How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph)
Quote #1
Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real appellation. (1)
The unreliable narrator sets the stage for the theme of deceit.
Quote #2
Upon mankind at large the events of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All is gray shadow—a weak and irregular remembrance—an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric pains. With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid, as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian medals. (11)
The narrator’s repeated insistence that he remembers this very well actually brings to surface the suspect nature of memory.
Quote #3
Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson's conduct, conjoined with our identity of name, and the mere accident of our having entered the school upon the same day… (15)
The more William insists that all is coincidence, the more we are convinced it is not.
Quote #4
I casually learned that my namesake was born on the nineteenth of January, 1813—and this is a somewhat remarkable coincidence; for the day is precisely that of my own nativity. (15)
This was Poe’s birthday as well. Some scholars think that Poe’s story is in some ways about his own life. This fits under the lies and deceit theme in the sense that Poe is potentially deceiving his readers as to the nature of this narrator.
Quote #5
That the school, indeed, did not feel his design, perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I could not resolve. (21)
This is the very riddle posed to the reader as the story unfolds. Our interpretation of William Wilson must provide an answer to such questions.
Quote #6
I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent officious interference withy my will. This interference often took the ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but hinted or insinuated. (22)
The second William Wilson operates with the same subtlety with which the narrator weaves his tale.
Quote #7
The truth—the tragedy—of the drama was no more. I could now find room to doubt the evidence of my senses; and seldom called up the subject at all but with wonder at extent of human credulity, and a smile at the vivid force of the imagination which I hereditarily possessed. (27)
William deceives himself into thinking that the events of his childhood were largely imagined.
Quote #8
In this low and small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all was admitted, save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made its way through the semi-circular window. (28)
Notice that there is no light by which William might clearly examine the countenance of his visitor. In his fictional story, he creates an environment with low light so that he doesn’t have to face his nemesis clearly. In this way, he is lying to himself by refusing to face reality.
Quote #9
…which would enable me to indulge at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart,—to vie in profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain. (31)
For someone who is supposedly of noble descent himself, William certainly takes great pleasure in keeping noble company. Can we trust his declaration of noble blood?