--- Michael Robison <
zspider@gte.net> wrote:
> >somebody said this:
> > Believe it or not, I'm in the process of
writing a
> > thesis on the doppleganger in southern
(U.S.)
> > hard-boiled detective fiction.
That would be me.
> what's a doppleganger?
Ah, that's the question, isn't it? Here, miker, and for
anyone else who cares (and I have to believe that's a short
list) are the first few paragraphs of my thesis (unedited as
of yet, so I apologize in advance for any errors). I hope
this answers your question; if it doesn't, I have some
serious re-writing to do.
-----
The theme of the doppelganger, or double, in myth and legend
may date back to the first sighting of a reflection in a calm
lake or the first hearing of an echoed utterance in a
troglodytic cavern. In fact, Clifford Hallam traces the
original sources of this concept to the oldest folk tales and
myths, including
"Egyptian narrative," "ancient Babylonian" folklore, and the
Bible (5-9); and Robert Rogers finds evidence of the theme in
Norse mythology, Samoan culture, and the timeless oral
traditions of the Huron Indians, Aborigines and the natives
of Southern Celedes-as well as Chinese cosmology
(7-10).
In literature, critics have discussed the concept of doubling
in works as diverse as Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (e.g.,
Stephen Bernstein), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (William
Patrick Day, qtd. in Kilgour 41), and Thomas Harris's Silence
of the Lambs (Kilgore 43). However, critics often disagree
regarding the author's purpose in the inclusion of doubles in
literature-often disagreeing even to the point of arguing
whether such inclusion occurs with or without the conscious
volition of the author. Moreover, critics even disagree
regarding the possible definitions or categories of double,
despite (or perhaps because of) a number of scholarly
treatments of just that question.
Clifford Hallam traces a number of early definitions of
"Doppelg䮧er […] which literally means
'double-goer'" (5). According to Hallam, the German novelist
Jean Paul Richter apparently coined the phrase in the late
eighteenth century, but defined it in the least definite of
terms: "so people who see themselves are called." Hallam
further notes the fact that doppelg䮧er once referred to the
seer of what modern critics would today call the
doppelganger, that is, the second or created vision (25).
This is only appropriate in light of the moral complexity
that this technique is used to portray, as described later in
the paper.
Unfortunately, by 1967, Albert Guerard could shamefully state
that "[t]he word double is embarrassingly vague, as used in
literary criticism"
(qtd. in Hallam 5). Three years later, in 1970, Richard
Rogers set out to provide "a broad, generic definition of the
psychological double and a taxonomy of the numerous subtypes"
(2). Despite Rogers's efforts, however, C. F. Keppler
discovered in 1972 that he "could find nothing to serve as a
guide or starting point" in his attempt to define the double,
and in fact that he and other scholars "were trying to use
the Double of creative literature as an interpretive tool
before knowing very much about who and what he is and how he
functions, or before examining in a very comprehensive way
the literature of the world in which he appears" (ix).
Nonetheless, Hallam can still state in 1980 that no
significant agreement exists among scholars regarding the
definition of the term, owing in large part, to "the fact
that, in the broadest sense of the idea, 'double' can mean
almost any dual, and in some cases even multiple, structure
in a text (5).
Hallam finally arrives at a working definition of the double,
stating that it "results when this inner being
[as described by Sir James Frazer in The Golden Bough] has in
fact made its escape and exists without" (7). A more narrow
definition that this may be impossible due to the fact that
this construct "lends itself quite well, when treated in
literature, to virtually all genres, literary periods, and
styles" (9). Furthermore, Rogers, Keppler and Hallam all
bring to their studies preconceptions of the occurrence of
the double which require certain inclusive definitions-that
is, having previously labeled certain texts as including
doubling, these critics must find a definition of the term
which applies to these texts. Nonetheless, Hallam's
definition serves to include the examples of doubling that we
shall examine here: John D. MacDonald's The Deep Blue Good-By
and James Lee Burke's Heaven's Prisoners, two examples of
hard-boiled detective novels set in the South.
-----
Hope that helps.
G.
===== George C. Upper III, Editor The Lightning Bell Poetry
Journal http://www.lightningbell.org/
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