Be sum of two units or not be two, ...

Be sum of two units or not be two, that was the question.
--Hillel Schwartz (56)
I was born a twin, and I'll die a twin.
--June Gibbons (qtd in Lichtenstein)
The phenomenon of monozygotic (identical) twins challenges Western culture's valorization of the unique individual, and consequently the major Western life-writing genre autobiography and biography. Autobiographies at twins are rare, perhaps because, as theories of child progression in a continuously ascending gradation suggest, twinhood can impede individuation. "Clearly identity is a plenteous greater problem for the identical twin," notes