The Gothic double is a literary motif which refers to the divided personality of a character. Closely linked to the Doppelgänger, which first appeared in the 1796 novel Siebenkäs by Johann Paul Richter, the double figure emerged in Gothic literature in the late 18th century due to a resurgence of interest in mythology and folklore which explored notions of duality, such as the fetch in Irish folklore which is a double figure of a family member, often signifying an impending death.
A major shift in Gothic literature occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, where evil was no longer within a physical location such as a haunted castle, but expanded to inhabit the mind of characters, often referred to as "the haunted individual." Examples of the Gothic double motif in 19th-century texts include Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), which use the motif to reflect on gender inequalites in the Victorian era, and famously, Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886).
In the early 20th century, the Gothic double motif was featured in new mediums such as film to explore the emerging fear of technology replacing humanity. A notable example of this is the evil mechanical double depicted in the German expressionist film Metropolis by Fritz Lang (1927). Texts in this period also appropriate the Gothic double motif present in earlier literature, such as Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance novel Rebecca (1938), which appropriates the doubling in Jane Eyre. In the 21st century, the Gothic double motif has further been featured in horror and psychological thriller films such as Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (2010) and Jordan Peele's Us (2019). In addition, the Gothic double motif has been used in 21st century Anthropocene literature, such as Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation (2014).
Origins
The emergence of the Gothic novel in the 18th century coincided with a renewed interest in Celtic folklore and pagan mythology, which is abundant with supernatural double figures. The period from 1750 to 1830 is known as the “Gothic and Celtic revival” in which the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh folklore which had previously become absorbed into British literature as a result of colonial expansion into these territories began to influence the development of the Gothic genre. For example, the doppelgänger motif was inspired by the Celtic double figure called the fetch or Macasamhail, a lookalike of a relative or friend who would appear as an omen of death if encountered at night, according to Irish and Scottish superstition.
Short stories detailing encounters with fetches began to appear in the early 19th century, such as the tale The Fetches (1825) published by Irish brothers John Banim and Michael Banim, and the collection of ghost-sightings The Night Side of Nature (1848) published by Catherine Crowe. Crowe's collection of tales featured a chapter detailing encounters with double figures, including John Donne's claim that he saw a double of his wife holding a dead child in Paris at the same moment she gave birth to their stillborn child in London. In these early Gothic tales, the double was believed to be a sentient spirit which had the ability to leave the physical body and travel to communicate with family members.
18th century
Siebenkas (1796) The German Romantic novel Siebenkas features the first appearance of the term doppelgänger, meaning double-walker. A footnote in the novel which first coins the term defines doppelgänger as “the name for people who see themselves.” Unlike the supernatural fetch in Celtic folklore, in Siebenkas the doppelgänger is initially not a supernatural apparition or hallucination but Siebankas’ friend Leibgeber who looks very similar to Siebenkas except for his limp. However, later in the novel the term doppelgänger begins to take on the meaning of a hallucination when Leibgeber is represented as Siebenkas’ alter ego or spectre rather than just his lookalike friend. This novel marked the beginning of the Gothic double motif as a sinister split personality.