The Psychiatry of Multiple Personality Disorder in Edgar Allen Poe’s “William Wilson”

Abstract

The paper examines the clinical symptoms of multiple personality disorder (or dissociative identity disorder) of the main character in Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson.” Dealing with the problematics in the dichotomy between the one (the host) and the other (the alter) in Wilson’s soul, Poe highlights the psychiatry of MPD in three different stages, such as the recognition of fragmentation, the awareness of indeterminacy, and the acknowledgement of multiplicity. In the first stage, Wilson recognizes that there are splits and fragments around his soul, and in the second stage, his narrative contains serious ruminations on the notion of indeterminacy with regard to his frequent encounter with the second personality. Finally, the third stage reveals itself as a more pathological condition, where Wilson (the first personality or a host) identifies himself with the other Wilson (the second personality or the alter). With his psychoanalytic narrative, Poe delivers a post-structuralist perspective in which he implies that the human personality should never be totalized in rationalistic ways. Through portraying the psychiatry of MPD, the narrative highlights the detotalizing force that evidently lies in every human soul.