Doppelganger

• 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