"William Wilson" begins with a distraught narrator introducing himself with a fake name: William Wilson. He doesn't want to tell you his real name. He would like you to sit and listen to his story, the story of his fall into true and terrible evil, and if you wouldn't mind, try to feel some sympathy for him, as he was the victim of fated circumstances beyond his control. William's story begins in his childhood; he always had an overactive imagination and a strong will and a propensity for vice.