Doppelgänger
Encyclopedia
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger (German
"double walker") (ˈdɔpəlˌgɛŋɐ) is a paranormal
double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune. In the vernacular, the word has come to refer to any double or look-alike of a person.
The word also is used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision
, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection. Doppelgängers often are perceived as a sinister form of bilocation
and are regarded by some to be harbinger
s of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person's friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one's own doppelgänger is an omen of death.
In Norse mythology
, a vardøger
is a ghostly double who precedes a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance. In Finnish mythology
, this is called having an etiäinen
, i.e., "a firstcomer". In Ancient Egyptian mythology, a ka
was a tangible "spirit double" having the same memories and feeling as the original person. In one Egyptian myth titled "The Greek Princess," an Egyptian view of the Trojan War
, a ka of Helen was used to mislead Paris of Troy, helping to stop the war. In some myths, the doppelgänger is a version of the Ankou
, a personification of death
.
from German: Doppel (double) and Gänger (walker). The singular and plural forms are the same. It was first used by Jean Paul
in the novel Siebenkäs
(1796), and explained by a footnote
.
As is true for all other common nouns in German, the word is written with an initial capital letter. In English, the word is conventionally uncapitalized (doppelgänger). It is also common to drop the diacritic
umlaut
, writing "doppelganger."
that Shahar Arzy and colleagues of the University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland, unexpectedly had reproduced an effect strongly reminiscent of the doppelgänger phenomenon via the electromagnetic stimulation
of a patient's brain. They applied focal electrical stimulation to a patient's left temporoparietal junction
while she lay flat on a bed. The patient immediately felt the presence of another person in her "extrapersonal space." Other than epilepsy
, for which the patient was being treated, she was psychologically fit.
The other person was described as young, of indeterminate sex, silent, motionless, and with a body posture identical to her own. The other person was located exactly behind her, almost touching and therefore within the bed on which the patient was lying.
A second electrical stimulation was applied with slightly more intensity, while the patient was sitting up with her arms folded. This time the patient felt the presence of a "man" who had his arms wrapped around her. She described the sensation as highly unpleasant and electrical stimulation was stopped.
Finally, when the patient was seated, electrical stimulation was applied while the patient was asked to perform a language test with a set of flash cards. On this occasion the patient reported the presence of a sitting person, displaced behind her and to the right. She said the presence was attempting to interfere with the test: "He wants to take the card; he doesn’t want me to read." Again, the effect was disturbing and electrical stimulation was ceased.
Similar effects were found for different positions and postures when electrical stimulation exceeded 10 mA
, at the left temporoparietal junction.
Arzy and his colleagues suggest that the left temporoparietal junction of the brain evokes the sensation of self image—body location, position, posture etc. When the left temporoparietal junction is disturbed, the sensation of self-attribution is broken and may be replaced by the sensation of a foreign presence or copy of oneself displaced nearby. This copy mirrors the real person's body posture, location and position. Arzy and his colleagues suggest that the phenomenon they created is seen in certain mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia
, particularly when accompanied by paranoia
, delusions of persecution and of alien control. Nevertheless, the effects reported are highly reminiscent of the doppelgänger phenomenon. Accordingly, some reports of doppelgängers may well be due to failure of the left temporoparietal junction.
drowned in the Bay of Spezia near Lerici
. On August 15, while staying at Pisa
, Percy's wife Mary Shelley
wrote a letter to Maria Gisborne
in which she relayed Percy's claims to her that he had met his own doppelgänger. A week after Mary's nearly fatal miscarriage
, in the early hours of June 23, Percy had had a nightmare
about the house collapsing in a flood, and
Percy Shelley's drama Prometheus Unbound (1820) contains the following passage in Act I: "Ere Babylon was dust, / The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, / Met his own image walking in the garden. / That apparition, sole of men, he saw. / For know there are two worlds of life and death: / One that which thou beholdest; but the other / Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit / The shadows of all forms that think and live / Till death unite them and they part no more...."
claimed that John Donne
, the English metaphysical poet, saw his wife's doppelgänger in 1612 in Paris, on the same night as the stillbirth of their daughter.
This account first appears in the edition of Life of Dr John Donne published in 1675, and is attributed to "a Person of Honour... told with such circumstances, and such asseveration, that... I verily believe he that told it me, did himself believe it to be true. "At the time Donne was indeed extremely worried about his pregnant wife, and was going through severe illness himself. However, R. C. Bald points out that Walton's account
's biography contains the following:
This is adapted from Washington in Lincoln's Time (1895) by Noah Brooks
, who claimed that he had heard it from Lincoln himself on 9 November 1864, at the time of his re-election, and that he had printed an account "directly after." He also claimed that the story was confirmed by Mary Todd Lincoln
, and partially confirmed by Private Secretary John Hay
(who thought it dated from Lincoln's nomination, not his election). Brooks' version is as follows (in Lincoln's own words):
Lincoln was known to be superstitious, and old mirrors will occasionally produce double images; whether this Janus
illusion can be counted as a doppelgänger is perhaps debatable, though probably no more than other such claims of doppelgängers. An alternate consideration, however, suggests that Lincoln suffered vertical strabismus
in his left eye, a disorder which could induce visions of a vertically displaced image.
("Poetry and Truth"), Goethe wrote, almost in passing:
This is a rare example of a doppelgänger which was perceived by the observer to be both benign and reassuring.
. He walked through the drawing room of his family home in Eaton Square
, London
, looking straight ahead, without exchanging a word to anyone, in front of several guests at a party being given by his wife on 22 June 1893 whilst he was supposed to be in a ship of the Mediterranean Squadron, manoeuvering off the coast of Syria. Subsequently it was reported that he had gone down with his ship, HMS Victoria
, that very same night, after it had collided with HMS Camperdown
following an unexplained and bizarre order to turn the ship in the direction of the other vessel.
Mr Ravi Singh is reported to have seen the double of Ruskin Bond
at Writer's Meeting Point in Savoy Hotel
of Mussoorie
while the author himself was having his afternoon nap.
" to Al-Tayyib Salih's Season of Migration to the North
to Ralph Ellison
's Invisible Man
. In its simplest incarnation, mistaken identity is a classic trope used in literature, from Twelfth Night to A Tale of Two Cities
. But in these cases, the characters look similar for perfectly normal reasons, such as being siblings or simple coincidence.
Some stories offer supernatural explanations for doubles. These doppelgängers are typically, but not always, evil
in some way. The double will often impersonate the victim and go about ruining them, for instance through committing crimes or insulting the victim's friends. Sometimes, the double even tries to kill the original. In José Saramago
's 2001 novel The Double
(original Portuguese title O Homem Duplicado), both men's baser instincts come to the surface and they attempt to take advantage of each other. The torment is occasionally earned; for instance, in Edgar Allan Poe
's short story "William Wilson
," the protagonist of questionable morality is dogged by his doppelgänger most tenaciously when his morals fail. A similar device is employed in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story "The Double: A Petersburg Poem
".
In Philip Roth's novel "Operational Shylock," the author and protagonist travels to Israel in order to confront a doppelgänger. The faux Roth is revealed to be a surgically-altered impostor bent on using the author's notoriety to advance a nefarious political agenda. Although technically not a doppelgänger, the imposture threatens Roth's self-identity and forces him to undergo a personal transformation, both themes associated with Doppelgangers in fiction.
Doppelgängers are also a common theme in cinema, most notably in Henry Selick
's Coraline (film)
, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
's Doppelganger
from 2003, Avi Nesher
's 1993 film of the same name
starring Drew Barrymore
, The Abandoned (2006 film), and Dan Asenlund's 2011 short film Four Degrees of Jonas Rydell, as well as in many TV shows.
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
"double walker") (ˈdɔpəlˌgɛŋɐ) is a paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune. In the vernacular, the word has come to refer to any double or look-alike of a person.
The word also is used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision
Peripheral vision
Peripheral vision is a part of vision that occurs outside the very center of gaze. There is a broad set of non-central points in the field of view that is included in the notion of peripheral vision...
, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection. Doppelgängers often are perceived as a sinister form of bilocation
Bilocation
Bilocation, or sometimes multilocation, is a term used to describe the ability/instances in which an individual or object is said to be, or appears to be, located in two distinct places at the same instant in time...
and are regarded by some to be harbinger
Harbinger
-Places:* Montes Harbinger, lunar mountains* Harbinger, an unincorporated community in Currituck County, North Carolina-Transportation:* Harbinger , ship also called Norfolk in 1797* Harbinger , thoroughbred racehorse...
s of bad luck. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person's friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one's own doppelgänger is an omen of death.
In Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
, a vardøger
Vardøger
The vardøger or vardøgr is a spirit predecessor, from Norwegian folklore. Stories typically include instances that are nearly déjà vu in substance, but in reverse, where a spirit with the subject's footsteps, voice, scent, or appearance and overall demeanor precedes them in a location or activity,...
is a ghostly double who precedes a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance. In Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians...
, this is called having an etiäinen
Etiäinen
In Finnish folklore, an Etiäinen is a spirit sent forth by a shaman or by a person in great distress in order to receive information. The spirit appears as directed by the summoner in order to contact a person with whom the sender has a strong emotional bond. The spirit manifests itself by...
, i.e., "a firstcomer". In Ancient Egyptian mythology, a ka
Egyptian soul
The ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul was made up of five parts: the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. In addition to these components of the soul there was the human body...
was a tangible "spirit double" having the same memories and feeling as the original person. In one Egyptian myth titled "The Greek Princess," an Egyptian view of the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
, a ka of Helen was used to mislead Paris of Troy, helping to stop the war. In some myths, the doppelgänger is a version of the Ankou
Ankou
Ankou is a personification of death in Breton mythology as well as in Cornish and Norman French folklore.Ankou is also known as "Aräwn".-Background:This character is reported by Anatole Le Braz, writer and legends collector of the 19th century...
, a personification of death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
.
Spelling
The word doppelgänger is a loanwordLoanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
from German: Doppel (double) and Gänger (walker). The singular and plural forms are the same. It was first used by Jean Paul
Jean Paul
Jean Paul , born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, was a German Romantic writer, best known for his humorous novels and stories.-Life and work:...
in the novel Siebenkäs
Siebenkäs
Siebenkäs is a German Romantic novel by Jean Paul, published in three volumes between 1796-1797 in Berlin. As is common for Romantic novels of the period, the original title Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces; or, the Married Life, Death and Wedding of Siebenkäs, Poor Man's Lawyer is somewhat verbose,...
(1796), and explained by a footnote
Footnote
A note is a string of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document or at the end of a text. The note can provide an author's comments on the main text or citations of a reference work in support of the text, or both...
.
As is true for all other common nouns in German, the word is written with an initial capital letter. In English, the word is conventionally uncapitalized (doppelgänger). It is also common to drop the diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
umlaut
Umlaut (diacritic)
The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....
, writing "doppelganger."
Left temporoparietal junction
In September 2006, it was reported in NatureNature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
that Shahar Arzy and colleagues of the University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland, unexpectedly had reproduced an effect strongly reminiscent of the doppelgänger phenomenon via the electromagnetic stimulation
Transcranial magnetic stimulation
Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a noninvasive method to cause depolarization or hyperpolarization in the neurons of the brain...
of a patient's brain. They applied focal electrical stimulation to a patient's left temporoparietal junction
Temporoparietal junction
The temporoparietal junction is an area of the brain where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, at the posterior end of the Sylvian fissure...
while she lay flat on a bed. The patient immediately felt the presence of another person in her "extrapersonal space." Other than epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, for which the patient was being treated, she was psychologically fit.
The other person was described as young, of indeterminate sex, silent, motionless, and with a body posture identical to her own. The other person was located exactly behind her, almost touching and therefore within the bed on which the patient was lying.
A second electrical stimulation was applied with slightly more intensity, while the patient was sitting up with her arms folded. This time the patient felt the presence of a "man" who had his arms wrapped around her. She described the sensation as highly unpleasant and electrical stimulation was stopped.
Finally, when the patient was seated, electrical stimulation was applied while the patient was asked to perform a language test with a set of flash cards. On this occasion the patient reported the presence of a sitting person, displaced behind her and to the right. She said the presence was attempting to interfere with the test: "He wants to take the card; he doesn’t want me to read." Again, the effect was disturbing and electrical stimulation was ceased.
Similar effects were found for different positions and postures when electrical stimulation exceeded 10 mA
Ampere
The ampere , often shortened to amp, is the SI unit of electric current and is one of the seven SI base units. It is named after André-Marie Ampère , French mathematician and physicist, considered the father of electrodynamics...
, at the left temporoparietal junction.
Arzy and his colleagues suggest that the left temporoparietal junction of the brain evokes the sensation of self image—body location, position, posture etc. When the left temporoparietal junction is disturbed, the sensation of self-attribution is broken and may be replaced by the sensation of a foreign presence or copy of oneself displaced nearby. This copy mirrors the real person's body posture, location and position. Arzy and his colleagues suggest that the phenomenon they created is seen in certain mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, particularly when accompanied by paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
, delusions of persecution and of alien control. Nevertheless, the effects reported are highly reminiscent of the doppelgänger phenomenon. Accordingly, some reports of doppelgängers may well be due to failure of the left temporoparietal junction.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
On July 8, 1822, the English poet Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
drowned in the Bay of Spezia near Lerici
Lerici
Lerici is a town and comune in the province of La Spezia in Liguria , part of the Italian Riviera. Its nearest bay is the Bay of Lerici. The town is connected by ferry to the Cinque Terre and Portovenere....
. On August 15, while staying at Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
, Percy's wife Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
wrote a letter to Maria Gisborne
Maria Gisborne
Maria Gisborne was a friend of Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley.The daughter of an English merchant at Constantinople named James, was born in 1770, apparently in England. When she was eight years old, her mother, who had been left in poverty, resolved to rejoin her husband, and sailed for...
in which she relayed Percy's claims to her that he had met his own doppelgänger. A week after Mary's nearly fatal miscarriage
Miscarriage
Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
, in the early hours of June 23, Percy had had a nightmare
Nightmare
A nightmare is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong negative emotional response from the mind, typically fear or horror, but also despair, anxiety and great sadness. The dream may contain situations of danger, discomfort, psychological or physical terror...
about the house collapsing in a flood, and
- ... talking it over the next morning he told me that he had had many visions lately — he had seen the figure of himself which met him as he walked on the terrace and said to him — "How long do you mean to be content" — No very terrific words & certainly not prophetic of what has occurred. But Shelley had often seen these figures when ill; but the strangest thing is that Mrs Williams saw him. Now Jane, though a woman of sensibility, has not much imagination & is not in the slightest degree nervous — neither in dreams or otherwise. She was standing one day, the day before I was taken ill, [June 15] at a window that looked on the Terrace with Trelawny — it was day — she saw as she thought Shelley pass by the window, as he often was then, without a coat or jacket — he passed again — now as he passed both times the same way — and as from the side towards which he went each time there was no way to get back except past the window again (except over a wall twenty feet from the ground) she was struck at seeing him pass twice thus & looked out & seeing him no more she cried — "Good God can Shelley have leapt from the wall? Where can he be gone?" Shelley, said Trelawny — "No Shelley has past — What do you mean?" Trelawny says that she trembled exceedingly when she heard this & it proved indeed that Shelley had never been on the terrace & was far off at the time she saw him.
Percy Shelley's drama Prometheus Unbound (1820) contains the following passage in Act I: "Ere Babylon was dust, / The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, / Met his own image walking in the garden. / That apparition, sole of men, he saw. / For know there are two worlds of life and death: / One that which thou beholdest; but the other / Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit / The shadows of all forms that think and live / Till death unite them and they part no more...."
John Donne
Izaak WaltonIzaak Walton
Izaak Walton was an English writer. Best known as the author of The Compleat Angler, he also wrote a number of short biographies which have been collected under the title of Walton's Lives.-Biography:...
claimed that John Donne
John Donne
John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...
, the English metaphysical poet, saw his wife's doppelgänger in 1612 in Paris, on the same night as the stillbirth of their daughter.
Two days after their arrival there, Mr. Donne was left alone, in that room in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friends had dined together. To this place Sir Robert returned within half an hour; and, as he left, so he found Mr. Donne alone; but, in such ecstasy, and so altered as to his looks, as amazed Sir Robert to behold him in so much that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare befallen him in the short time of his absence? to which, Mr. Donne was not able to make a present answer: but, after a long and perplext pause, did at last say, I have seen a dreadful Vision since I saw you: I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this, I have seen since I saw you. To which, Sir Robert replied; Sure Sir, you have slept since I saw you; and, this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake. To which Mr. Donnes reply was: I cannot be surer that I now live, then that I have not slept since I saw you: and am, as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopped, looked me in the face, and vanished.
This account first appears in the edition of Life of Dr John Donne published in 1675, and is attributed to "a Person of Honour... told with such circumstances, and such asseveration, that... I verily believe he that told it me, did himself believe it to be true. "At the time Donne was indeed extremely worried about his pregnant wife, and was going through severe illness himself. However, R. C. Bald points out that Walton's account
"is riddled with inaccuracies. He says that Donne crossed from London to Paris with the Drurys in twelve days, and that the vision occurred two days later; the servant sent to London to make inquiries found Mrs Donne still confined to her bed in Drury House. Actually, of course, Donne did not arrive in Paris until more than three months after he left England, and his wife was not in London but in the Isle of WightIsle of WightThe Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
. The still-born child was buried on 24 January.... Yet as late as 14 April Donne in Paris was still ignorant of his wife's ordeal." In January, Donne was still at AmiensAmiensAmiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...
. His letters do not support the story as given.
Abraham Lincoln
Carl SandburgCarl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
's biography contains the following:
A dream or illusion had haunted LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
at times through the winter. On the evening of his election he had thrown himself on one of the haircloth sofas at home, just after the first telegrams of November 7 had told him he was elected President, and looking into a bureau mirror across the room he saw himself full length, but with two faces.
It bothered him; he got up; the illusion vanished; but when he lay down again there in the glass again were two faces, one paler than the other. He got up again, mixed in the election excitement, forgot about it; but it came back, and haunted him. He told his wife about it; she worried too.
A few days later he tried it once more and the illusion of the two faces again registered to his eyes. But that was the last; the ghost since then wouldn't come back, he told his wife, who said it was a sign he would be elected to a second term, and the death pallor of one face meant he wouldn't live through his second term.
This is adapted from Washington in Lincoln's Time (1895) by Noah Brooks
Noah Brooks
Noah Brooks was a journalist and editor who worked for newspapers in Sacramento, San Francisco, Newark, and New York, and authored a major biography of Abraham Lincoln based on close personal observation. Born in Castine, Maine, he moved to Dixon, Illinois in 1856, where he became involved in the...
, who claimed that he had heard it from Lincoln himself on 9 November 1864, at the time of his re-election, and that he had printed an account "directly after." He also claimed that the story was confirmed by Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Ann Lincoln was the wife of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and was First Lady of the United States from 1861 to 1865.-Life before the White House:...
, and partially confirmed by Private Secretary John Hay
John Hay
John Milton Hay was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln.-Early life:...
(who thought it dated from Lincoln's nomination, not his election). Brooks' version is as follows (in Lincoln's own words):
It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great "hurrah, boys," so that I was well tired out, and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it (and here he got up and placed furniture to illustrate the position), and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler — say five shades — than the other. I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it — nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang as if something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home again that night I told my wife about it, and a few days afterward I made the experiment again, when (with a laugh), sure enough! the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was somewhat worried about it. She thought it was a "sign" that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.
Lincoln was known to be superstitious, and old mirrors will occasionally produce double images; whether this Janus
Janus (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings and time. He is usually a two-faced god since he looks to the future and the past...
illusion can be counted as a doppelgänger is perhaps debatable, though probably no more than other such claims of doppelgängers. An alternate consideration, however, suggests that Lincoln suffered vertical strabismus
Strabismus
Strabismus is a condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned with each other. It typically involves a lack of coordination between the extraocular muscles, which prevents bringing the gaze of each eye to the same point in space and preventing proper binocular vision, which may adversely...
in his left eye, a disorder which could induce visions of a vertically displaced image.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Near the end of Book XI of his autobiography, Dichtung und WahrheitDichtung und Wahrheit
Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit is an autobiography by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that comprises the time from the poet's childhood to the days in 1775, when he was about to leave for Weimar....
("Poetry and Truth"), Goethe wrote, almost in passing:
Amid all this pressure and confusion I could not forego seeing FredericaFriederike BrionFriederike Elisabetha Brion was a parson's daughter who had a short, but intense love-affair with the young Johann Wolfgang Goethe.- Life :...
once more. Those were painful days, the memory of which has not remained with me. When I reached her my hand from my horse, the tears stood in her eyes; and I felt very uneasy. I now rode along the foot-path toward DrusenheimDrusenheimDrusenheim is a commune in the Bas-Rhin département in Alsace in north-eastern France, situated on the bank of the Rhine.-History:Drusenheim was fortified by the military architect, militaire Jean Maximilien Welsch in 1705.-Notable people:...
, and here one of the most singular forebodings took possession of me. I saw, not with the eyes of the body, but with those of the mind, my own figure coming toward me, on horseback, and on the same road, attired in a dress which I had never worn, — it was pike-gray [hecht-grau], with somewhat of gold. As soon as I shook myself out of this dream, the figure had entirely disappeared. It is strange, however, that, eight years afterward, I found myself on the very road, to pay one more visit to Frederica, in the dress of which I had dreamed, and which I wore, not from choice, but by accident. However, it may be with matters of this kind generally, this strange illusion in some measure calmed me at the moment of parting. The pain of quitting for ever noble AlsaceAlsaceAlsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, with all I had gained in it, was softened; and, having at last escaped the excitement of a farewell, I, on a peaceful and quiet journey, pretty well regained my self-possession.
This is a rare example of a doppelgänger which was perceived by the observer to be both benign and reassuring.
George Tryon
A famous Victorian apparition was the strange appearance of Vice-Admiral Sir George TryonGeorge Tryon
Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, KCB was a British admiral who died when his flagship HMS Victoria collided with HMS Camperdown during manoeuvres off Tripoli, Lebanon.-Early life:...
. He walked through the drawing room of his family home in Eaton Square
Eaton Square
Eaton Square is a residential garden square in London's Belgravia district. It is one of the three garden squares built by the Grosvenor family when they developed the main part of Belgravia in the 19th century, and is named after Eaton Hall, the Grosvenor country house in Cheshire...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, looking straight ahead, without exchanging a word to anyone, in front of several guests at a party being given by his wife on 22 June 1893 whilst he was supposed to be in a ship of the Mediterranean Squadron, manoeuvering off the coast of Syria. Subsequently it was reported that he had gone down with his ship, HMS Victoria
HMS Victoria (1887)
HMS Victoria was the lead ship in her class of two battleships of the Royal Navy. On 22 June 1893, she collided with near Tripoli, Lebanon during manoeuvres and quickly sank, taking 358 crew with her, including the commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon...
, that very same night, after it had collided with HMS Camperdown
HMS Camperdown (1885)
HMS Camperdown was an Admiral-class battleship of the Royal Navy, named after Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan of Camperdown.She was a full sister to , and was an improved version of the earlier and . In comparison to these earlier ships, she had an increased thickness of barbette armour, and a...
following an unexplained and bizarre order to turn the ship in the direction of the other vessel.
Ruskin Bond
The owner of Penguin IndiaPenguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
Mr Ravi Singh is reported to have seen the double of Ruskin Bond
Ruskin Bond
Ruskin Bond, born 19 May 1934, is an Indian author of British descent. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children's authors and a top novelist....
at Writer's Meeting Point in Savoy Hotel
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a hotel located on the Strand, in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the hotel opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by...
of Mussoorie
Mussoorie
Mussoorie is a city and a municipal board in the Dehradun District of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is located about 35 km from the state capital of Dehradun and 290 km north from the national capital of New Delhi...
while the author himself was having his afternoon nap.
In popular culture
Doppelgängers, as dark doubles of individual identities, appear in a variety of fictional works from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The DoubleThe Double: A Petersburg Poem
The Double: A Petersburg Poem is a novella written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The novella was first published on January 30, 1846 in Fatherland Notes....
" to Al-Tayyib Salih's Season of Migration to the North
Season of Migration to the North
Season of Migration to the North is a classic post-colonial Sudanese novel by the late novelist Tayeb Salih...
to Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
's Invisible Man
Invisible Man
Invisible Man is a novel written by Ralph Ellison, and the only one that he published during his lifetime . It won him the National Book Award in 1953...
. In its simplest incarnation, mistaken identity is a classic trope used in literature, from Twelfth Night to A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....
. But in these cases, the characters look similar for perfectly normal reasons, such as being siblings or simple coincidence.
Some stories offer supernatural explanations for doubles. These doppelgängers are typically, but not always, evil
Evil
Evil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good. Definitions of evil vary along with analysis of its root motive causes, however general actions commonly considered evil include: conscious and deliberate wrongdoing,...
in some way. The double will often impersonate the victim and go about ruining them, for instance through committing crimes or insulting the victim's friends. Sometimes, the double even tries to kill the original. In José Saramago
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom has described Saramago as "a...
's 2001 novel The Double
The Double (novel)
The Double is a 2001 novel by Portuguese author José Saramago.-Plot summary:Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is a divorced high school history teacher who spends his nights reading about Mesopotamian civilizations. One day, at a colleague's suggestion, Tertuliano rents a movie in which he sees a man that...
(original Portuguese title O Homem Duplicado), both men's baser instincts come to the surface and they attempt to take advantage of each other. The torment is occasionally earned; for instance, in Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's short story "William Wilson
William Wilson (short story)
"William Wilson" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839, with a setting inspired by Poe's formative years outside of London. The tale follows the theme of the doppelgänger and is written in a style based on rationality...
," the protagonist of questionable morality is dogged by his doppelgänger most tenaciously when his morals fail. A similar device is employed in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story "The Double: A Petersburg Poem
The Double: A Petersburg Poem
The Double: A Petersburg Poem is a novella written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The novella was first published on January 30, 1846 in Fatherland Notes....
".
In Philip Roth's novel "Operational Shylock," the author and protagonist travels to Israel in order to confront a doppelgänger. The faux Roth is revealed to be a surgically-altered impostor bent on using the author's notoriety to advance a nefarious political agenda. Although technically not a doppelgänger, the imposture threatens Roth's self-identity and forces him to undergo a personal transformation, both themes associated with Doppelgangers in fiction.
Doppelgängers are also a common theme in cinema, most notably in Henry Selick
Henry Selick
Henry Selick is an American stop motion director, producer and writer who is best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline...
's Coraline (film)
Coraline (film)
Coraline is a 2009 stop-motion 3D fantasy/horror children's film based on Neil Gaiman's 2002 novel of the same name. It was produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features. Written and directed by Henry Selick, it was released widely in US theaters on February 6, 2009, after a world premiere at...
, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
is a Japanese filmmaker. He is best known for his many contributions to the Japanese horror genre.-Biography:Born in Kobe on July 19, 1955, Kiyoshi Kurosawa is not related to director Akira Kurosawa...
's Doppelganger
Doppelganger (2003 film)
is a 2003 Japanese film written and directed by Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, starring Koji Yakusho and Hiromi Nagasaku....
from 2003, Avi Nesher
Avi Nesher
Avi Nesher is an Israeli film producer, film director, screenwriter and actor.- Biography :Avi Nesher was born and raised in Ramat Gan, Israel. The child of a Romanian-born diplomat, and a mother who came from Russia. In 1965, he moved with his family to the United States...
's 1993 film of the same name
Doppelganger (1993 film)
Doppelganger is a 1993 film starring Drew Barrymore. The story follows Holly Gooding , who moves from New York City to Los Angeles after being implicated in a murder. She is followed by what is apparently her evil twin. While in LA, she finds a room for rent by a writer and the two begin a love...
starring Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
, The Abandoned (2006 film), and Dan Asenlund's 2011 short film Four Degrees of Jonas Rydell, as well as in many TV shows.