The manifest double and the uncanny
Trevor C. Pederson
Routledge eBooks October 25, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9781315142234-3 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key findings | Argues that scholarship on the literary double since Rank falls into three schools: the manifest double (supernatural bodily duplication or divided personalities), the latent double (a double relation with a character who need not resemble the protagonist), and the double as avatar, which feminist criticism uses to argue that female characters' oppressed consciousness is displaced onto another character. |
Abstract
This chapter shows the major touchstones from Rank onward and analysis the literature into three schools of scholarship. The first school deals with the manifest double: a supernatural manifestation of the duplication of the protagonist’s body in an external character or several internal characters trying to control the protagonist’s body. The second school deals with the latent double: a mode of interpretation wherein the protagonist is in a double relation with another character who need not physically resemble him or herself. The third school deals with the double as an avatar. This reading has been adopted by feminist criticism to argue that the oppressed consciousness of female characters has been displaced onto another character. The analysis of the double begins with the fantastical creation of a character who is a physical duplicate of the protagonist, or a character that is divided into fully separate personalities.