mind. We can trust nothing he said as not being down to his insanity. The chosen name itself indicates a struggle between polarized will, and the story is very powerful throughout. Arthur Chappell