The Besieged Ego: Doppelgangers and Split Identity Onscreen, (Paperback)

The Besieged Ego critically appraises the representation, or mediation, of identity in film and television through a thorough analysis of doppelgangers and split or fragmentary characters. The prevalence of non-autonomous characters in a wide variety of film and television examples calls into question the very concept of a unified, 'knowable' identity. The form of the double, and cinematic modes and rhetorics used to denote fragmentary identity, is addressed in the book through a detailed analysis of texts drawn from a range of industrial, historical and cultural contexts. The doppelganger or double carries significant cultural meanings about what it means to be 'human' and the experience of identity as a gendered individual. The double also expresses in fictional form our problematic experience of the world as a social, and supposedly whole and autonomous, subject. <i>The Besieged Ego</i> therefore raises important questions about the representation of identity onscreen and concomitant issues regarding autonomy and what it means to be 'human', yet it also charts a generic account of the double onscreen. Case studies include horror, fantasy, and comedy.

• The Besieged Ego: Doppelgangers and Split Identity Onscreen, (Paperback)
• Author: Lecturer Caroline Ruddell
• ISBN: 9781399569576
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2026-09-30
• Page Count: 192