Doppelganger

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Cards (23)

  • Doppelganger is a German term meaning 'double-goer', a double of a living person.
  • A doppelganger haunts the Ancient Mariner in Coleridge poem.
  • It is a common trope of nineteenth century Gothic literature
  • The idea of the doppelganger can be interpreted in a number of ways:
    it can be seen simply as a double, an alternative version of the individual concerned;
    it can be seen as a complement, a version of the individual that possesses different qualities and thus completes the personality
    it can be seen as an opposite, a being that possesses all the qualities that the individual lacks and most abhor
  • Victor describing the creature: “my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me”
  • Dualism is a wider term which encompasses the doppelganger but also includes a wider range of different oppositions