Мистер Естли као фигура рационалне дистанце у роману Коцкар Ф. М. Достојевског
Mr. Astley as a Figure of Rational Distance in F. M. Dostoevsky’s The Gambler

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the narrative and poetic function of Mr. Astley in The Gambler by Fyodor M. Dostoevsky. It argues that Astley is more than just one of the many voices in the novel’s polyphonic structure. Instead, he represents rational distance and gains a clear epistemological advantage over the first-person narrator, Alexey Ivanovich. The central claim of the study is that Dostoevsky deliberately redistributes narrative knowledge within the fictional world by delegating a surplus of meaning and understanding to a secondary character, thereby complicating conventional assumptions about the locus of authority in first-person narration. The analysis begins by demonstrating the epistemological limitations of Alexey as an intradiegetic narrator whose perspective is shaped by affect, conjecture, and compulsive desire. His knowledge of events and characters remains fragmentary and belated, marked by emotional reactions rather than reflective comprehension. Against this background, Mr. Astley gradually emerges as a reliable and trustworthy source of information. Through close readings of key episodes, the article shows that Astley possesses coherent knowledge of the past (the true identities and histories of Blanche and de Grieux), the present (the actual financial and social situation of the General and Polina), and the future (the predictable outcome of Alexey’s gambling passion). This triadic temporal competence distinguishes Astley from other characters and situates him as a privileged point of epistemological reference within the novel. Methodologically, the article combines narratological analysis of knowledge distribution with a critical dialogue with Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of polyphony. While existing interpretations, particularly those emphasizing Astley’s role as an intermediary between characters and readers, tend to treat him as one voice among many, this study argues that Astley occupies a modified but essential position within the polyphonic structure. His epistemological privilege does not undermine polyphony, nor does it introduce an authorial or ideological hierarchy. Instead, it enables polyphony by providing a rational and secular point of distance from which the protagonist’s self-deception and existential downfall become intelligible. Special attention is paid to Astley’s implicit Protestant and secular ethos, characterized by self-discipline, rational foresight, and rejection of chance or miraculous reversal. The article argues that Dostoevsky, a writer deeply shaped by Orthodox thought, deliberately entrusts this surplus of meaning to a character rooted in a foreign cultural and ethical tradition. In doing so, the novel externalizes critical insight, ensuring that the logic of Alexey’s collapse becomes structurally visible without being articulated by the narrator himself. The article concludes that Mr. Astley functions as a poetically necessary figure of rational distance: a stabilizing yet non-interventionist presence who neither redeems nor judges, but makes visible the coherence of the protagonist’s ruin. Far from contradicting the polyphonic nature of The Gambler, Astley’s privileged epistemological position emerges as one of the mechanisms through which Dostoevsky’s distinctive form of realist polyphony is sustained.

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