Rowling has been known to describe the character Hermione as a representation of herself in the Harry Potter series Ernest Hemingway wrote about his own life through his alter ego Nick Adams, the stories were later made into a collection called The Nick Adams Stories.They use a fictional character to express a secondary personality that they may feel they have but don’t show in real life. Sometimes, an author tries to represent or introduce their own alter ego as a character in a story. The alter ego is just one literary device, but can be brought to life in a couple of different ways. While each of them seemingly leads a normal life, in truth they are a rebel, a werewolf, and spy. The examples describe characters and their alter egos.
In this example, the Special Agent 987’s secret is the spy identity she hides from her husband. She kissed her husband goodbye as he said “have a great day at the office!” She wished she could tell him who she really was-Special Agent 987, lethal spy and assassin. Like the first example, Bob’s secret werewolf identity only comes out after dark.
Example 2īy looking at him, you would never know that nice old Bob had a secret life-every month on the full moon, he became a man-eating werewolf. This example suggests that the rebel identity is the teacher’s secret identity that only comes out at night. But by night, she was the leader of the most notorious rebel army that would soon take back their country. Here are some short excerpts capturing the idea of an alter ego: Example 1ĭuring the day, she was just a school teacher the simple, quiet book-lover that most people overlooked. So, both fictional characters and real people can have alter egos. What’s more, sometimes a character in a story is said to be the author’s alter ego, or, an author himself may use an alter ego when they publish their work. In many cases the characters are in control of their alter egos, but in other cases (that focus more on the psychological aspects of the alter ego), they may not even be aware that it exists.
He is just a normal guy by day, but secretly has supernatural powers that he uses to fight crime. When a character lives more than one life, having a secret identity or taking on more than one personality, that alternate personality is their alter ego-for instance, think of Spider-Man, who is the alter ego to Peter Parker. Of Latin origin and stemming from the Greek állos egṓ, the term is believed to have been coined by the author Cicero, who described it as “a second self, a trusted friend.” The fascination behind an alter ego is in its secrecy-it’s almost always a second identity or life that is being hidden from a person or character’s friends, family, and others around them. An alter ego (pronounced awl-ter ee-goh) is a secondary self.