The Original Gambler (OG)- Dostoevsky’s The Gambler
This is a book written by Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1866 which is one of the truest piece when it comes to a similarity with his own personal life. The central theme of this novella is gambling, some additional noteworthy aspects make The Gambler different from Dostoyevsky’s other works. The Gambler is painfully autobiographical (perhaps the most autobiographical of all of his works). By Dostoevsky’s standards, The Gambler is a ‘lighter’ work, lacking the psychological anguish and darkness seen in many of his other publications.
Around the same time during 1862, he was travelling in Europe where he met Polina(in Paris), 20 years younger than him, with whom he had a brief affair and he was married to his first wife Maria around the time. During the time in 1863, Dostoevsky developed a taste for gambling. After some time, Polina rejected Dostoevsky’s love for some other man, and she has been acknowledged to be an inspiration for the character Polina Alexandrovna, and his affair with Polina is described in the novella as the relationship between the characters Alexey & Polina. After an year his wife Maria succumbed to tuberculosis along with his brother Mikhail who died few months after her, thus making him fall into the depth of misery and paving a way for him to get caught into the trap of gambling. Without anything to lose in his life, he used to do it day and night.
Fyodor Dostoevsky signed a publication deal with Stellovski, and due to some considerable amount of money he owed to the publisher(due to excessive gambling), Dostoevsky got a condition where he had to write a novel under certain deadline or else his publication rights would be seized for the next 9 years without getting any compensation by him. So, Dostoevsky hired(his first time)a Stenographer Anna who was 25 years junior to him, with her help he wrote his novella ‘The Gambler’ along with working on his critically acclaimed, his magnum opus ‘Crime and Punishment (getting completed with it too, both books in that year itself).
The work was completed by the deadline — with hours to go. However, the devious Stellovski had made himself unavailable, hoping that Dostoevsky would not be able to submit his work and thereby not fulfil his contract. Hence, upon Anna’s suggestion, Dostoevsky registered the manuscript at the police station and obtained a receipt.
After completing The Gambler, Dostoevsky proposed to Anna in November 1866 and they married in February 1867, who went on to become the greatest support for all his future literature endeavors. And, after some time in 1871, he realized the horrors of Gambling and then abstained from doing it.
The Gambler is unique among Dostoevsky’s work because of its setting being non-Russian and amount of Western characters portrayed. His commentary on Russia is intensely patriotic and yet critical in places of the Russian character. The novel unequivocally paints Dostoevsky’s perceived sense of the superiority of Russian character traits, despite their flaws, over French, English and German. In the context of 19th-century Russian–European sociopolitical relations, Dostoevsky has crafted perhaps harsh portrayals of Westerners, reflective of his own views of their national stereotypes, as displayed in their betting styles: for example, the passion and over-indulgence of Russians versus the calculating and cold prudence of Western Europeans.
Dostoevsky does not show many different aspects of the location but focuses on those places where visitors and tourists congregate: the elegant hotels, the casino, the park. One of the distinctive features of the Roulettenburg setting is its international or cosmopolitan character. People of various nationalities — Russian, French, German, Italian, and Polish — congregate there, and this international flavor evokes an atmosphere of rootlessness. People put a huge emphasis on how they appear to other folks making them show and use their money to gain attention. But, appearance are deceptive and false, and personal wealth can vanish instantly at just a turn of roulette wheel.
At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it
This book intensely describes the inner excitement or fiery instinct of Gamblers at a thought of Gambling, which urges them to start gambling their money. In a way it is also a way for many people to superior under their skin by having some wealth in their grasp, thus showing an underlying insecurity with themselves, as it is with the protagonist Alexey. A feeling often combined with a risk-taking tendency and personality trait having a cognitive error with a sense of ‘Beat the system’ distorting the reality with an illusion of control making it seem Predictable, thus ignoring the fact that it depends on Chance, alone.
As sure as I’m alive, I’ll win it back
Justifying losses and replaying to win it back makes people end in a nerve-wrecking loop making their reality distorted.
This novella, better than most conventional textbook, captures and conveys in a simple yet powerful manner the key features and consequences of gambling addiction. Dostoyevsky accurately and richly illustrates the cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of the addiction and its various effects on the personal, social and familial lives of an addict.
