Doppelganger Doldrums

The German word is used instead of "double" or "lookalike"  because of the sinister shade of meaning associated with it.

Two female writers known for their unsettling novels, have dealt with this theme. First, Josephine Tey, in her "Brat Farrar" (1949), deals with an unscrupulous man taking advantage of a double for his selfish ends. The "never do well" acquaintance of a wealthy family, knowing the (supposed) suicide of a boy (but unrecovered body), meets a double by chance & coaches him to take his place as the missing twin  brother in the family. The deception is successful, (including the lawyers), but the younger existing twin is not fooled, because he has committed fratricide! After the inevitable sibling showdown, the murderer gets his just desserts & the supposed impostor is the true heir, albeit of illegitimate birth.


Daphne du Maurier's "The Scapegoat" (1957) makes one of the doubles himself an unsavoury character. This Frenchman, having property & a large (troublesome) family, meets a lookalike Englishman at a loose end.  The Frenchman deceives the Englishman into assuming his identity, & escapes. The  Englishman enters the French family & tries to clean up the mess created. Everyone is fooled except the dog & the "mistress" for evident reasons. Just when the interloper is getting set in the French family, the absconder arrives again & turns him out, having destroyed the Englishman's previous identity irreparably, a typical du Maurier vicious touch.


Both the novels explore masterfully the themes of identity, doubling & of the dark side of the self. As Margaret Atwood has noted, "There has been a widespread suspicion among writers that there are two of them sharing the same body, with a hard to predict & difficult to pinpoint the moment when one turns into the other."