“The Gambler” by Dostoevsky: The Anatomy of Addiction
The Anatomy of Addiction | An Exploration into themes of Determinism, Temporalism and Self-Destruction present in “The Gambler”.
Edward Munch, At the Roulette Table in Monte Carlo
“The Gambler” is that rarity in Russian, or, indeed, any piece of literature that is celebrated not just for its actual content, but for the extraordinary circumstances of its composition. The Gambler is painfully autobiographical, epitomised by the very fact that its genesis was in itself a reckless gamble. As a means to pay off his excessive gambling debts, Dostoevsky entered with the devious Stellovski a bet that he would complete a novel in just four weeks, betting the publishing rights of all of his past and future works. Finishing the work within hours of the deadline, Dostoevsky is able to save himself– but the same cannot be said for the written character of Alexei Ivanovich.
Documenting his spiralling descent into depravity, “The Gambler” is one that seamlessly blends fiction and reality, ironically, remaining relevant up to today as a gripping tale of the dangers of addiction, greed and temptation. These ideas are an important focus in “The Gambler” — the theme of identity, and by extension, the desolation of one’s identity through self-destructive habits.
In the beginning of the novel, Alexei is a multifaceted character of many psychological contradictions. Dostovetsy describes him as ingenuous, but highly developed, and yet at the same time unfinished; as rebellious towards the powers that be, and yet fearful of them. Alexei is utterly devoted to Polina, but she does not reciprocate this love in any meaningful capacity. Yet, he is willing to throw himself off a cliff at a moment’s word from her. If identity is by definition the distinctive qualities or traits that make an individual unique, Alexei’s unrequited love constitutes his state of being.
In this way, his identity is as simple as it is complex– he is a man driven by his desires, particularly his desire for Polina's love and approval. Baruch Spinoza states desire to be "the very essence of man,", and it is this desire that inevitably drives him to the roulette table. Desire, measured by the imagination and the intellect, attempts to maximise power, to "strive to imagine those things that increase or aid the body's power of acting." Alexei, in an attempt to win Polina’s love, is driven by his desire to the roulette table to win fifty thousand francs.
A big focus in the novel is Alexei’s experience gambling in the casino. It is with firm hopes and a particular sort of agitation he enters the casino, and this idea of winning her love with the fifty thousand francs is united with a strong, passionate desire that becomes wedged in his consciousness. Without a job, with limited resources and prospects he finds the only way in making money in the casino. It is a desperate, urgent affair that Alexei relinquishes his free agency in favour of the deterministic nature of the twins “rouge” and “noir”. This heavy-handed tension between impersonal determinism and personal destiny, between Fate and Chance, is played out through the act of gambling. This is proven by him not calculating, not hearing or even asking what number the last throw had fallen on, directly opposing the principles of what any remotely calculating gambler would have done.
The fate of the gambler- the desperate question he poses to Destiny - can only be decided by the set of numbers on the roulette wheel. All gamblers know that in the long run they will lose, but everyone knows that gambling does present a possibility of winning huge sums of money from virtually nothing. This juxtaposition of inevitable loss and potential gain creates the gambler’s mindset– that if you gamble in the smallest time frame possible you stand to gain the most. Forrester tells us that “if one can achieve this in a timeless moment - quick, now, here , now, always - one will have eliminated one’s chances of losing.” A system of probabilities, possibilities and percentages will indicate nothing in roulette. Success is assured if, and only if the subject can insert themselves into the sequence of numbers at the right moment.
This creates a unique contrast in ideas between the concept of a fleeting temporal sequence and a systematic, deterministic universe akin to Laplace’s ideas. This tension defines the relationship between Alexei and the roulette wheel– the gambler's fate is tied to the numbers on the roulette wheel, which represents a loss of control or fading of the individual's subjectivity. Hence, this is how the gambler becomes an addict, attempting to find the “correct timeless moment”.
This loss of free agency and dependence on determinism can be further seen in Alexei’s feverish state throughout the night. When he moves his entire pile of two hundred friedrich d’or onto red, he feels the icy grip of fear comb their chilly tendrils over his very being for the very first, and only time. At this moment, he is acutely aware of the desperateness of his situation. He is acutely aware that his entire life forward rests on this single bet– and the dealer cries “Rouge!”. With his relinquished breath, fiery goose-flesh runs over his body and no such fear takes hold of him again. This narrative represents his complete erosion of his sense of agency as his passionate desire to win Polina's love becomes intertwined with the thrill of gambling. He is not entrapped, but rather possessed by mad risk. Having his soul emboldened by adrenaline, he is not satisfied but inflamed by foolhardy ambition, and demands more and more vigorous sensations until it is finally exhausted. His increasingly impulsive and irrational betting can be seen as not acting of his own volition but rather as in an all-consuming fugue-like state– as can be seen in him “suddenly coming to” in which he seems to wake up from the control the addiction had over his body.
In “The Gambler”, identity and self-destruction clash together in direct binary opposition, for the identity of Alexei in The Gambler is based on opposition itself. It is almost poetic the way that Dostovetsky envisages Alexei. Not just as an ordinary gambler, but a poet in his own way, ashamed by the baneness of his art. Hence, Alexei’s“poetry” in this Dostoevskian sense is to satisfy his powerful and wholehearted commitment to risk– satisfying his powerful craving of the human personality. As Jonathan Franzen asserted, “No novelist ever wrestled with materialism more fiercely and intelligently than Dostovetsky”. " Indeed, “The Gambler" is Dostovesky at his psychological best– revealing the heart of gambling in its purest and most evil form.
21/4/24- Jamie
