Return to Oneness

A detailed Summary of Return to Oneness

ªªOn the Theme of Doppelganger in Poe¯s tales

Doppelganger is a wraith or apparition of a living person, as distinguished from a ghost. The concept of the existence of a spirit double, an exact but usually invisible replica of every man, bird, or beast, is an ancient and widespread belief. Everyone who reads Poe can easily notice the use of the dual or fractured image in his tales. I will analyze a group of tales in which the motif of doppelganger is apparent and try to see what significance it has and how relevant it is to an understanding of him.

Poe believes that an artist's finite mind should reflect as closely as possible the infinite mind of God. What is the infinite mind of God? Poe says that God created matter from His spirit. The matter in the beginning assumes its simplest form, without any distinct temperament, trait, or type. This simplest form comprises Oneness, which Poe believes to be the only natural condition of the universe. However, this simplest form gradually loses its Oneness and is willed by God into ±abnormal condition of many±. The transition of universe from natural to unnatural, from normal to abnormal is accompanied by individualizations of all spiritual and material matters in

Perhaps Poe¯s most lucid portrayal of radical, primitive impulseª perversity resides in his tale The Cask of Amontillado. . Montresor exploits Fortunato's vanity concerning the connoisseurship of wine; specifically, Montresor pretends to want a wine cask of Amontillado verified as genuine. Montresor chooses a time when Fortunato is drunk to dupe him into going down the spiral stairs into the catacombs. But rather than a mere cask of wine, Fortunato finds his death; for Montresor bricks him into a niche of the catacombs which has remained undisturbed for the fifty years since the murder was performed. Montresor and Fortunato represent a doppelganger illustrative of perversity. Fortunato indulges in worldly pleasures. Montresor acts as his judging half to kill him. They are actually but one person with divided personality. If William Wilson is a tale about continuously unchecked perversity which results in the annihilation of William Wilson, The Cask of Amontillado can be seen as a tale about the perversity, whether is checked or not, nevertheless bringing destined total destruction for perversity is imprinted in human mind by God, will unavoidably destroy the person concerned to resolve the duality of human life.

William Wilson, undoubtedly, is the most explicit of Poe¯s treatments of the Double-theme. Some critics even maintain that it is the classic story of the kind. William Wilson is a first-person account of a man¯s struggle with his own conscience. The similarities, which are repeated throughout the tale, between William Wilson and his double, intimate to us that they are one person, and his double is his conscience. The unrelenting vexations and agonies that ensue from each encounter with his conscience, along with his invisible face and low whisper, portray both indirectly and directly Wilson¯s reluctance and awe to confront his psychological judging half. At the end of the tale, when Wilson becomes totally impatient with and intolerable of his double, he murders his conscience in a nasty way. What¯s left is a living dead. The malicious killing, in which the doppelganger is destroyed, echoes Poe¯s belief that death is the return of s

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Approximate Word count = 1455
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English