Have you ever walked in G wing and saw Mrs.Thorpe, and then walked into J wing and thought that you were seeing the same person in two different places? One as an English teacher and one as an ASL teacher. Spoiler alert: you’re not crazy. Mrs. Thorpe and Mrs. Rachel look incredibly alike but aren’t the same person (trust me; I have seen them side by side).
Doppelgangers are incredibly rare, with less than 1 in 1 trillion having an exact match. With the probability that there is at least 1 in 135. And so the chances that there is a pair of doppelgänger teachers in the same school’s even rarer. The word “doppelganger” is a German term coined in 1776 from the words “double-goer” or “ghostly look alike.” The first sightings of doppelgangers go back to as early as 1612 when an English poet thought that he saw his wife pass by him while he was in Paris. And then another sighting in 1822 when a man by the name of Percy reported seeing his own doppelganger in Italy shortly before he died. Now, you could just say that both of these were just coincidences like maybe Percy was just hallucinating or maybe the English poet’s wife was also in Paris. But 177 years later, doppelgangers have become a worldwide phenomenon.
The first photo of a pair of doppelgangers wasn’t taken until 1999 when a Canadian photographer by the name of François Brunelle began his “I’m Not a Look-Alike!” project where he photographed over
250 pairs of doppelgangers. People found this fascinating with the fact that 2 people can look so alike, and yet have no relation. Comments on the project included things like “true work of art” and “eye catching.”
So then comes the main question: Are Mrs. Thorpe and Mrs. Rachel doppelgangers or just two coworkers who look a lot alike? That’ll be up to your own opinion. When asked about if she thinks that they’re doppelgangers, Mrs. Thorpe replied, “When I grow my hair out longer and straighten it, then I look like her.” When asked the same question, Mrs. Rachel replied, “I think that we have certain similarities.”
Doppelgangers or not, there are many teachers that look alike in Jefferson: Mr. Stadem and Dr. Novak and Miss DeNeui and Mrs. Gulck. But I guess it’ll always be a mystery as to if they’re doppelgangers or not.
