How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph)
Quote #1
Thenceforward my voice was a household law; and at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the master of my own actions. (3)
Before the arrival of William Wilson, the narrator was used to being in control.
Quote #2
These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious importance, as connected with a period and a locality when and where I recognise the first ambiguous monitions of the destiny which afterwards so fully overshadowed me. Let me then remember. (5)
The narrator has just finished proclaiming his own sense of control, only to reveal that he believes himself subject to a cruel fate.
Quote #3
The house, I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like rampart formed the limit of our domain (6)
We start to doubt the narrator’s claim that he was in control of his environment as a child.
Quote #4
It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety occasioned me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable spirit of contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him altogether. (15)
William is trapped by the confusing nature of his feelings for his alter ego. Because he does not hate his conscience completely, he cannot bring himself to dispose of him.
Quote #5
My sentiments, in nearly similar proportion, partook very much of positive hatred. Upon one occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards avoided, or made a show of avoiding me. (23)
This suggests that William in fact does have some control over his double.
Quote #6
The vortex of thoughtless folly into which I there so immediately and so recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth of my past hours, engulfed at once every solid or serious impression, and left to memory only the veriest levities of a former existence. (27)
The narrator uses vice as an escape from reality.
Quote #7
I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had as yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain!—at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness, stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too—at Berlin—and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in vain. (42)
If you believe that William Wilson creates his double in his mind, this “flight” is clearly futile.