DOUBLE PERSONALITY AND CRIMINAL ACTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE ADVERSARY AND THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD

Abstract

At first glance, little seems to connect The Adversary, Emmanuel Carrère's investigation into the true story of Jean-Claude Romand, a pathological liar who murdered his entire family in 1993, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, a classic of fantastic literature written by H.P. Lovecraft in 1927. Yet both tell the same story: that of a slow dispossession of self by an alter ego that leads to murder.

Both narratives are structured like reports and present these stories of split personalities with detective-like rigor. Yet, the heart of their subject seems to defy all rationality: the irruption of the inexplicable, the Adversary, defined by Emmanuel Carrère as the "devil"— an ambiguous term that could refer to a religious concept or a metaphor for the inner demon.

In both cases, the protagonist feels alienated from the atrocities of which he is accused, as if these had been perpetrated by an Other. To what extent do the authors of these two narratives exonerate or acknowledge their characters' guilt for the crimes of their doubles?