2. “In
me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is
thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”
In “William Wilson,” the rivalrous double
William Wilson utters these final words to the narrator, the man
who has just stabbed him. This quotation, spoken with reference
to an image in a mirror, points to the indistinguishability between
the victim, William Wilson, and the narrator, William Wilson. The
speaker uses the image of the mirror to represent his own death,
but the mirror eerily reflects the image of the narrator, not the
speaker. The quotation highlights the inseparability of the self
and the rivalrous double, for the murder of the rival also produces
the suicide of the self. The second William Wilson constitutes the
narrator’s alter ego, the part of his own being that he has externalized
in the figure of his competitor. Although the narrator believes
he can use violence to curtail the power of his alter ego, he discovers
that he owes his life to the person he most despises.
This quotation also points to the fine line between love
and hate. The second William Wilson’s final words are not bitter
or vengeful. Their compassionate insight precisely contrasts with
the narrator’s act of violence that has triggered the quotation.
William Wilson uses these words not only to convey his intimate
knowledge about the narrator, but also to redeem the narrator from
the paranoia that has taken his life. The quotation discloses the
rivals’ indistinguishability so that the narrator might recognize
that his own mental pathology has killed him. Whereas the narrator
has construed their similarity as grounds for jealousy and violence,
his rival alternatively uses their doubling to convey difficult,
and potentially redemptive, knowledge to the narrator. In this way,
William Wilson, until his final breath, plays right into the narrator’s
jealousy by rejecting the very lust for vengeance that the narrator
has been unable to escape. In the end, the narrator’s suicide proves
a tragic alternative to William Wilson’s compassionate self-knowledge.
