Constantly rejected by the social circles he aspires to join, the shy clerk Golyadkin is confronted with the sudden appearance of his doppelgänger, a bolder, more self-assured, and socially successful version of himself who exploits and victimizes the original Golyadkin. As he becomes increasingly pursued, Golyadkin watches his social, romantic, and professional life unravel in a spiral that leads to a catastrophic climax. The Doppelgänger, Dostoevsky's second published fictional work, anticipates many themes of his later novels and is the surreal and hallucinatory story of an unhappy antihero, both terrifying in its portrayal of the dark sides of human nature and exuberantly comedic.