Summary
1. The narrator describes himself as a master of his own ______.
2. He also describes his childhood school as a “______-like rampart.”
3. The narrator describes his doppelgänger as possessing a desire to ______, ______, or mortify him.
4. Both Wilsons were born on ______.
5. The “moralist” will say that Wilson and the narrator were ______companions.
6. The doppelgänger was incapable of speaking at any time above a ______.
7. The narrator perceived that he and his doppelgänger were “alike in general ______.”
8. At Eton the narrator participated in ______lasting until morning.
9. At Oxford, the narrator played cards against ______after he had become drunk.
10. Mid-game the doppelgänger arrives, and tells the group to check the linings of the narrator’s ______.
11. The narrator quits Oxford and flees to ______.
12. In Rome the narrator encounters his doppelgänger again during the Carnival in the ______of De Broglio.
13. The narrator fights his doppelgänger, and plunges his sword through and through his enemy’s ______.
14. Wilson speaks to the narrator and tells him that he has “utterly ______.”
Analysis
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1. The narrator writes that he “was left to the guidance of [his] own will, and became, in all but name, master of [his] own
actions,” from an early age (1). Do you think that he was already becoming evil?
2. William Wilson is described as speaking only in “a very low whisper,” (4). Do you think this is because he is weak and
can’t speak loudly or because he is strong and doesn’t need to?
3. While the narrator is gambling at Oxford, Wilson appears and exposes him as a cheat. Why do you think that Wilson would do this to the narrator?
4. What is the underlying theme or morale to the story?
5. Poe was ahead of his time in psychological theory. What symbolic elements can be seen from his use of a “doppelganger”?
6. Does Freud’s psychological theory of the Id, Ego and Superego appear in “William Wilson”? Explain.