Literary Doubling In Berenice By Edgar Allan Poe

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Literary doubling is found often in Edgar Allan Poe’s work as a way for characters to analyze their individual issues. In Poe’s short essay, Berenice, Egaeus discovers his double in his cousin Berenice; through her, he is able to recognizes his own monomania, furthermore, through the extraction of her teeth he attains a panacea for his ailment. While Berenice is Egaeus’ antithesis, there are insidious hints throughout the essay. Egaeus conveys in the opening that, “from Beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness” (7), placing himself in the center of both things. Berenice exemplifies beauty. She represents everything good, bright, and happy. On the other hand, the unloveliness is his mental instability, the monomania, which has brought