Through the bureaucratic ocean of papers, there lies Josef K.

, bored with
unanswered arguments.
Behind an unapologetic desk, Bartleby sits in silence, preferring nothing.
As a fearful door opens, Bashmachkin leaves the smothering atmosphere of the
office, ready to meet with the others. All set to forget the tasteless morning coffee
and the men trying to make their way through scheme and flattery, and recover the
humanity once lost. The sun is setting. A gentle breeze with a scent of independence
caresses their faces.
Golyadkin, our protagonist, is waiting for them.
The world of the oppressed rests in Dostoyevsky's prose. The essential analyst of
the human nature.

Briefly, The Double is about Mr. Golyadkin and his doppelgä nger, Mr. Golyadkin Jr.,
someone who has been born under a stressful snowstorm.
This novella has many elements that can be found in Gogol's work. His influence on
Dostoyevsky is well-known. However, this writer dealt with those same themes with
an innovative style that traces clear boundaries. He even did that with his own work.
For me, this was nothing like the novels I have read before. Universal themes like
oppression, sorrow, alienation, work and loneliness are always treated from
different angles and original ways of execution. Originality perceived by the mind of
Sá bato: we all are the sum of what we have read. Topics don't change; the way we
deal with them might.

When I read The Brothers Karamazov, my eyes contemplated Dostoyevsky's genius,

word by word. My copy is all written. I highlighted hundreds of sentences that tried
to enlighten the intricate path toward the mind. A modest attempt at understanding.
However, the times I underlined something on The Double was for the main purpose
of keeping up with the story. Actions. Names. I din't find many memorable
reflections that left me at awe. The ones I found were at the beginning, mostly. So,
what then? It was all in the interpretation. The development of facts, the story itself
was what left me staring at an invisible point, drawing in the air, pondering about
my own existence and the futility of things.
The fragility of one of the most precious things we own. Our mind. A set of cognitive
faculties. A place. A process. Sanity.

His position at that moment was like the position of a man standing over a frightful
precipice, when the earth breaks away under him, is rocking, shifting, sways for a last
time, and falls, drawing him into the abyss, and meanwhile the unfortunate man has
neither the strength nor the firmness of spirit to jump back, to take his eyes from the
yawning chasm; the abyss draws him, and he finally leaps into it himself, himself
hastening the moment of his own perdition. (39)

We cannot own our mind. Under certain circumstances—sad, nerve wracking,

shameful circumstances—, it reacts as it pleases. Or the best way it can. It is the
main source of who we are and yet, a trivial fact has the power to break it. A single
act. An accumulation of traumatic acts. A life of unfortunate events. A pile of
obedient frustrations. The meek silence of unwanted, inevitable solitude. The desire
of success in a suffocating environment with people that have already been chosen
over you. The search of identity in an alienated world. You can't be alone too much.

These are just some of the observations that emerge from The Double, a true work of
art that portrays a man's psychological struggle using a brushstroke of unforgiving
reality. We are placed inside Golyadkin's head. We are privileged spectators of his
mind. We see it work. We see it weep. We see it shocked, unable to move. We shout,
because we know what to do (even though we probably would react the same way if
we were in his shoes, you never know).
A privilege that thrills and frightens.
There's much emotion in Dostoyevsky's descriptive and cautious writing. So much,
it's difficult to bear.

Kroz birokratski okean papira, leži Josef K., dosađen argumentima bez odgovora.
Za stolom bez izvinjenja, Bartlbi sedi u tišini, ne preferirajući ništa.
Dok se vrata straha otvaraju, Bašmačkin napušta zagušljivu atmosferu kancelarije,
spreman da se sastane sa ostalima. Sve je spremno da zaboravi neukusnu jutarnju
kafu i muškarce koji pokušavaju da se probiju kroz spletke i laskanje i povrate
izgubljeno čovečanstvo. Sunce zalazi. Blagi povetarac sa mirisom nezavisnosti miluje
njihova lica.
Goljadkin, naš protagonista, čeka ih.

Svet potlačenih počiva u prozi Dostojevskog. Suštinski analitičar ljudske prirode.

Ukratko, Dvojnik govori o gospodinu Goljadkinu i njegovom dvojniku, gospodinu

Goljadkinu mlađem, nekome ko je rođen pod stresnom snežnom olujom.

Ova novela ima mnogo elemenata koji se mogu naći u Gogoljevom delu. Poznat je
njegov uticaj na Dostojevskog. Međutim, ovaj pisac se tim istim temama bavio
inovativnim stilom koji postavlja jasne granice. Čak je to učinio i svojim radom. Za
mene ovo nije bilo ništa slično romanima koje sam ranije čitao. Univerzalne teme
poput ugnjetavanja, tuge, otuđenja, rada i usamljenosti se uvek tretiraju iz različitih
uglova i originalnih načina izvođenja. Originalnost koju opaža Sabatov um: svi smo
mi zbir onoga što smo pročitali. Teme se ne menjaju; način na koji se nosimo sa
njima mogao bi.
Kada sam čitao Braću Karamazovi, moje oči su, reč po reč, posmatrale genijalnost
Dostojevskog. Moj primerak je sav napisan. Istaknuo sam stotine rečenica koje su
pokušale da osvetle zamršen put ka umu. Skroman pokušaj razumevanja. Međutim,
vremena kada sam nešto podvukao na Dupleju je bila glavna svrha da budem u toku
sa pričom. Akcije. Imena. Nisam našao mnogo nezaboravnih refleksija koje su me
ostavile zadivljenim. One koje sam pronašao su uglavnom bile na početku. Pa, šta
onda? Sve je bilo u interpretaciji. Razvoj činjenica, sama priča je ono što me ostavilo
da buljim u nevidljivu tačku, uvlačim u vazduh, razmišljam o sopstvenom postojanju
i beskorisnosti stvari.
Krhkost jedne od najdragocenijih stvari koje posedujemo. Naš um. Skup kognitivnih
sposobnosti. Mesto. Proces. Zdrav razum.
Njegov položaj u tom trenutku ličio je na položaj čoveka koji stoji iznad strašne
provalije, kada se zemlja pod njim lomi, ljulja, pomera, poslednji put se ljulja i pada,
vuče ga u provaliju, a u međuvremenu nesrećnik čovek nema ni snage ni čvrstine
duha da skoči nazad, da odvoji oči od zevajućeg ponora; ponor ga vuče, i on sam
konačno skače u njega, sam ubrzavajući trenutak sopstvene pogibije. (39)

Ne možemo da posedujemo svoj um. Pod određenim okolnostima — tužnim,

nerviranim, sramnim okolnostima — reaguje kako hoće. Ili na najbolji način. To je
glavni izvor onoga ko smo, a ipak, trivijalna činjenica ima moć da je razbije. Jedan
čin. Akumulacija traumatskih radnji. Ž ivot nesrećnih događaja. Gomila poslušnih
frustracija. Krotka tišina neželjene, neizbežne samoće. Ž elja za uspehom u
zagušljivom okruženju sa ljudima koji su već izabrani nad vama. Potraga za
identitetom u otuđenom svetu. Ne možeš biti previše sam.

Ovo su samo neka od zapažanja koja proizilaze iz Dvojnika, pravog umetničkog dela
koje prikazuje čovekovu psihološku borbu koristeći potez kistom neoprostive
stvarnosti. Smešteni smo u Goljadkinovoj glavi. Mi smo privilegovani posmatrači
njegovog uma. Vidimo da radi. Vidimo da plače. Vidimo ga šokiranog, nesposobnog
da se pomeri. Vičemo, jer znamo šta nam je činiti (iako bismo verovatno isto
reagovali da smo na njegovom mestu, nikad se ne zna).
Privilegija koja oduševljava i plaši.
Mnogo je emocija u opisnom i opreznom pisanju Dostojevskog. Toliko, teško je to
podneti.

The Double centers on a government clerk who goes mad.

It deals with the internal psychological struggle of its main character, Yakov
Petrovich Golyadkin, who repeatedly encounters someone who is his exact double
in appearance but confident, aggressive, and extroverted, characteristics that are
the polar opposites to those of the toadying "pushover" protagonist.

The motif of the novella is a doppelganger (an apparition or double of a living

person).

Nabokov considered this “Dostoyevsky’s best work,” but, then again, Nabokov didn’t
like Dostoyevsky: he also called the novella “an obvious and shameless imitation of
Gogol's "Nose." “The Double” is indeed a great work, though far from Dostoyevsky’s
greatest (too full of repetitions, verbal and structural, too often willfully obscure),
and—I would argue—it is great precisely because of the manner in which it
obviously and shamelessly imitates Gogol.

In “The Double,” the twenty-five year old Dostoyevsky sought to discover his own
path as a writer by imitating—to the point of parody—the style and themes of
Gogol, a writer he dearly loved. He took Gogol’s typical protagonist—a middle class
bureaucrat of the rank of “titular councillor—and speculated: how would a Gogol
hero like this—a lonely egoist obsessed with rank, humiliated by slights, isolated in
suspicion and near poverty—react if he encountered a man who looked and acted
exactly like himself and who began, little by little, to take over his life, his apartment,
his acquaintances, even his duties as titular councillor? Dostoyevsky concluded such
a man would certainly go mad, and decided to document—from the protagonist’s
point of view—his agonized descent into delusion.

In his exaggerated imitation of Gogol, Dostoevsky so thoroughly identifies with the

councillor's point of view that his “parody” becomes an implied criticism. Gogol—as
he did in “The Overcoat,” “The Nose,” and “The Diary of a Madman”—would have
abased his hero, ridiculed him, exploited him as a figure of fun and as an excuse for
violent shifts in tone and mood, all the psychological insight he possessed
subordinate to satiric intent and dramatic effect.

Dostoyevsky however was too compassionate a writer, too empathetic a man, to

objectify his hero in this way. Instead, he identifies with him thoroughly, creates an
experience so immediate and so real that the reader is forced to experience the
consciousness of a madman, alternately consumed by shame and filled with elation,
disoriented and alienated in a hostile and ambiguous world.

Where Gogol would have presented the reader with an absurd situation, a
philosophical dilemma, Dostoevsky instead immerses him in a psychological crisis.
And this psychological crisis, for those familiar with Dostoevsky’s later work, hints
at the existential and theological crises yet to come.
PREVOD SA ARAPSKOG

- "Proverb", "consort" or "similar" are three terms used in this novel's translation
from Russian, and I tend to refer to "similar" more than the second vocabulary.

- The second work of Dostoevsky after the poor, and he was rejected at the time
among the literary circles, so that Dostoevsky wanted to rewrite this novel, but his
time did not allow him later, but he always said that the idea was excellent and this
is the template in which it came out.

- The novel shows Dostoevsky's influence on Google, but Dostoevsky immersed

himself in the hero's psyche and revealed his psyche, his madness, his feelings, his
impressions, his moments of weakness and debilitation... He revealed schizophrenia
and the mental illness that befell the hero, where the illusion he invented became a
reality in front of him, so you act against it, if he is weak His likeness is strong, and if
he is honorable, he is likened to a villain.

- The first four chapters were somewhat dull, despite their importance in showing
the development of the character later, but the excitement in the story begins in the
fifth part, and incidents and their analyzes begin, and societal values and their
contradictions begin to appear. This development went from bad to worse, so you
don't know at the end if you will pity the hero, be angry with him, or fear him!

- This novel is considered secondary if compared to the subsequent works of

Dostoevsky, but it is in itself an innovation, especially since its author was in his
twenties and he built such a wonderful novel on such an idea!
“We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled
with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and
meaningless As wind in dry grass…” T.S. Eliot – The Hollow Men
Yakov Golyadkin is one of those men and Fyodor Dostoyevsky enjoys deriding his
hollowness…

“Hitherto, gentlemen, you have not known me. To explain myself here and now would
not be appropriate. I will only touch on it lightly in passing. There are people,
gentlemen, who dislike roundabout ways and only mask themselves at masquerades.
There are people who do not see man’s highest avocation in polishing the floor with
their boots. There are people, gentlemen, who refuse to say that they are happy and
enjoying a full life when, for instance, their trousers set properly. There are people,
finally, who dislike dashing and whirling about for no object, fawning, and licking the
dust, and above all, gentlemen, poking their noses where they are not wanted… I’ve
told you almost everything, gentlemen; now allow me to withdraw…”

The main hero may seem to be full of high ideals but those ideals are nothing but his
groundless fantasies. He is in love but he wants to win his love in a very strange
way…

“What if that chandelier,” flashed through Mr. Golyadkin’s mind, “were to come down
from the ceiling and fall upon the company. I should rush at once to save Klara
Olsufyevna. ‘Save her!’ I should cry. ‘Don’t be alarmed, madam, it’s of no consequence, I
will rescue you, I.’ Then…”

When Yakov Golyadkin starts seeing his double or rather his evil doppelgä nger, he
just sees his doom and nemesis.
The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka are
very close in their main idea – both Yakov Golyadkin and Gregor Samsa are surplus
persons for whom the world has no use so eventually it destroys them…

“Perhaps it will all be for the best,” he thought, “and perhaps in this way I’ve run away
from trouble.” Mr. Golyadkin suddenly became all at once light-hearted. “Oh, if only it
could turn out for the best!” thought our hero, though he put little faith in his own
words. “I know what I’ll do…,” he thought. “No, I know, I’d better try the other tack…
Or wouldn’t it be better to do this?...”

Some are born to be masters of their lives and some are just fly-by-night moths
hurrying to burn in the candle flame.

The morbidly sensitive and pretentious clerk Golyadkin, already clinically deranged
by the social pressures of his office and by unrequited love, suffers a growing
persecution mania, which leads him to encounter another man looking exactly like
him who is the leader of a conspiracy against him. He is finally driven to a madhouse
by a series of encounters with this being, who is sometimes clearly his own
reflection in a glass, sometimes the embodiment of his own aggressive fantasies,
sometimes an unpleasant ordinary mortal who happens to have the same name and
appearance, and sometimes, in some supernatural way, himself.

Dostoevsky's voices are woven subtly together so that one hardly has time to
register their differences in the flow of reading: an illusion of objectivity is thus
created. Nonetheless, it does not go far enough to dispel an underlying, ghostly,
whispering anxiety: is the double real or not? The real interpretive problem for the
reader is deciding whether the double exists in the world, or only as a figment of Mr
Golyadkin’s imagination. Is he mad? Does he have some sort of identity disorder? Is
he the victim of some elaborate prank? or is it all simply true? It makes for a
fascinating psychological study, whether or not there is a natural explanation within
the narrative. Since the whole work is from Golyadkin’s perspective, albeit in the
third person, the reader is trapped claustrophobically in his panicked and chaotic
mindset. Other characters appear to see the double, but there is always the
possibility that we are seeing their reactions through Mr Golyadkin’s eyes.

This is more or less the blueprint for later doppelganger narratives, often
referenced in theory on the topic, and although the idea of the double is probably as
old as humanity, Dostoevsky seems to have been one of the first writers to develop
the idea. Structurally, the narrative works so well, and is less dense than some of his
other novels. He really keeps you on your toes right up to it's finale. Reading this,
lead me to José Saramago's modern take on the doppelgä nger, which I marginally
prefered.

This theme of the diabolical double and the collective conspiracy this novel deals
with has undoubtedly inspired a few thrillers. Dostoievski was very able to convey
the narrator's paranoia. Unfortunately, however, this simple civil servant is
gradually losing ground—the appearance of its double namesake and physical.
The novel's originality is that we enter the narrator's mind and that it is suddenly
difficult to distinguish between what is real and what the character fantasises
around. As a result, the outcome is ambiguous: it's up to us to form opinions. In this
sense, the narrative works wonderfully and leaves us amid nightmarish turmoil.
However, I struggled to get into the novel and rushed out. The many repetitions of
scenes, especially dialogues, tired me of this spiral around paranoia. There are many
gripping and distressing passages, but I expected more, convinced by other
Dostoyevsky novels that are more gripping and developed. I come out disappointed.

“Numb and chill with horror, our hero woke up, and numb and chill with horror felt
that his waking state was hardly more cheerful...It was oppressive and
harrowing...He was overcome by such anguish that it seemed as though someone
were gnawing at his heart.”

The Double is a vivid, relentless depiction of one man’s downward spiral into the
impulsivity, indecision, tormenting confusion and ultimate chaos of severe mental
illness. Golyadkin’s agonizing descent, fueled by alienation, paranoia and self-
loathing, is incredibly gripping. Deftly plotted, harrowing, insidious, and
heartbreaking, this supposedly “minor work” of Doestoevsky’s is anything but.

This nuanced, meticulous character study is dark and disturbing, the unbearably
harsh inner landscape relieved only rarely by faint glimmers of humor. Dostoevsky,
the master psychologist, so perfectly delineates the complexities of a mind that’s
rapidly unraveling, consuming itself in front of the readers’ very eyes, that, though
horrifying, it’s nearly impossible to look away. Golyadkin frantically bounces back
and forth between one extreme and another, and at times this bizarre, erratic
behavior would almost be comical if it weren’t for the fact that it’s so horribly sad.
Trivial incidents are hideously magnified or minimized, distorted beyond all
recognition, lost. Increasingly, he can “not think of anything, though his thoughts
catch at everything like brambles.” His mind finally becomes so detached from itself
that it splits, torn and fragmented, utterly disconnected, yet still bleating in distress.

What made this often extremely dismal tale so poignant and touching was
Dostoevsky’s palpable compassion for his wretched character; it illuminates a
miserable fellow human being deserving of our sympathy and understanding. For
while, at least on the surface, Golyadkin may not be Dostoevsky’s most relatable
creation, he certainly broke my heart. I’ll always remember him struggling
desperately to come to grips with his own mind, to reassure himself that everything
would be okay even when his progressively feverish grasping for sanity secured
nothing more substantial than mocking emptiness and thin air. His plight, his
undeniable suffering, etched itself on my heart. I won’t soon forget that piercing,
plaintive scream, a mind in unendurable pain, crying out for help, for any kind of
respite or relief from its own worst enemy: itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Double_(Dostoevsky_novel)

У Двојнику, наративни тон приказује човека чији је живот на ивици пропасти. Овај двоструки
човек покушава да уништи углед протагонисте и положај његовог јавног живота у руској
бирократији и унутар друштвеног круга. Роман се може, међутим, једноставно посматрати као
документација о шизофренији, паузи од реалности са реалним описом симптома душевне
дегенерације. Најочигледнији пример је халуцинација, где јунак приче се види свуда где иде,
посебно у друштвеним узнемиравајућим ситуацијама. Брза пропаст тог човека је
карактеристична за овакве болести.

In Saint Petersburg, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin works as a titular councillor (rank 9 in the Table of

Ranks established by Peter the Great.[3]), a low-level bureaucrat struggling to succeed.
Golyadkin has a formative discussion with his physician, Doctor Rutenspitz, who fears for his sanity
and tells him that his behaviour is dangerously antisocial. He prescribes "cheerful company" as the
remedy. Golyadkin resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He proceeds to a birthday party for
Klara Olsufyevna, the daughter of his office manager. He was uninvited, and a series of faux
pas lead to his expulsion from the party. On his way home through a snowstorm, he encounters a
man who looks exactly like him, his double. The following two thirds of the novel then deals with their
evolving relationship.
At first, Golyadkin and his double are friends, but Golyadkin Jr. proceeds to attempt to take over Sr.'s
life, and they become bitter enemies. Because Golyadkin Jr. has all the charm, unctuousness and
social skills that Golyadkin Sr. lacks, he is very well-liked among the office colleagues. At the story's
conclusion, Golyadkin Sr. begins to see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic break, and is
dragged off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz.

Овај двоструки човек покушава да уништи углед протагонисте и положај

његовог јавног живота у руској бирократији и унутар друштвеног круга.
Роман се може, међутим, једноставно посматрати као документација
о шизофренији, паузи од реалности са реалним описом симптома душевне
дегенерације. Најочигледнији пример је халуцинација, где јунак приче се види
свуда где иде, посебно у друштвеним узнемиравајућим ситуацијама. Брза
пропаст тог човека је карактеристична за овакве болести.