The Double by Fyodor Dostoevski

First published:Dvoynik, 1846; revised, 1866 (English translation, 1917)

Type of work: Fantasy

Time of work: The 1840’s

Locale: St. Petersburg

Principal Characters:

• Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, Sr., a senior clerk in a government office
• Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, Jr., his double

The Novel

The Double centers on the mental disintegration of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, Sr., the assistant to the chief clerk in a government office in St. Petersburg. The first four chapters lead up to his breakdown. In chapter 2, a visit to his German doctor, Krestyan Ivanovich Rutenspitz, reveals the protagonist’s highly agitated state of mind. He has enemies, he says, who are trying to destroy him and he complains that a younger colleague of his, the nephew of his superior, Andrey Filippovich, has been awarded the promotion that he, Golyadkin, Sr., had been anticipating. His chances of a successful romance with the desirable Klara Olsufyevna have also been harmed. Soon the reader discovers that some ugly rumors have been spread about Golyadkin, Sr., to the effect that he has been involved with a disreputable German woman, Karolina Ivanovna, and that he has behaved dishonorably toward her.

Later that day, he is refused admission to Klara’s birthday party. He slips in unnoticed but clumsily draws attention to himself, tries to dance with Klara, and is escorted out. This humiliation proves to be the crucial moment in the narrative.

Fleeing down the miserable, wet November streets, attempting to escape from what he thinks is persecution, he senses someone near him. A stranger passes by, yet somehow he seems familiar, and he is dressed exactly like Golyadkin, Sr. The stranger passes by again a few minutes later. Golyadkin, Sr., recognizes him; he knows him only too well. He follows the stranger to the entrance of his own apartment and finally into his own bedroom. Trembling with horror, his hair standing on end, the protagonist realizes that he has met his double, a man exactly like him in all respects.

The next day, the double turns up at the office and secures a job as a clerk. No one but Golyadkin, Sr., takes much notice, or remarks on the strange resemblance, but Golyadkin, Sr., is in a state of continual anguish, as if he is being roasted on a fire. In the evening, he finds himself inviting his double back to his apartment for dinner and literally and figuratively is beside himself with amazement. His guest is humble and deferential as he tells his story. The double was poor and without a job, driven from his previous position by his enemies, and had sought out Golyadkin, Sr., because of their remarkable resemblance. They talk amiably and appear to become friends.

Yet Golyadkin, Sr., awakes in the morning suspicious and resentful of what he now believes to be his double’s cunning. He resolves to have nothing more to do with him. In the office the next day, Golyadkin, Jr., has changed his manner. Now aloof and self-important, he seems to have taken the real Golyadkin’s place, fawning on his superiors, while they act disdainfully toward the original Golyadkin. An unpleasant confrontation follows, and Golyadkin, Sr., fails to retain his presence of mind. He is convinced that there is a conspiracy against him and believes that he is being treated “like a rag used for wiping dirty boots.” A series of confrontations with his double always yields the same result. Golyadkin, Sr., is humiliated; his double seems to have taken over his life and outmaneuvers him when challenged.

That night, Golyadkin, Sr., dreams that he is in the midst of good company; he is witty and courteous, and everyone likes him. Then Golyadkin, Jr., appears and instantly blackens his character; the group believes the slander and turns against him, while Golyadkin, Jr., succeeds in making every-one like him. In the streets afterward, the desperate Golyadkin, Sr., finds another Golyadkin springing up at every step he takes. All the fake Golyadkins run after one another in a long chain, following the real Golyadkin so that there is no escape for him.

The next morning, he decides once more to confront his double. He plots and schemes, hoping to outwit the plans which he assumes his opposite is making, but he meets only with further insult. He complains to his superior,who confronts him with accusations about his conduct at the previous evening’s party, his behavior toward the German woman, and his slander of Golyadkin, Jr. Eventually Golyadkin, Sr., loses his job, and his servant leaves him.

The story reaches a climax when the protagonist receives a letter from Klara Olsufyevna, begging him to elope with her. The letter probably exists only in his mind. He waits for two hours outside Klara’s home, but his double discovers him and invites him inside. The center of attention, Golyadkin, Sr., is guided to Klara, who stands with her newly betrothed fiance. Her father shakes the protagonist’s hand and everyone looks at him with sympathy and curiosity. Then Krestyan Ivanovich, Golyadkin’s doctor, suddenly and unexpectedly enters the room. With all eyes on him, Golyadkin, Sr., is escorted to a waiting carriage. He finds himself traveling down an unfamiliar road, and the doctor has taken on a demonic appearance, his eyes glittering like fire. He tells Golyadkin, Sr., “You will get quarters at public expense...fire-wood, light, and service, which you don’t deserve.” Golyadkin cries out; it is a fate which he has been expecting for some time.

The Characters

The main interest of the story lies in the character of the protagonist; the other characters are sketched only thinly. The only exception is the sullen and sarcastic servant, Petrushka, who knows his master well enough to ignore him most of the time. Fyodor Dostoevski clearly establishes his hero’s character in the first few chapters, before the mental disintegration becomes fully manifest. Golyadkin, Sr., is first seen on a shopping spree, riding in a splendid rented carriage and wearing a new suit of clothes. He is obviously a man who has social ambitions, but he is too self-conscious to carry off the act successfully and suffers from acute embarrassment whenever he encounters any acquaintances. In spite of the great show he makes by flourishing his savings—he even goes so far as to change large notes for small, so that he appears to have more money—he buys almost nothing. He is an ineffective man, unable to assert himself in the way that he wishes. He puts on a show of bravado toward people he knows he can bully, such as his servant, but his timidity and awkwardness ensure that he is fatally divided against himself—he cannot become the person he wishes to be. The pettiness of his ambitions, his servile attitude toward his social and professional superiors, his suppressed feelings of guilt, and his self-righteous belief that he is an honorable man being destroyed by unscrupulous enemies do not encourage the reader to feel any sympathy toward him. (The consistently mocking tone of the narrator further alienates the reader.) In his rapid alternation between clumsy attempts at self-assertion and a bewildered state of paralysis, Golyadkin, Sr., is a victim of his own inability to be whole.

His double is a projection of the deeper, suppressed forces of his own psyche. These forces are both good and bad. Golyadkin, Jr., is immediately successful, in both his personal and professional relationships. His relations with his colleagues are easy and cordial. He acts with great charm (which Golyadkin, Sr., finds revolting and insincere) in company. The double’s efficiency is noted by his superiors, and he is fully accepted in the home of Klara. All these things infuriate Golyadkin, Sr.

Yet in dealing with Golyadkin, Sr., the double adopts something of what is probably his counterpart’s own disingenuousness. When pressed to explain himself, the double veers between an excessive formality, which renders Golyadkin, Sr., speechless with frustration, or an inappropriate informality which offends his interrogator’s sense of decorum. This Doppelganger also insults Golyadkin, Sr., in public and taunts him with his secret sense of guilt, calling him a Faublas (the name of an immoral lover in an eighteenth century Russian novel). These are things of which Golyadkin, Sr., does not want to be reminded. By now, the protagonist has lost rational control of himself, and his subconscious impulses confront him as if they were coming from the external environment, rather than from himself. He therefore regards his double not only as his deadly enemy but also as an impostor, not related to him at all. Only occasionally is his condemnation mixed with some measure of self-awareness, as when he exclaims, angered by his own inability to keep control of himself, “I’m my own enemy, I’m my own murderer!” The words carry a deeper meaning than he realizes.

Critical Context

The Double was Dostoevski’s second novel, appearing a year after Bednye lyudi (1846; Poor Folk, 1887). Following its publication, the leading Russian literary critic of the day, Vissarion Belinsky, mixed his praise of the book with censure for its fantastic elements, which, he said, have their place “only in madhouses, but not in literature.” Dostoevski himself, commenting on the reception of his novel, said that “everybody...found Golyadkin so boring and dull and so long-winded that it was impossible to read it.” This is a verdict with which the modern reader may agree, and Dostoevski admitted that “alongside brilliant pages there is trash and rubbish.” In spite of his own criticisms, however, the author believed that The Double was a significant work. He later claimed that although the story did not succeed, the idea with which it dealt was more serious than anything else he had contributed to literature. He was sufficiently convinced of the novel’s value to revise it in 1866, while he was finishing Prestupleniye i nakazaniye (1866; Crime and Punishment, 1886). The revised version, simpler and shorter than the original, is the form in which the novel is generally known.

In writing The Double, Dostoevski was influenced by the work of the German writer, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and by Russian imitators of Hoffmann, such as Nikolai Gogol, although the influence of the latter is less apparent in the revised version of The Double. There are also some autobiographical elements: Golyadkin’s acute shyness, and his belief that he is being persecuted, have their origins in certain aspects of Dostoevski’s own personality.

Dostoevski was frequently to return to the theme of the double; Golyadkin is the forerunner of the many split personalities which appear in Dostoevski’s fiction, who are often confronted by their doubles or near doubles. Although there is much that the modern reader may find puzzling or repellent about The Double, the best portions of the novel present a subtle and horrifyingly compelling portrait of a man sinking into a dark psychic realm of his own creation. It serves as a prelude to the great novels of Dostoevski’s maturity.

Bibliography

Chizhevesky, Dmitri. “The Theme of the Double in Dostoevsky,” in Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1962. Edited by Rene Wellek.

Dostoevski, Fyodor. The Unpublished Dostoevsky, 1973-1976 (three volumes). Edited by Carl R. Proffer.

Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849, 1976.

Hingley, Ronald. Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, 1978.

Terras, Victor. The Young Dostoevsky, 1846-1849, 1969.