William Wilson

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Human nature and the society
Willian Wilsons is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that warns readers about human wickedness and nature of it. He uses the character “William Wilson” who does not tell his real name because he is ashamed of it and his worst enemy with the same name William Wilson to show and represent the two sides of human behavior (Poe, 6). The narrator William is known to tell stories of his exceptionally active imagination and strong will for doing bad things while his namesake does not give in to narrator’s domination among other boys in the academy. The archenemy moreover often comes out and speaks of the narrator’s wrongdoings, which shows the two sides of moral conscience within the society.
The narrator William after escaping from school, he goes to Oxford and engages himself to vices like using drugs, seducing other people wives and pulling pranks on others. It shows that the narrator represents the criminal nature of human being in the society while his archenemy represents the moral sense of doing good and evil in the community because he used to point out the narrator’s evil actions (Poe, 12). At the end of the story, the narrator ends up killing his archenemy out of pressure and the torture from his archenemy figure. It shows that evil doings is the strongest between the dual human nature. Poe warns the readers of bad behaviors in the society and the need to have a good moral sense of doing right and proper as portrayed by the two William Wilson characters in the story.

The short story moreover shows us the thought of having a conscience, which controls and influences our actions within the society.
Works Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY Poe, Edgar Allan. William Wilson. United States: Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, 1839.