Poe's William Wilson: Wilson v. Wilson, will v. conscience

Liana R. Prieto (Spring 1996)

Every person experiences conflict between their will and their conscience. Reasonable people recognize that both of these are components of their mind, but William Wilson does not. Wilson believes his conscience is another being entirely who struggles to hinder his schemes and ambitions. His life is spent trying to avoid or dominate the 'other' William Wilson. Poe effectively uses the Gothic doppleganger technique to show the violent conflicts within Wilson's soul. Poe shows that the will and conscience ar two distinct, but inseparable, parts of the complex human mind.

Wilson's life is a futile attempt to escape from conscience. He has personified his conscience to the point where it has a voice and body independent of his own. He sees their shared birthday and name as "remarkable coincidence" only. Throughout his life Wilson is angered by the other Wilson's "frequent officious interference' with his will.Each time the other blocks him from his evil goal, he moves to another place. Wilson doesn't recognize that he can never really rid himself of the other, but he does say: "I fled in vain." Not until their final battle does Wilson even vaguely comprehend how closely related he is to his life-long adversary.

Wilson never understands that the will and conscience are both within him, but Poe communicates this to the reader clearly. Wilson thinks everyone else is aware of the other, but he admits that, strangely enough, the other is "acknowledged by only myself." Wilson repeatedly tells us how his doppleganger's voice is never raised above a whisper, but the truth is it is always within Wilson's own head. His physical encounters with the other Wilson always occurred in the darkness, leaving room for the reader's doubt. When Wilson first seeks him out in the schoolhouse he enters his closet "leaving the lamp, with a shade over it, on the outside." Also, Wilson is often intoxicated when he sees the other Wilson in his later years. The story's ending leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that Wilson's doppleganger is nothing more than his better half.

Conscience and will together make a whole person, while the lack of one can create a disturbed individual like William Wilson. William Wilson is a much more complex figure than he himself realizes. In the final battle scene he writes he "felt within his single arm the energy and power of a multitude". He feels this because within him are his will, his conscience, and every other part of his soul. Wilson doesn't understand the bonds tying him to the other Wilson, still he writes: "Wilson and myself were the most inseparable of companions." Wilson doesn't realize the irony in this statement is that regardless of how hard he tries not to be, Wilson will always be his companion.