Woke up from a long sleep. He yawned, stretched, and at last opened his eyes completely. For two minutes, however, he lay in his bed without moving, as though he were not yet quite certain whether he were awake or still asleep, whether all that was going on around him were real and actual, or the continuation of his confused dreams.
When I first read The Double, I saw the two characters are two completely separate entities. Years later, I see myself as both versions; which, I suppose, is what you were describing when you said it was a tale involving Identity. On my average day we probably find ourselves as a mean of the two characters: not too perfect, but not too meek. In the context as that in relation to society, we don't commit faux pas(whatever the plural is) all the time, but we're not ultra smooth either, so we shouldn't worry about it too much and lose our heads if something doesn't go how we imagined things should be. If this was in anyway related to a Gogol novel, it wouldn't be the Overcoat (although I certainly can see how the obsessiveness between the two would be similar), but The Nose. The perception of what is normal between the two short stories however is completely reversed: In the The Nose, we have an abnormal situation, the protagonist's nose moving autonomously on its own and the protagonist is rightfully the only one who realizes this is a bizarre situation; in The Double, we have a normal (or less surreal) situation, a character who looks similar to the protagonist, but the protagonist loses his sanity in thinking it some conspiracy. The Double does not rank among my favourite stories by Dostoevsky but the premise is interesting enough. Among his short stories I prefer White Nights or The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
It was Vladimir Nabokov who suggested the connection between Gogol's The Overcoat and Dostoevsky's The Double. I have seen The Double compared to The Nose as well but because I haven't read it yet, I didn't want to mention it (I only talk about books I have read). The main point, though, is that there are similarities between The Double and Gogol's writing. And I think that regardless of whether Golyadkin and his double are two people or the same person, The Double is largely about identity because apart from thinking there is a conspiracy against him, I see the protagonist as someone who is having an identity crisis. That is at least my reading right now. I probably would have interpreted it differently if I had read it when I was younger, and who knows how I will interpret it next time I read it?
@@JuanReads Your interpretation has more utility, I think. The next time I read this I'll keep this conversation in mind to think about my own identity. Is Dostoevsky making a poignant statement on how we should live our lives/identify ourselves, or is it just a neat story about one man's identity? Thank you for making the video.
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Woke up from a long sleep. He yawned, stretched, and at last opened his eyes completely. For two minutes, however, he lay in his bed without moving, as though he were not yet quite certain whether he were awake or still asleep, whether all that was going on around him were real and actual, or the continuation of his confused dreams.
When I first read The Double, I saw the two characters are two completely separate entities. Years later, I see myself as both versions; which, I suppose, is what you were describing when you said it was a tale involving Identity. On my average day we probably find ourselves as a mean of the two characters: not too perfect, but not too meek. In the context as that in relation to society, we don't commit faux pas(whatever the plural is) all the time, but we're not ultra smooth either, so we shouldn't worry about it too much and lose our heads if something doesn't go how we imagined things should be.
If this was in anyway related to a Gogol novel, it wouldn't be the Overcoat (although I certainly can see how the obsessiveness between the two would be similar), but The Nose. The perception of what is normal between the two short stories however is completely reversed: In the The Nose, we have an abnormal situation, the protagonist's nose moving autonomously on its own and the protagonist is rightfully the only one who realizes this is a bizarre situation; in The Double, we have a normal (or less surreal) situation, a character who looks similar to the protagonist, but the protagonist loses his sanity in thinking it some conspiracy.
The Double does not rank among my favourite stories by Dostoevsky but the premise is interesting enough. Among his short stories I prefer White Nights or The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
It was Vladimir Nabokov who suggested the connection between Gogol's The Overcoat and Dostoevsky's The Double. I have seen The Double compared to The Nose as well but because I haven't read it yet, I didn't want to mention it (I only talk about books I have read). The main point, though, is that there are similarities between The Double and Gogol's writing.
And I think that regardless of whether Golyadkin and his double are two people or the same person, The Double is largely about identity because apart from thinking there is a conspiracy against him, I see the protagonist as someone who is having an identity crisis.
That is at least my reading right now. I probably would have interpreted it differently if I had read it when I was younger, and who knows how I will interpret it next time I read it?
@@JuanReads Your interpretation has more utility, I think. The next time I read this I'll keep this conversation in mind to think about my own identity. Is Dostoevsky making a poignant statement on how we should live our lives/identify ourselves, or is it just a neat story about one man's identity?
Thank you for making the video.
nice intro btw