Doppelgänger Plots: Double Your Horror, Double Your Thrills

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood . . . . 

 

—Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

Each choice that we make shapes us. Every alternative choice is an opportunity to take one path or another. Every decision is a sculpting of the hands over the present and future direction of our lives. We graft and prune and weed with each action we take. Yes, I have mixed my metaphors; life is too complex for a single trope, as are the many moments that demand we shape our lives, our selves, our beings.

 

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

 Click the image to enlarge it.

 

Sometimes, horror fiction allows readers to read about (or, in the case of horror as it is depicted in theater, television, and cinema, viewers) to “see” not only the culmination of the results of the decisions and actions that a character has made, but also those of the decisions and actions that he or she could have made, revealing not only the actual character, but also an alternative character—or even alternative characters—that the one could have become, were he or she to have made other choices and taken other actions than those he or she chose or took.

 Fiction that offers multiple potential versions of the same character is existential, suggesting that, as Jean-Paul Sartre declares, “existence precedes essence”; we are, or become, what we do. However, fiction of this sort, not the least of which, has often used mythical and psychoanalytical (some would say these are redundant terms) models to present the fictitious doubles, or doppelgängers by which such multiplicities of possibility are exhibited.

Perhaps one of the most familiar examples of the double, or doppelgänger, is Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The title of the novel suggests that there are two characters, but, there is only one: the good Dr. Jekyll and the evil Mr. Hyde are one and the same character.

  Oscar Wilde also explores the possibilities of alternative pathways; the protagonist of his novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray sells his soul to the devil so that he may remain young and beautiful while his portrait ages and takes on ever more hideous and deformed aspects each time Dorian sins.

 In a short story, “One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts,” Shirley Jackson's doppelgänger takes the form of a married couple who take turns aiding and afflicting strangers, the husband acting with charity toward all, while his wife acts with malice to everyone; later, they switch roles.

Hitchcock's Rear Window: The Well-Made Film

According to John Fawell, author of Hitchcock's Rear Window: The Well-Made Film, Alfred Hitchcock employs the doppelgänger with a vengeance in Rear Window.

 

  A fan of such writers as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Heinrich Heine. Robert Louis Stevenson, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, and Alfred de Masset, all of whom used the device of the double, Hitchcock also frequently uses “doubles . . . as the basis for his stories” (73). The double, Fawell says, is used in Strangers on a Train, Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and other films, including, of course, Rear Window.

Indeed, Fawell suspects “perhaps no other Hitchcock film has as many doubles in it as Rear Window, creating the effect that the neighbors of the voyeuristic photographer, protagonist L. B. Jefferies, who is laid up in his apartment with a broken leg, are merely images of himself, rather like the figures in one's dream (76): 

The windows [in the apartments through which, using his camera's telephoto lens, he secretly spies] can be seen either as a visualization of Jeff's dream or unconscious world as paraliterary devices, means of reflection and therapy for Jeff . . . . For [critic Robin] Woods, the windows “all in some way reflect his own problems,” whereas, for Hitchcock's biographer, Donald Spoto, “each of the spied-upon neighbors offers . . . a facet of his present psychic life or possibility of the future” (77).

Hitchcock makes his audience aware of Jefferies's thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and judgments concerning the things he sees his neighbors do. In fact, Jefferies nicknames some of them for the trait of each that stands out to him: Miss Torso, Miss Lonelyhearts, The Composer, The Newlyweds. His thoughts about them are his thoughts, so his views of his neighbors allow viewers to “see” the real Jefferies who resides behind the persona of the adventurous, rather arrogant photographer.

 

 His view of them, is his view of himself. Thus, the ideas and emotions he projects on them represent the different persons he himself might have been, had he made different choices and performed different actions than those he did. Perhaps impotent, perhaps homosexual or asexual, Jefferies wants to get rid of his girlfriend Lisa, a beautiful model; Lars Thorwald, his neighbor, does just this, when he murders, cuts up, and hauls away his nagging wife.

 

 There are many other similarities, too, between Jefferies, the voyeur, and the neighbors he spies upon. For example, as Fawell points out, “just as Miss Lonelyhearts made dinner for a man who literally was not there while Lisa made dinner for a man (Jeff) who metaphorically was not there, so Miss Torso literally waits for a man to return just as Lisa waits metaphorically for Jeff to return to her” (103).

 

Throughout several seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon and his stable of writers provided fans of the series with an extended sequence in which Buffy is flanked by two other characters who seem to represent possible alter egos for her: Kendra and Faith. In this context, these young women can be viewed as either mythical or psychoanalytic terms:

Apollo	Socratic Soul	Dionysus
Kendra	Buffy	Faith

Mythical Model

Superego	Freudian Self	Id
Kendra	Buffy	Faith

Psychoanalytic Model

Beset from both directions, by the demands of Kendra, representing Buffy's Apollonian tendencies (or the demands of her superego) and by those of Faith, embodying Buffy's own Dionysian impulses (or the demands of Buffy's own id), Buffy, as the Socratic Soul (or the Freudian Self), must decide in which direction to go (that is, which impulse or demand to follow). From both Kendra-Apollo-Superego and Faith-Dionysus-Id, Buffy-Socratic Soul-Self acquires strengths and weaknesses, enriching and complexifying her own character.

 

 She also learns the benefits and the dangers of both extremes, that of the Apollonian (or superego) and that of the Dionysian (or id). Kendra tells Buffy that Buffy that whatever is specified in The Watcher's Handbook must be done—that is, Kendra goes strictly by the book, obeying authority without thought or challenge. Faith, on the other hand, follows her own precepts; when it comes to sex, she says she “get[s] some, [and] get[s] gone.” Likewise, when Faith sees something in a shop window that she likes, she doesn't buy the item; she steals it: “want, take, have” is the credo that guides her actions.

 

 Kendra's sense of duty and her unquestioning obedience gets her killed; Faith's amoral lawlessness almost gets both Buffy and herself killed. At the end of the series, however, Buffy and Faith survive the Hellmouth; Kendra does not survive even the attack of the vampire Drusilla.

 

Ultimately, Whedon's series suggests that, although both the superego and the id are valuable to a warrior, over-reliance on the Apollonian (basically, reason) or the demands of the superego (essentially, one's conscience) could get a fighter killed, whereas over-reliance on the Dionysian (basically, instinct) or the demands of the id (again, essentially instinct) although potentially dangerous, might save a slayer.

 When the chips are down, Whedon suggests, go with the gut, not the head—certainly a debatable point.

 Whether the topic of concern to a writer is morality, one's unconscious perceptions of reality, or survival, the use of the double, or doppelgänger is a proven, time-honored device by which writers of any genre, including horror and the thriller, can investigate the perils, strengths, flaws, benefits, and disadvantages of extremes, Apollonian and Dionysian, psychoanalytic, or otherwise.

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Scientist Turned Ghostbuster (and Vampirebuster)

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Are you afraid of vampires?

Do you sleep with a cross or a crucifix around your neck?

Does your house (and your breath) smell like garlic?

Do you keep a bottle of holy water on hand?

Are you careful to be home by dark every day?

Could an unsuspecting guest stumble upon a few wooden stakes and a mallet stashed in your dresser?

If so, you need not fear bloodsucking dead people any longer!

A scientist has come to the rescue with a mathematical proof against the possibility of the existence of vampires!

University of Central Florida physics professor Costas Efthimiou starts with the human population on January 1, 1600, which was 536,870,911. On this day, the first vampire appears and bites one person each month. On the first day of February, there are two bloodsucking freaks. On March 1, 1600, there are four vampires. In 2.5 years, there are no more humans to feed on, because everyone on the planet has been turned into a vampire! There's no food left for the bloodsuckers, so they die of starvation. (On the downside, there are no more people, either.)

Not even doubling the human birthrate (if such a gambit were possible) could save the human species, Dr. Efthimiou says: “In the long run, humans cannot survive under these conditions, even if our population were doubling each month. And doubling is clearly way beyond the human capacity of reproduction.”

So, there you have it, thanks to Professor Efthimiou: there's no need to fear the existence of vampires. If there were, both vampires and humans would have disappeared in mid-1603. Since we humans, at least, are still here, there obviously are no such things as vampires.

For some folks, ghosts are scary phenomena, too, but there's no need to worry about these spectral beings, either, another scientist says.

Dr. Brian Cox, a physicist, has proved there aren't any ghosts, either. If they did exist, they'd be entities of pure energy, since, by definition, they're incorporeal. According to the second law of thermodynamics, energy is always “lost to heat”; therefore, ghosts, as beings of pure energy, would soon drift apart and cease to exist. 

 

Plotting by Poster, Part II

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

In case you missed the initial post concerning this topic, I suggested how movie posters can help to suggest plots and identified these guidelines for anyone who might like to try this approach to plotting stories:

1. If the poster you select promotes a movie you have seen, pretend it does not, and don't reference the film, even in your thoughts, as you analyze the poster. The poster should speak for itself, as it were.
2. We are taught to read from left to right and from top to bottom. Graphic designers know this and use our training to their benefit in creating designs and art and in communicating to us.
3. A poster is likely to have a central image, and this central image will be emphasized in some way—through its position, just off center; through color or intensity; by being of bigger than other images. It is obvious that the artist wants the viewer to focus attention on this central image. Text and other images, if any, will relate to this central image and help to develop its figurative aspects.
4. Most art employs various “visual” figures of speech—metaphors, similes, allusions, personifications, exaggerations, understatements, symbols, puns or other plays on words, synecdoches.
5. See all there is to see—not just size, but color, intensity, depth, balance, negative and positive space, shape, texture, size, density, position, arrangement, patterns. facial expressions, hairstyles, costumes (i. e., the models' clothing), age, sex, gender, class, income level. Also consider whatever props might be displayed.
6. Analyze visual evidence of behavior: care, neglect, attendance, abandonment, support, and so forth.
7. Consider the other four senses, too: what sounds, tastes, smells, and tactile sensations does the poster suggest?
8. The text is the key that unlocks the visual imagery's figurative meaning.

With these guidelines in mind, start by describing the poster. Start at the top and work your way down. Include quotations of any text you encounter. Be detailed, but don't be flowery. At this point, be a camera operator, not a sketch artist, an objective viewer, not an interpreter.

After describing the poster, use the elements you identified to complete this table. In doing so, stick to the poster itself.

WHO?
WHAT?
WHEN?
WHERE?
HOW?
WHY?

Next, question yourself about each of the six phrases you entered into the table. In doing so, make observations; draw inferences from what you see and read in the poster. Look for potential relationships among the poster's elements. Look, also, for possible connections between your own thoughts, between your own feelings, and between your own thoughts and feelings. Ask yourself how the answers you listed in the table could be “flipped,” or reinterpreted.

As a result of this process, you may develop an idea for a story or even a synopsis of a plot for a story. At the same time, you will have a sequence of elements that are logically related and which, together, form a narrative thread upon which, by the questioning process and the use of your own imagination, you can embroider, or develop further. Statues of saints stand on pedestals connected to the same walls, farther along.

THE OFFERING

Text above the image reads, in blood-red letters: “The chosen will be sacrificed.”

Hanging, apparently from the ceiling of the cathedral in which their suspended bodies hang, visible from the knee down, are three corpses. They wear slips, skirts, or dresses, which suggest that the bodies of those of women. Blood trails along the wall on either side of the bodies.

The title of the film, The Offering, appears across the middle of the image, diving it into an upper and a lower half. The bodies of the women and the cathedral's ceiling and walls occupy the upper half of the poster. Below the title, the statues, blood-smeared pews, and a bloody cross appear. The blood trailing down the walls link the upper and the lower halves of the poster. The aisle between the ranks of pews is saturated with blood.

Observations

The women's legs seem to be lacerated; they have bled. They also appear to be scarred. Although they may wear skirts or dresses, it's also possible that they wear only slips. Although their legs have bled, they have not done so profusely, but the volume of blood in the cathedral—on its walls, pews, and aisle—indicate extreme blood loss. Even if the women bear wounds in their abdomens, it is unlikely that three of them could have shed as much blood as stains the cathedral.

The cross is neither the Latin cross of Protestant denominations nor the Catholic crucifix, but a Levithan cross (also known as the brimstone symbol, Satan's cross, the cross of Lorraine, and the Patriarchal cross). In some cases, the crossbeams (arms) of the cross are of different lengths, with the top arm shown as being shorter than the lower arm, but the crossbeams are also shown as being of equal lengths. The cross has various mystical meanings and associations.

WHO? The corpses of three bloody, scarred women
WHAT? hang
WHEN? during the day
WHERE? from a cathedral ceiling
HOW? by unknown means
WHY? sacrifices of a diabolical cult.

Result: The corpses of three bloody, scarred women hang, during the day, from a cathedral ceiling by unknown means, sacrifices of a diabolical cult.

Questions

Why and by whom were these three women in particular “chosen”? Did they “sin” against the tenets of their “faith”? Are their deaths meant to appease an angry deity or spirit? If so, how and why? If not, what is the purpose of their sacrifices? Who benefits from their sacrifices and how? Have they been left hanging so the blood would drain from their bodies or as a warning to other congregants? Were the women sexually assaulted before they were killed? Were they beaten or tortured? What caused their deaths? Why are the women's upper bodies not shown? How did blood get on the walls, pews, aisle, and Leviathan cross? How did blood from the Leviathan cross form two other crosses (or did this blood form the capital letter “H”)? Is the cathedral, a center and a symbol of Christian faith—and a house of God—being mocked? If so, by whom and for what reason? How can the story line be “flipped”?

SLITHER

Centered at the top of the poster, against a shadow in the form of a cross (the frame of a window), the shaved, bent right leg of a young woman appears above the side of a white porcelain bathtub located next to a tile wall; the bathtub is half filled with soapy water.

The scene is framed by the left jamb of a doorway and by the open door to the bathroom. On the edge of the bathtub, a red creature resembling a cross between a snail and a gigantic sperm cell perches, as a second creature follows it, through its trail of slime, leaving a trail of slime behind itself as well.

Below the second creature, a third lifts its body and appears to attach its head to the side of the tub, preparing to follow the other two creatures up the side of the tub. At least eighteen more of the creatures gather on the floor, near the tub.

Observations

The shadow could suggest that the story has religious significance or religious undertones. The cross formed by the shadow is Latin in design, suggesting a Protestant denomination. The fact that it is merely the a shadow could imply that the young woman's faith is insubstantial.

The door is open, although one would expect it to be closed, since the woman is bathing.

The creatures resemble gigantic sperm cells in shape, but they are meaty, red, and “raw” looking, both meat (phalli, perhaps) and sperm. Their appearance is disgusting, and it, like the number of the creatures, seems menacing. They seem intent upon attacking the young woman, as if they are parasites in search of a host. They are large, too, if they are intended to represent phalli. Long and thick, they might cause pain. Despite their sperm-like appearance, none of the creatures exhibits testicles, which makes them perverse as well as disgusting. The slime they rail behind them resembles semen, but, considering that the slime is behind them, it wouldn't be fecundating fluid, unless the creatures exude more of it during their assault. (The number of the creatures suggests gang rape.)

The film's title, Slither, emphasizes the method of locomotion the creatures employ, which is one shared by snakes, a smooth movement “over a surface with a twisting or oscillating motion.” The verb's synonyms suggest additional associations, “squirm,” “wriggle,” “snake,” and “worm,” which, in turn, suggest such qualities as furtiveness and evil (like “dragon,” “worm” and “snake” were associated with the devil).

In religious ritual, bathing is a means of cleansing one's soul, of washing away sins. The young woman's nudity suggests there may be a relationship between it and the devil, that her body has been an instrument of fornication, a sin against God, and that she now seeks to cleanse herself spiritually, albeit in vain, since the slug-like creatures resembling sperm cells have invaded her home, her bathroom, and appear to be about to invade her body as well.

The open door reveals a private act—the cleansing of the soul—making a personal and spiritual action a public spectacle. Despite the woman's attempt to gain absolution, the poster seems to suggest that her sins will be revealed and she must suffer for her indiscretion.

WHO: A naked young woman

WHAT: is about to be assaulted by bizarre creatures

WHEN: as she bathes

WHERE: in a bathtub in her bathroom

HOW: with soap and water

WHY: to cleanse herself and her soul after having had sex.

Questions

Is the young woman devoted in her religious faith? Why is only her leg shown? Why is the door to the bathroom open instead of closed while she bathes? Who opened the door? She? Someone else? The creatures? (Was the door locked or only closed?) What are the strange creatures? What are their abilities? Why are there so many of them? What led to their bizarre appearance? Why are they attracted to the young woman? Are they a menace to her? How could the story line be “flipped”?

Like to try the approach yourself? Here's a poster to get you started: