In contrast, Mark Strand chooses to ration the amount of information that he gives the reader, but instead allows the reader to establish his own conclusion regarding the various details in the story. In his opening lines, Strand apparently gives the culmination of details for the reader to understand the setting of the story, "A man has been standing, in front of my house, for days." Poe chooses to include such a large degree of details that a reader must recommence the story in order to be able to calculate all that is given. Strand, on the other hand, chooses the short verse as a means to transport the reader into the world that he has created for the main characters and one that must be completed within the mind of the reader. Much imagination is required to conclude them both, but in various degrees and to designed intent by both authors. .
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The theme of both stories is obviously the concept of one seeing and coming into contact with their own personage. Often referred to as doppelgangers, these manifestations of a person are often designed to reveal a truth or an attribute about the subject. In the case of Edgar Allan Poe's story of William Wilson and his introduction to his own visage while yet a schoolboy implies that Wilson feels threatened by his double. An attempt to explain the characters feelings that he has known this personage before is revealed in his thoughts, "I cannot better describe the sensation which oppressed me than by saying that I could with difficulty shake off the belief of my having been acquainted with the being who stood before me, at some epoch very long ago -- some point of the past even infinitely remote. "Wilson develops a habit of lashing out at his doppelganger in order to discourage their relationship. The verification that the two characters in Strand's "The Tunnel " are meant to be a shadow of one character or their doppelganger, is not immediately obvious but is merely hinted toward in the final lines, "I feel I'm being watched, and sometimes I hear, a man's voice, but nothing is done, and I have been waiting for days.
