Setting

Structure of the setting throughout the story change and are important because as the narrator leaves the academy, then to Eton, to Oxford, and then to Paris the narrator becomes more corrupt and for this reason the alter ego appears, to deter his immoral behavior. The narrator explains his settings in the academy in the beginning with lots of detail, the structure of the building and the limited freedom he experienced living there, this description foreshadows the mental trapment the alter ego has on the narrator. When the narrator leaves the academy he wants to forget his encounter with his alter ego at the academy, so he enrolls in a different schools and he begins to live a lifestyle of partying and scheming to escape from his own self, who he thought was a perpetrator trying to emulate him. The setting of the narrators enrollment in different schools and his visits to different countries to escape his alter ego, showed the narrators determination to escape his alter ego though he could never escape from himself.

Characterisation

From the beginning the narrator seems to be an untruthful person. He doesn't give his real name instead gives a false name William Wilson. "Let me call myself, William Wilson. The fair page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real apellation" (p 168). the narrator could have not given a name at all, instead he chose to lie and for this reason I was a little dubious about whether or not to trust him.
WilliamWilson was a mentally ill person. He disassociated himself from his alter ego to the point he believed the other William Wilson was an actual person emulating him "his cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay both in words and in in actions; and must admirably did he play his part. My dress it was an easy matter to copy, mygait and general manner were, without diffculty, appropiated; inspite of his constitutional defect even my voice did not escape him"(p 175). And to credit with veracity the existence of the other William Wilson, the narrator mentions how the other William Wilson was his rival that tyrannized him. "I did not pretend to diguise from my perception the identity of the singular individual who this perseveringly interfered with my affairs and harassed me" (p 179).
William Wilson was rebellious as a child in which his parents were incapable of restraining him. "weakminded, my parents could do but little to check the evil propensities which distinguished me" (p 169). In later years the narrator continued to be rebellious after the several confrontations with his alter ego's attempt to expose his mischief behavior "in no one of the multiplied instance in which he had of late crossed my path, to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb those actions, which it fully carried out, might have resulted in bitter mishief. Poor justification this, intruth, for an authority so imperiously assumed! Poor idemnity for natural rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly denied! (p 184).
The narrator was a smart person. He exhibited it through his competitive nature in academics through his early years and making it to graduate school in the latter.

SYMBOLISM

The most conspicuous symbolism in the story of "William Wilson" is the struture of the acadmey, where the narrator intially exposed his psychological disorder. The building was "two stories" which clearly was in reference to the alter ego William Wilson possesed. In addition, the principal, Reverend Dr. Bransby's character appeared to adjust in different settings "This Reverend man, with countenacne so demurely benign- could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments, adminstered ferule in hand, the Dranconian Laws of the academy?''. The Reverend ruled the academy with an iron fist but when in church the facade exhibited was a kind and gracious character. The levels of the academy and Bransby's different personalities were indicative to the alter ego William Wilson suffered from.

Being confronted by the other William's face, frightened the narrator "Upon his countenance, I looked;-and a numbness, an iciness of feeling instantly pervaded my frame". The narrator left the academy and never returned. The narrator soon encounters the other William thereafter but his face is always concealed. At the school of Eton when the narrator encountered the other William Wilson, the other William Wilson's features were vague" This faint light enabled me to perceive, but the features of his face I could not distinguish". And at graduate school as well as at the masquerade ball the features of the other William Wilson was always indistiguishable. The face of the other William Wilson was shielded because this was symbolic to the narrators first encounter and how it was so frightening for him to witness, he subconsciously blurred the other William Wilson's countenance to enable the ability to disaasociate himself from his alter ego.