In this paper we analyze a mental phenomenon related to psychopathology, namely, the double (Doppelgänger) as a terrifying view of oneself as another. In psychoanalysis the double can be studied through the conception of the mirror stage and the optical model, as proposed by Lacan. Among literary elaborations on this universal phenomenon, E. A. Poe's "William Wilson" and Dostoyevsky's "The Double" can both be classified as fantastic in the sense of a literary genre. In our analysis of this phenomenon we compare the literary and the psychoanalytic models.
Double; psychoanalysis; literature; fantastic
