Social Death or Social Resurrection? Dostoevsky’s The Double through the Looking Glass

Abstract

This article proposes a new reading of Dostoevsky’s The Double as the story of an identity death and rebirth from the perspective of the condemned, dying self. While the protagonist’s mysterious doppelganger is often understood as a morally inferior shadow self, I argue that Golyadkin Jr. can be read as a morally similar alternate identity of the same character, who more readily accepts and reveals his own flaws, and thus finds himself better accepted by wider society. This reading will draw in particular on the psychological models put forward by German Naturphilosophie, a frequently neglected intellectual movement which nonetheless exerted a considerable influence on Dostoevsky. The article maintains that, while the obliteration and regeneration of an untenable identity in The Double is presented to the reader as a subjectively unfavourable, even calamitous experience, a broader, external perspective reveals this tribulation to be a means toward rebirth and redemption.

Keywords: The Double, Psychology, German Romanticism, Naturphilosophie, Identity