William Wilson Identity

507 Words2 Pages

The third one to evaluate in this story is the plot or storyline. William Wilson explores the idea of a split identity. William Wilson is a story of a man of "noble descent". The narrator calls himself a pseudonym because he doesn't want to his name to sully the page. The name itself is an interesting choice "son" of "will". In other words, William Wilson has willed himself into being along with the double which shares that name. According to Wikipedia, a pseudonym or alias is a name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which can differ from their original or true name. William is temperamental and selfish. Let's talk about the plot of the story. The exposition of the story is when the narrator introduces himself and prepares …show more content…

In truth, it was a dreamlike and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town" (paragraph #4; line 1-8). The narrator spent five years at school, from age ten to fifteen. There were senior students who believe that the narrator and the other Wilson were brothers, for they shared not only the same name but also the same date when they enrolled at school and then the narrator learned that he and his competitor were born on the same day. This is supported by the entire paragraph #15 "Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson's conduct, conjoined with our identity of name and the mere accident of our having entered the school upon the same day, which set afloat the notion that we were brothers, among the senior classes in the academy. These do not usually inquire with much strictness into affairs of their juniors. I have before said, or should have said, that Wilson was not, in a most remote degree, connected with my family. But assurely if we had been brothers we must have been twins; for, after leaving Dr.Bransby's I casually learned that my namesake was born on the nineteenth of January, 1813--- and this is a somewhat remarkable coincidence, for the day precisely that of my own

Open Document