Ego, my double. (The Golyadkin phenomenon).

Abstract

A man is haunted by his Double. The great romantic tradition lends Dostoyevsky one of its dearest subjects. The Double, not only the exact physical duplication of the hero, but also a man with the same name, plots against Mr. Golyadkin, impersonates him both at work and in his private life, leads him to madness. This essay represents an attempt to clarify the stages of the adventurous relation of the subject to its Double, starting from the Hegelian "Phenomenology of the Spirit" and the Lacanian "Mirror Stage". If the construction of the human Ego is a narcissistic alienation to the image reflected by the mirror, the potential exit from the alienation lies in the Symbolic Order inhabited by the institution of the language. The Dostoyevskian hero gets into the Order of the language already trapped by the image of his mirror, by his projection. This projection (which constitutes his paranoia) will lead him to his annihilation, because Mr. Golyadkin cannot grasp its inner meaning.