Minding the Class Gap: Doppelgänger Cityscapes in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

Freud's article on the uncanny also includes the concept of the double. According to Freud, this concept points to the duality in the construction of the ego in the primary narcissism period, when the child acquires the understanding of moral control. This duality results from the splitting of the ego and creates an area where unwanted material is pushed into the subconscious. However, this repressed area carries traces of the ego because it was once part of it. Similarly, in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, London Above and London Below, as a divided city, represent the ego and the repressed space that emerges as a result of the split of the ego. London Above represents a politicized morality in which a fixed class structure is accepted, for example, the Upsiders not seeing the Downsiders, or Jessica's urge to appear in art galleries with Richard. As a representation of self, London Above embraces positive materials, while London Below functions as the “other” twin or “evil twin” because this space, accessed through doors or sewers, is dark, damp, and smelly. London Below also contains the repressed and unwanted social dynamics of London Above. However, since the doppelgänger is a division of a whole, the suppression of the undesirable underclass is also mimicked in London Below, thus resulting in a recurring matrix of social hierarchy in both cityscapes. In this context, this study aims to analyse the doppelgänger motif in relation to the class-based basin of London.