Tess of the D'Urbervilles

A ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart” is the description of a doppelgänger as given in Dictionary.com. The use of a doppelgänger as the main theme of a novel was very popular throughout most of the nineteenth century. It was used by many famous authors, such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Edgar Allan Poe. Although both authors employ the doppelgänger motif, the function of the double differs markedly in their two works.

In both The Double and “William Wilson” the doubles employed share many similarities to their original. They both share the same name and face. In The Double, Petrovitch Golyadkin first notices the fact that there is someone in the office who shares a strikingly similar resemblance to himself, and he is quite disturbed by this fact. “The figure that was sitting opposite Mr. Golyadkin now was his terror, was his shame, was his nightmare of the evening before; in short, was Mr. Golyadkin himself….” (...