Another Me

A figure from ancient folklore, the doppelgänger—in fiction a character’s sinister look-alike—continues to reemerge in literature, television and film. The modern-day doppelganger (“double-goer” in German) is typically depicted in a traditional form adapted to reflect present-day social anxieties. Focusing on a broad range of narratives, the author explores 21st century representations in novels (Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry, José Saramago’s The Double), TV shows (Orphan Black, Battlestar Galactica, Ringer) and movies (The Island, The Prestige, Oblivion).

Heather Duerre Humann teaches in the Department of Language and Literature at Florida Gulf Coast University. She is the author of multiple books and has contributed essays to edited collections and published articles, reviews and short stories in African American Review, Women’s Studies, South Atlantic Review and Studies in American Culture.

Heather Duerre Humann

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 180
Bibliographic Info: bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7176-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3172-1
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Monster in the Mirror 1

Section I. Literature 21
1. Twinning in Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry 27
2. The Pursuit of Self? José Saramago’s The Double 35
3. The Ethics of Cloning in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go 42
4. Through a Machine Darkly: Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter 50
5. Technology and the Self in Dexter Palmer’s Version Control 58
6. Clones (and Crime) in Space: Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes 65

Section II. Television and Film 75
7. The Twin Formula in Ringer and The Lying Game 81
8. The Motif of the Double in Fringe and Battlestar Galactica 86
9. Westworld, the 21st Century Technoculture Take on Doubles 98
10. Clones and Cultural Anxieties in Orphan Black 112
11. Cinematic Clones in The Island and Oblivion 122
12. Monstrous Doubling and Magical Illusion in The Prestige 136

Conclusion: Cultural Anxieties and Doppelgangers in the 21st Century 151
Bibliography 159
Index 167

“Undeniably, Humann’s book constitutes a very clairvoyant interpretation of our bourgeoning century and millennium. …this new study of doppelganger works remains an articulate and welcome contribution that brings a truthful look at the twenty-first-century problems we face”—Interdisciplinary Literary Studies