The double

The novel depicts the inner conflict working within the soul of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, an employee in one of the departments of the city of Saint Petersburg, whose life turned upside down with the appearance of someone who looks exactly like him, plots against him, and gradually takes his place at work and at home, until it drives his life to complete collapse. Perhaps the most significant thing that affected Golyadkin and amazed him was that the people around him, especially his boss at work and his servant Batroshka, did not seem shocked by the appearance of this double, and considered him just a man who resembled him and treated him on that basis. He clarified that Dostoevsky's reliance on the technique of internal dialogue intensively in this novel enabled him to explore the depths of his hero's personality, and to penetrate into his psyche, which was changed by the entrance of this other, thus establishing his genius in analyzing the human soul. Nietzsche said about him: "Dostoevsky is the only writer from whom I learned something about psychology." Although the novel The Double is not among Dostoevsky's most famous works, it is considered the cornerstone of his distinctive style, to the extent that Vladimir Nabokov said it was "the greatest book Dostoevsky ever wrote."