A very wordy, very whiny arsehole stabs his walking, talking conscience. That's about the sum of it, and really this is more two and a half stars rounding up to three. It does get a bit creepy as the story goes on (after an excruciatingly slow start, see: "very wordy") but really the protagonist deserves all he gets and I do not feel for him in the slightest. I mean, the idea of a doppelganger is one that I always find interesting in literature - I suspect I'd be rather less enamoured in real life - and it's the doppelganger aspect of this that's most disturbing. Poe undercuts all that creepiness by having the doppelganger be the decent party, however, and though I've read this story multiple times over the years, I still don't know if I find that choice effective or not.