Though, rather than in comic scenarios, they result in unsettling issues about identity and individuality, going beyond the mere good-evil dichotomy.
Echoing the mechanisms of mistaken identity, the encounter between the two characters gives rise to a series of paradoxical situations. Despite being his exact copy, Claro is a distinct person from Tertuliano.
In The Double, Saramago somehow integrates and develops these two narrative approaches. It thus becomes an interior conflict between two opposing personalities. From Robert Louis Stevenson‘s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to Jeff Lemire‘s Moon Knight, as well as Italo Calvino‘s The Cloven Viscount and Stephen King‘s The Dark Half, all these works transpose the eternal struggle between good and evil within the same person. On the other hand, the double can be the ideal expedient to investigate human nature. A prolific comedy strand, dating back to Plautus‘ Maenechmi and pursued by William Shakespeare‘s The Comedy of Errors, builds up on the humor stemming from two twins’ mistaken identity. Over the centuries, countless authors have revived and reinterpreted it, adapting it to various genres to convey different messages. That of Doppelgänger is a literary device and theme as old as Occidental culture. Tertuliano gives up every reservation and decides to meet his double, unaware of the consequences of his actions. When he discovers the man’s name, Antonio Claro, the point of no return has already passed. The discovery disrupts Tertuliano’s existence: he becomes obsessed with finding out who the actor is and secretly starts investigating. Something incredible happens when he spots on the screen an extra who is his identical copy. Although he is not fond of movies, one night he decides to watch a light comedy recommended by a colleague. A long time divorced, and being in an occasional relationship he does not have the strength to end, he surrendered to “the temporary weakness of spirit ordinarily known as depression”. Tertuliano is a history teacher leading a dull and anonymous life.
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