Has anyone know were Sigmund Freud read poe's stories? Think about for example Story of William Wilson, it was easy to interpret with psychoanalys. Part of the story when he describe the his old school building is interpretting people complicated mind.. And story include lots of parts which is possibility explain with psychoanalys.. What you think about story?

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2003

Answers

Both men drew from common German sources of romantic psychology and philosphy, so without specific writings by Freud about Poe it is hard to make any direct connection between their unique creations.

William Wilson by using suggestivity rather than the supernatural works both ways(another doubling) because the narrator believes something the reader can interpret as madness. The appearances of the other William are never connected to other witnesses. The final encounter is the punch line where the narrator is actually wounding himself. The created twin is a split in the style of the Imp of the perverse that causes his moral downfall without taking away his responsiblilty. The old school building resembles Poe's old school in England but like "The Haunted Palace" is also like much other architecture in Poe, an extended psychological metaphor connected to the man's mind.

It gets very unsettling if you let ALL the vagueries and mysteries drift into other possibilities, more than Poe would have intended possibly. The name is changed, but so then is that of the twin. Who actually dies at the end? How is the transformation of the character blamed on the twin or the obsession with the twin. How crazy is he and does that have any connection with his dissolute life or a secret beneath the visible surface. Tom Tryon does this in his novel "The Other" in much greater detail, but are the cases the same?

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2003