Symbolism of the Double as the Source F.M. Dostoevsky Dostoevsky's Artistic Anthropology

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Double symbolism as the source of personality metaphysics in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. “The Double” novel is considered by the author as the paradigmatic text in which the principles of key images construction in the late novels of F.M. Dostoevsky were formed. The paper uses the ideas of A.A. Ukhtomsky and E.Ya. Golosovker, who proposed philosophical interpretation of the phenomenon of “duality”. “The Double” is viewed as the source of theology of personality in F.M. Dostoevsky’s works, since it was the first time that the figurative model of the struggle of personality and personality in a man, which most directly revealed the duality of his nature as the created image of God, was developed. The hero’s search for his inner “place” (topos of authenticity) and inner support in the confrontation between the “mask” and then the Double as its ultimate expression, is the main theme of the story. The duality of the “nature” of man, who is both the image and likeness of God, and carries the Original sin, is the traditional theological theme and the theme of Christian anthropology. However, no one developed this theme in fiction with such depth and completeness before F.M. Dostoevsky. “Duality” acts as a special mode of negative self-disclosure of personality by means of elimination of his external false identities. The struggle against the Double is the struggle of the true human nature against its damages by the Original sin. The corrupted nature stands out in the form of the masks of the Doubles, and the genuine nature is fighting them, searching in the soul the highest prototype. The masks are defeated only by positively overcoming them in the inner experience of man. The text of “The Double” is for the first time interpreted as “genre of dreams” and as special “initiation” text aimed at the internal transformation of the reader’s personality.