#7

"This isn't fair! How can you tell who's sane and who's insane?" "Well, we have a very simple method."

"Whoever has that stamp on his hand is insane."

I first started writing this post arguing that William Wilson could be just as easily sane as insane. That the decision was a difficult one to make. However, as I attempted to list the reasons why he could be seen as insane, I became more and more persuaded that that was the case.

 I am now convinced that Poe's William Wilson is little more than the ramblings of a madman, with Wilson`s doppelganger little more than a figment of his imagination. And when he sees himself in the mirror at the end, pale and covered in blood, he is merely hallucinating. 

After all, he'd been hallucinating the whole time. His doppelganger is said not only to share the same name as him, but to be the same age and "born on the nineteenth of January" (216), to have "entered the school upon the same day" (216) and to even be "the same height, and... singularly alike in general contour of person and outline of feature."(217) All of this is a monumental coincidence. But even more amazing is the fact that the doppelganger takes on Wilson's own face when he is sleeping. From there, he follows William first around Britain and then the world, from Paris to Egypt, "[destroying his] honor", "[thwarting his] ambition", and his "bitter mischief" (224). It would take an unbelievably persistent person to trot around the globe with the only goal of tormenting someone. 

However, this person must exist in some capacity. After all, he is seen by Wilson's schoolmates, who "had the notion that [they] were brothers", as well as the members of the card game, who search his jacket upon advice from the doppelganger. So if this doppelganger is indeed a figment of Wilson's imagination, how was he seen by classmates and gamblers alike? Simple. The people who played roles did indeed exist, but what Wilson saw was only his own projection on to them. Wilson even says that "the imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone"(217). There may have been a boy at the school who greatly resembled William Wilson, perhaps even one who looked a little like him and shared the same talents, but the doppelganger who follows him from that first school is one of his own making. 

It is also telling that when Wilson encounters his doppelganger, the other's face is obscured somehow. During the card game, the candles are extinguished, and the room is shrouded in darkness. The party, "could only feel that he was standing in [their] midst." (222) During the masquerade, his face is "entirely covered" (225) in black silk. In both instances, he is only identified by his "ever remembered, low, damnable whisper" (224). Whatever scenario is actually taking place, William is experiencing it with added auditory hallucinations.

These hallucinations eventually become visual as well, as seen at the masquerade. During the party, no one actually lays a hand on, or whispers to, William. It is at this point that his insanity has become full-fledged. He drags his doppelganger into the next room before attacking and killing him. But alas, when William turns back to the body, he sees only a mirror, and his own bloody visage staring back at him. At this point, he is still hallucinating. He has not stabbed himself, or anyone else. He simply thinks he has.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Something did die during that encounter. William's conscience. For that was what the doppelganger stood for. He may have been entirely imagined in a physical sense, but he still existed in William's mind.  A conscience that attempted to intervene when William was up to no good. The sole guard against "serious disquietude to [his] friends and positive injury to [himself]."(213). By proving that he is capable of murder, he has forever silenced it and has damned himself to death. Not immediately, as the image in the mirror would suggest, but sooner or later, now that his conscience is not there to protect him.

Assignment 5- Hope and Magawisca

In Hope Leslie, Magawisca is shown to be a proud, compassionate and brave woman who is willing to risk her life for what she believes in. Her pride is displayed in her meeting with Hope in the graveyard. After Hope balks at the thought of Faith married to an Indian, Magawisca gives a look of "proud contempt, that showed she reciprocated with full measure the scorn expressed for her race." (p. 196) She then goes on to ridicule Hope, sarcastically suggesting that Faith's blood will be corrupted. However, she soon calms down and offers Hope her sympathy, showing that she is capable of compassion.  During her father's attack on Bethel, she begs him to spare the lives of Mrs. Fletcher and the children, telling her father that, "they have spread the wing of love over us - save them"(p.65). Despite having lived as a servant for the family, Magawisca is aware of the love that has been shown to them and begs for their safety, even commiserating with them at one point, shouting, "I bleed when they are struck"(p. 65). Magawisca also displays a great deal of bravery in attempting to help Everell escape captivity. First she wakes him in the middle of the night so that he might flee. However, when that fails and Everell is faced with execution, she "[interposes] her arm" (p. 97) between the axe and Everell, causing her arm to be severed. We see that she is willing to risk bodily harm and even death to save his life. Through all of this, she shows that she is willing to resist aspects of her culture and upbringing.

Hope Leslie also shows this trait throughout the novel. Despite being raised in a strict, Puritan society, she proves herself open minded and willing to buck societal norms, as well as being both morally courageous and fearless. When sitting down to a Saturday night service, Hope does not hide the fact that she thinks it is a tedious enterprise, stating of the minister, "he always talks of eternity till he forgets time." (p. 171). Shortly after the service ends, she attempts to leave quickly, but is criticized by her aunt for acting, "very undignified, and very unladylike, and very unbecoming...it is untoward and unforward..."(p.174). Despite this rebuke, Hope continues to stride ahead at her own pace. Hope's moral courage shines through brightest when she saves Nelema from what is likely certain death. Despite being a "bold, dangerous, and unlawful interposition"(p.124), Hope "took counsel only from her own heart...[which] told her that the rights of innocence were paramount to all other rights..."(p.124).  As for the danger that such an action posed to her, "she did not weigh it - she did not think of it."(p.124).

When these two women are compared to, say, Alice from The Last of the Mohicans, it becomes obvious how much more progressive and noble these characters are. While they are actively and consciously affect the events around them, Alice sits back in the role of Damsel in Distress and waits to be rescued.

Assignment #4 - In which I am baffled

The fourth rule that Twain accuses Cooper of breaking is as follows:

"They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there."

Sufficient excuse for being there. As in they have a plausible reason for doing what they're doing, or going where they're going. In The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper breaks this rule right off the bat. What is Cora and Alice's excuse for travelling with the army reenforcement? To join up with their father is what we're told, but what would possess them to join their father in a fort that they know is going to be under attack in the very near future? Just because it gets the plot moving?

Almost immediately after the two girls - one of whom, it should be noted, is just a terribly delicate flower - decide and are permitted to travel with the soldiers to a fort that will soon be under seige, they manage to make an even more baffling decision. Instead of travelling with the column of 1500 soldiers, a force that could be considered somewhat unassailable given the circumstances,  they decide to break off into a small group of four and travel by a "secret route", led by a man who was once an enemy of their father. And this is before they decide to include a singing madman into their company.

In Magua's case, his reasons for going along with the entire ordeal are easily explained as they only make his job easier. But from the point of view of Alice, Cora and Heyward? This all happens only because it has to. Because the two girls have to be separated from the group in order to meet Hawkeye and the Mohicans. And having something happen simply because it has to, while paying no heed to how it happens - and weather it is organic or not - violates Twain's rule #16 - "Avoid slovenliness of form".