The doppelganger (Dostoevsky)

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The Doppelganger (Dvojnik. Peterburgskaja poėma) ( Russian Двойник , transliteration Dvojnik , subtitle: Petersburg Poem) is a short story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky , which appeared in the magazine Vaterländische Annalen in early February 1846 after his first great success, poor people . The protagonist is the shy officer Jakow Golyadkin in Saint Petersburg , who is pushed out of his position by a suddenly appearing doppelganger and at the end of his illness story, which oscillates between reality and imagination, is sent to a psychiatric hospital. In contrast, his counterpart succeeds in the private and professional advancement dreamed of by the original.

Russian edition from 1866

action

prehistory

An anonymous narrator accompanies the official Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, whom he confidently calls "our hero", on his way through St. Petersburg for four days in November and describes the history of the illness and the appearance of the doppelganger who increasingly dominated him and finally pushed him out of his positions . The protagonist's problems began even before the narration began with a romantic love affair with Klara Berendejev, which he might only have in his imagination, and whom he wants to save from a forced marriage. A letter from the girl who has returned from a boarding school, presumably only thought up by him, plays a role in this, in which she suggests that they should flee together. Behind his rejection by the beloved's parents and the preference of Vladimir Ssemjonowitsch, who was quickly promoted to assessor, as the bridegroom, he suspects the protection of his rival and a smear campaign against which he tries to defend himself in increasingly confused and labyrinthine actions and conversations by accusing his potential conspirators . He also denies the truth of the rumor that he had a relationship with his former landlady Karolina Ivanovna, an unsuitable German cook, and that instead of paying for his meals, he promised her marriage (Chapters 2, 9 and 11) .).

Day One - The Encounter (Chapters 1–5)

Already the first day shows the protagonist, after he “wakes up after a long sleep” (1st chapter), as a split personality, whose external and internal actions diverge. Instead of going to his office, he drives, accompanied by his servant Petruschka, who is liveried for a special occasion, finely dressed in a rented equipage "with mild doubts" to see his doctor Krestian Ivanovich Rutenspitz (Chapter 1). In the consultation, the signs of mental confusion and loss of identity are increasingly revealed: When a fundamental change in his withdrawn way of life, "distraction" (Chapter 2) and social interaction is recommended, Golyadkin expresses his paranoid thoughts in an irrepressible flow of speech. He emphasizes his aversion to any lying compliment language, which, with the associated schemes against competitors, serves to build careers, and articulates his fear of this doll-like operating system. His criticism is aimed at the hierarchical, schematized processes surrounding the superiors with their protection system and the social facade-like rituals that are linked with them. The background, as the reader is gradually revealing, is Golyadkin's love for Klara Olssufievna. In the struggle for the beautiful daughter of the State Councilor Olsufiy Ivanovich Berendejev, he got caught in a net that he himself tied and wants to warn the father of the “spoiled girl” (Chapter 3) again and again of supposed enemies. but is not heard.

Elena Samokisch-Sudkowskaja's illustration (1895) shows the party at the State Councilor Berendeev from Golyadkin's perspective: "Everyone looked at him with such strange curiosity and with a certain inexplicable, puzzling participation." (Chapter 13)

After the doctor's visit, his loss of reality continues: apparently in order to equip an apartment for Klara and himself, he looks for women's underwear, furniture for six rooms, silver razors, cutlery and the like in some exclusive shops. with the promise to pay the deposit the next day, and then tell two colleagues in a restaurant about the other, previously unknown, non-conforming side of his life and about his principles of openness and honesty. Then the rental coach takes him to Berendejev's house. There, in a noble ambience ("But if I were the greatest poet, my art would never be enough to reproduce the consecration of this moment"), Klara's birthday party takes place. Even the attempt of the protagonist to enter the hall is prevented by the servants of his former patron. Invited guests arrive at the same time, e.g. B. his department head, the State Councilor Andrei Filippowitsch, and his nephew Vladimir Ssemjonowitsch. Golyadkin leaves the house humiliated and thinks about his situation in leaps and bounds: on the one hand he feels like "a free person", on the other hand he speaks to himself as "you fool who are you, you wretched Golyadka" because he risks everything with thoughts of suicide ("Now come what may"). In this condition he sneaks back over the kitchen stairs to the festival location and congratulates Klara as if dreamily ("By the way, he had the feeling that something was washing under the floor on which he was standing [...] as if he had to fall immediately", Chapter 4.) . He imagines a catastrophe scenario in which he could distinguish himself as the savior of the beloved, believes himself to be surrounded by enemies and asks the astonished girl to dance. Klara follows absent-mindedly, mechanically, then screams softly as she becomes aware of the situation, and Golyadkin is shown outside the door.

In his paranoia, he runs to the quay of the Fontanka Canal at midnight and there several times meets a pedestrian whom he "knows very well". He was seized with a fateful feeling of standing on the edge of an abyss and "almost voluntarily" plunging into the yawning depths that were attractive to him, "just to hasten the supposed downfall". He follows the passer-by to his apartment in the Schestilavotschnaja and now recognizes : "But his nocturnal friend [is] none other than himself [...] his own doppelganger" (5th chapter).

Day Two - The New Friend (Chapters 6–7)

On the second day Golyadkin is confronted with his likeness in the department. At first everything appears as usual to the protagonist after he wakes up. In uniform he goes to his office department and receives (“Is it a dream or isn't it”, Chapter 6) from Andrei Filippowitsch his double as a table neighbor. As if, despite the family resemblance, this was a normal process for everyone present, the office manager Anton Antonowitsch explains to him that the capable newcomer was hired on Andrei Filippovich's recommendation to replace the deceased Ssemyon Ivanovich. The protagonist, vacillating between euphoria and melancholy, on the one hand calmed down after the experiences of the previous day about the return of everyday life, but at the same time interprets this as new evidence of a comedy play.

On the way home, the other person speaks to him, asks for an interview and they go to his apartment, where the younger Golyadkin tells his life story in the provinces, which has been made difficult by chancery intrigues, whereas the host is renowned for his St. Petersburg pleasures. The guest modestly asks for the elderly's support, which the elderly agrees to. While eating, they make friends, promise each other to stick together and “live like two biological brothers” (Chapter 7), and the twin is invited to stay the night.

Third day - the duel (chapters 8-9)

The duel begins on the third morning. "[T] he other" (8th chapter) has already left the apartment before Golyadkin's waking up, he becomes suspicious and regrets his confidence. In the office, the younger one is already busy at work. While the elder Anton Antonovich Ssetochkin tries to explain his theory of masks in front of the real faces and the mendacity of the people, which he refers to himself in an upset and insulted way, "the friend" snatches the papers that he has worked on and has prepared for presentation from him she immediately into Andrei Filippowitsch's room and is praised by him for his work. The rival counters the protests of the older man in front of his colleagues in a funny acting provocation and thus makes him look ridiculous. Before Golyadkin can confront the younger man after work, the latter escapes him.

On the way home, the protagonist first thinks about a strategy to ignore the doppelganger (“I let everything go as it goes, I'm just not me, and that's all”) or “to catch it with kindness” (9th chap .), but later he reflects that "the other" in the twin situation could damage his reputation and profile himself as a man of honor for a higher rank, that is, could exploit him specifically. In a restaurant, he experiences the application of his thoughts when he has to pay for the pies the younger one consumes. At home he wrote a letter to him in which he criticized the attempts “to penetrate with all his might into a being and a circle of life” and appealed to his noble heart to “make everything so well again as it was before. ”(9th chapter).

Fourth day - the surrender (chapters 10-13)

Nightmares in which more and more Golyadkins persecute him show his uncertainty as to who is the original and who is the imitation, as well as his fears of losing power. On the next, the fourth day, the protagonist wants to force the decision (“both of us at the same time - that's impossible”, chapter 10). In front of the department building, with increasing loss of reality and suspicion, he asks the clerks Ostaffjeff and Pissarenko about new office stories, learns that Ivan Ssemjonowitsch is now in his seat, and follows the younger man, who is on a special assignment with a green briefcase, into the office . While "the other" seems completely integrated in the group of colleagues and thus corresponds to the ideal of the elderly of himself, he is not taken into account and feels humiliated by the likeness through spitting out and joking. His complaint to Andrei Filippowitsch meets with incomprehension and Anton Antonowitsch reacts to his complaint of being "abandoned by everyone" by pointing out that there are ongoing proceedings against him and the like. a. because of his faithless transgressions and "malicious attacks on the reputation of a well-mannered girl". He is now ready to “step back from the fight”, no longer “contradict” and “bear everything with patience and resignation”, “but [] falls when he tries to win the favor of his double Your Excellency looks, then after his enemy ":" 'You do not escape me!' [thinks] our hero ”(10th chapter). They meet in a café where the “pseudo-noble friend” confronts him with accusations of his offenses, which he recognizes as the “language of an enemy” (11th chapter). They lead a conversation reminiscent of the inner dialogue of a morally divided personality, which ends with the elder's confession: “Everything is possible - the judgment of the world and the opinion of the blind masses [...] I even find it pleasant to confess that I was on the wrong track [...] Let us attribute everything to fate ”. His attempt to pounce on him, "to tear him apart and to put an end to him - to everything" evades the carefree, fun-loving younger boy by fleeing to Olssufiy Ivanovich's house.

The protagonist first pursues him, then feels "that in this case it would be a completely lost cause to fight against it" (11th chapter) and gives up the persecution. Then he discovers in his pocket the letter that had been given to him in Pissarenko's department. Perhaps the content of the letter, which he later no longer finds, is only his imagination: In it, Klara complains about slander by the intriguer [who looks like him] who "entangled her with his nets and [had] ruined [her]: ' I fell [...] We were torn from each other '”(11th chap.) She wants to flee with him in order not to be married off by her father. He rushes to his apartment, dissolves his household in order to prepare this trip, rents a carriage for the evening and at the same time formulates the opposite position in a self-talk that one should actually prevent the kidnapping of a girl who is overstretched by romantic ideas by informing her parents: "What would that be for a trip [...] That would simply be suicide ... "(12th chapter). Then he goes to “His Excellency's” cabinet, asks him “as a father” (Chapter 12) for protection from his enemies and meets the younger man, who mocks him and lets the servants throw him out. The protagonist then waits in a hiding place in front of Olsufiy Ivanovich's house for a sign from Clara. His fearful thoughts about an escape with his lover to a hut by the sea, exposed to the persecution of his parents, and about an adventurous life, which he does not feel up to and which he would like to avoid, become more and more confused. Then his doppelganger takes him to the hall of Olsufiy Ivanovich's company, where, after he has completely lost his memory, his doctor awaits him. Rutenspitz leads him, accompanied by the "[g] ellende [n], quite irrepressible [n] screams [n] of his enemies" (Chapter 13), to the car that transports him to the psychiatric ward.

reception

In contrast to his first work, the second work, published in the same year (1846) and classified as difficult to read because of the fantastic and the labyrinthine repetition cycles, was a failure. Dostoyevsky's previous sponsors, v. a. Belinski , now expressed reluctance. The author reacted with self-criticism: in a letter to his brother dated April 1, 1846, he apologetically declared that he had written many things in a hurry and weariness, and many years later he confessed in a writer's diary (1877): “This novella is mine decidedly unsuccessful. But the basic idea was pretty good. It is the most weighty and best thing I have ever done in literature. ”He blamed the narrative form he chose at the time for the negative reception.

interpretation

The contemporary evaluations can be partly explained by the classification of the story in Russian literary history: Dostoyevsky's Petersburg poetry is in two traditions in terms of content. Once in the topic of the "poor official", which can be traced back to the 17th century, the v. a. from Gogol's Der Mantel is known, and secondly in that of the "sentimental lover". The third aspect is the “narrative technique of the psychological novella”, which Dostoevsky learned from Pushkin . In the entire work of the writer, this narrative is seen as a stage of development. It is based on Gogol's “natural school” with its social perspective or the synthesis of the real and the imaginary level and, through this last point, the connection of the everyday with the fantastic, already points to the later moral-psychological novels. Compared to his role models, the characters receive greater emotional depth and inner motivation.

On this basis, individual interpreters interpret Golyadkin's hallucinations as manifestations of pathological schizophrenia .

Other literary scholars emphasize the protagonist's identity crisis: the search for total freedom leads to self-destruction. They see v. a. the hierarchical structures of a bureaucracy and society that restrict the personal development of the main character. This split in personality is emphasized as the basic idea of ​​the story: the doppelganger “is an embodiment of all the hero's secret dreams. [...] At the same time he is a personification of all repressed feelings of guilt and fear. Long before Sigmund Freud , Dostoevsky [...] had artistically designed the psychology of the unconscious and repression. "

Some interpretations combine the two approaches mentioned: They also focus on the clinical picture: The protagonist is “driven and rushed, but not so much from poverty and external circumstances [as with the“ poor officials ”of the“ natural school ”], as more from an irrational force in his own inner being […] [his] own imagination. ”This state is, however, expanded to include the existential dimension in the being of man, interpreted as“ interweaving of the irrational-mysterious and the prose-everyday ”and with Kafka's world of novels Relation set: "In the mythologization of the modern bureaucracy, in the exposure and exposure of the fantastic world of law firms and offices, Gogol and Dostoevsky are immediate forerunners of Kafka".

The author presents the actions primarily from the perspective of the protagonist, discussing and reflecting on the events and the various positions on the one hand in conversations with other people, for example the office manager, the servant or the doppelganger, and on the other hand in his thoughts. This creates a multi-perspective representation with unclear borders so that the real events are difficult to grasp for the reader, as for the protagonist himself. Mikhail Bakhtin has therefore described the text as a polyphonic novel: Here, typical for Dostoyevsky, “a multitude of characters and fates are not unfolded in a unified, objective world in the light of a unified author's consciousness, but a variety of equal consciousnesses with their worlds are developed in the Unity of an event connected with each other without merging ”.

Film adaptations

literature

expenditure

  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The doppelganger. Early novels and short stories. Piper, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-492-20406-6 .
  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The doppelganger. Early prose I. German by Georg Schwarz. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1980.

Secondary literature

  • Otto Rank : The Doppelganger - A Psychoanalytic Study . International Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 1925. (New edition: Turia & Kant, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-85132-466-8 )
  • Sylvia Plath : The Magic Mirror - A Study of the Double in Two of Dostoevsky's Novels. Embers Handpress, Rhiwargor, LLanwddyn, Powys 1989
  • Natalie Reber: Studies on the motif of the doppelganger in Dostojevskij and ETA Hoffmann . Wilh. Schmitz, Giessen 1964.
  • Rudolf Neuhäuser: Dostoyevsky's early work. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1979, ISBN 3-533-02711-2 .
  • John Jones: The Double. in the other: Dostoevsky. Oxford University Press, New York 1983, ISBN 0-19-812645-X .

Individual evidence

  1. after the transfer from EK Rahsin
  2. Joseph Frank, FM Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849 . Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 1976, ISBN 0-691-06260-9 .
  3. Letter # 58 of April 1, 1846 to Brother Michail Dostojewski, printed in Friedr. Hitzler (Ed.): Dostojewski - Collected Letters 1833–1881 . Piper, Munich 1966, p. 54 ff . "But it is unpleasant and painful for me that my own friends, Belinsky and the others are dissatisfied with my" Golyadkin ". ... As for me, I was completely discouraged for a while ... I was disgusted by the" Golyadkin " in it I wrote too fleetingly and in moments of fatigue. " In Letter # 57 of February 1, 1846, Dostoyevsky wrote to his brother: "Golyadkin" is ten times better than the "poor people". Our people say that there was nothing similar in Russia after the "Dead Souls" and that it was really a brilliant work ... "Golyadkin" turned out to be really brilliant. "
  4. quoted from: Natalie Reber: Afterword. In: FM Dostojewski: The double. Early novels and short stories . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-492-02604-4 , p. 893; see also FM Dostojewskij: Diary of a writer . Fourth volume July 1877 to January 1881. Ed .: Alexander Eliasberg. Musarion, Munich 1923, p. 214 (Nov. 1877: First Chapter II) .
  5. Natalie Reber: Afterword . In FM Dostoevsky: The Doppelganger. Early novels and short stories . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-492-02604-4 , p. 891.
  6. Dmitri Chizhevsky: The Theme of the Double in Dostoevsky. In: Rene Wellek (Ed.): Dostoevsky. A Collection of Critical Essays. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1965, p. 124.
  7. Valerian Maykov in Victor Terras: The Young Dostoevsky: An Assessment in the Light of Recent Scholarship. In: Malcolm V. Jones, Garth M. Terry (Eds.): New Essays on Dostoevsky. Cambridge University Press, Bristol, Great Britain 1983, p. 36.
  8. ^ Rosenthal, Richard J. Dostojevsky's Experiment with Projective Mechanisms and the Theft of Identity in The Double. In: Russian Literature and Psychoanalysis. (= Linguistic & Literary Studies in Eastern Europe. 31). John Benjamin Publishing Company, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 1989, p. 87.
  9. ^ Victor Terras: The Young Dostoevsky: An Assessment in the Light of Recent Scholarship. In: Malcolm V. Jones, Garth M. Terry (Eds.): New Essays on Dostoevsky. Cambridge University Press, Bristol, Great Britain 1983, p. 35.
  10. Joseph Frank: The Double. In: The Seeds of Revolt. 1821-1849. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1979, p. 300.
  11. Natalie Reber: Afterword . In FM Dostoevsky: The Doppelganger. Early novels and short stories . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-492-02604-4 , p. 893.
  12. Natalie Reber: Afterword . In FM Dostoevsky: The Doppelganger. Early novels and short stories . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-492-02604-4 , p. 892.
  13. Michail Bakhtin: Problems of the Poetics of Dostoevskijs / Dostojewski. Ullstein, 1988, ISBN 3-548-35228-6 , p. 10.
  14. Neprijatelj in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  15. The doppelganger in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  16. ↑ on this negative discussion in Horst-Jürgen Gerigk : The magic mirror - Sylvia Plath interprets Golyadkin and Ivan Karamazov . In: A Master from Russia - Fourteen Essays . Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8253-5782-5 , p. 101-117 .