The Struggle of the Wills in Poe's "William Wilson"

NOTES THE STRUGGLE OF THE WILLS IN POE'S "WILLIAM WILSON" Valentine C. Hubbs University of Michigan Psychological interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's "William Wilson" has generally been limited to Freudian studies which often seem rather to obfuscate the psychic process depicted in Wilson than to clarify or explain it.1 Wilson's morbid righteousness has led Ruth Sullivan to maintain that the narrator is not the first Wilson but the second.2 Yet the second William Wilson is never seen or recognized by any of the pupils in the boarding school and therefore has no existence outside of the first Wilson's mind. Moreover, stylistic studies have demonstrated unequivocally that the narrator becomes progressively irrational in the course of the story.3 Through subtle changes in style Poe has communicated to the reader this progressive irrationality and morbid righteousness which has resulted from the destruction of Wilson Two. One ambiguity Freudian interpretation has never addressed lies in Wilson's perception of the character and personality of the Reverend Dr. Bransby. Freudian interpreters emphasize his role as fathersurrogate but ignore the fact that he is an enigma to the narrator.4 Wilson perceives Dr. Bransby as a monstrous paradox, as the embodiment of contradictory personalities within one and the same individual : Of this church the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpitl This reverend man, with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast,—could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution!5 The narrator's perplexity over the paradoxical behavior of Dr. Bransby has revealed a flaw in his own character which will inexorably cause his downfall. He simply cannot comprehend how two contrary personalities can function harmoniously within one human being, or that it is the nature of an individual to incorporate into his complex personality many inconsistencies and ambiguities which, when considered separately, seem incompatible, even mutually exclusive. To Wilson 74Notes One this inconsistent and paradoxical reality is monstrous, and he feels compelled to struggle against all opposites within his own developing personality. This struggle of opposites will lead to his rejection of contrary tendencies within himself and to an ever-increasing conflict with the antithetical forces of his own inner being. Ultimately the battle of two opposing wills transforms him into the guilt-ridden neurotic who narrates the story. The key to the understanding of Wilson's double lies in the Jungian concept of the shadow.* The shadow forms a large part of the contents of the personal unconscious and has its universal aspects in the collective. It consists of undifferentiated functions and repressed characteristics which are not compatible with the lifestyle of the conscious ego. Like all archetypes the shadow may be positive or negative, depending upon the attitude of the conscious ego, for the shadow, as part of the unconscious, is regarded by Jung as a compensatory structure . The purpose of such compensation is the maintenance of a balanced psyche, a psyche in which both consciousness and the unconscious function in harmony. For the ego to assimilate the contents of the unconscious and to attain this desirable harmony, the shadow must first be met and recognized as part of one's own psyche. Failure to achieve this will result in repression and the absorption of more energy (libido) into the shadow archetype. In other words, the shadow, if repressed, will continue to grow and, because it lives its own autonomous existence in the unconscious, it will manifest itself in the personality whenever consciousness is not on guard against it. The result will be psychic disharmony and, if repression continues over an extended period, a probable neurosis.7 Wilson One's earliest recollections are of a "misty-looking village" where all the houses were "excessively ancient." It was "dream-like and spirit soothing." These recollections...