Abstract
This study attempts to present a comparative interpretation of the motif of the double in selected works by Dostoyevsky and Hostovský. Attention is focused on the way the double motif is involved in the construction of the literary work as a unit of dialogic speech, as conceived by Mikhail Bakhtin.
The psychological motivation behind dialogue with a double, which is indicated by Bakhtin, is complemented by an exposition from the standpoint of Girard's concept of unspontaneous desire and Freud's conception of the double as a symptom of the Uncanny. The thematization of doubleness accordingly appears to be a criticism of the disrupted experience of intersubjectivity, as characterized by Julia Kristeva, but also in a broader sense by Edmund Husserl.
Although on the one hand the double emerges as an ally, confirming the existence of the original hero as correct and good, at the same time he always threatens the sovereignty of the original subject, just like Girard's intermediary. It turns out that the ambivalent nature of the double motif gives rise to the aesthetics of Dostoyevsky's and Hostovský's texts, in which doubles often take control of their prototypes' lives, attempt to eradicate them and take their place in the world.
In the case of both authors, this threat manifests itself in particular at the level of language, when the double appropriates (and alienates) the speech of the prototype. Analysis of the selected motif then also illustrates that Hostovský, like Dostoyevsky, is an author who can be classified in the polyphonic tradition of novel writing.