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Essay from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, Swansea University (Department of English Language and Literature), course: Uncanny Places: Gender and the Fantastic, language: English, abstract: Doubling is the "appearance of persons who have to be regarded as identical because they look alike" (Freud, 2003: 14) and, according to Freud, this can create an uncanny effect because "we are faced with the reality of something that we have until now considered imaginary" (Freud, 2003: 150). However, the trope of the double has far more potential than just sending shivers down our spines; its appearance might indeed raise, and confront us with, important questions concerning our own identity and subjectivity. I would like to exemplify this by comparing the importance of doppelgänger figures in Daphne du Maurier´s Rebecca and Angela Carter´s The Magic Toyshop in relation to gender identity and would like to investigate, in particular, how the trope of the double/phantom might call into question gender role expectations, shed light on their constructedness, and ultimately play an important role in overcoming social and sexual limitations.

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