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Problems of Human Existence in the Works of the Young Dostoevsky

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Victor Terras
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Extract

Practically every single work of the young Dostoevsky may be interpreted as what Jules Janin called a parodie sérieuse. What the young Dostoevsky seems to be doing is essentially the following: He presents a romantic or sentimental theme, but with the characters and setting of the natural'naia shkola, and seeks to find a form that would fit such a synthesis. As a result, his heroes are “miscast,” that is, they have to play roles for which they are not fit. The timid, middle-aged, baldish Devushkin in Poor Folk is cast in the role of a sentimental lover; the thoroughly prosaic, “ordinary,” trivial Goliadkin in The Double develops a Doppelgänger complex; the semiliterate, brutish miser Prokharchin in the story “Mr. Prokharchin” comes to stand for the idea of supreme individualism—and so on.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1964 , pp. 79 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1963

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References

1 In his preface to L'Âne mort et la femme guillotinée'e, Janin says this about his first novel:”… que si mon livre était, par malheur, une parodie, c'était une parodie sérieuse, une parodie malgré moi, comme en font aujourd'hui tant de grands auteurs, qui ne s'en doutent pas plus que moi.” Actually, Janin's novel has a relation to Victor Hugo's Le dernier jour d'un condamné, which is similar to the relation of the young Dostoevsky's stories to their romantic counterparts: It “concretizes” Hugo's abstract treatment but at the same time strains the psychological plausibility of the plot to the utmost.

2 I am following B. B.(Moscow, 1929), pp. 134 ff. and passim. See also Passage, Charles E., Dostoevski the Adapter (Chapel Hill, 1954)Google Scholar. Most of the articles in A. JL Bem, ed., 0 (3 vols.; Prague, 1929-36) are also relevant.

3 My conception of a fictional hero as an “actor” who is cast (or miscast) in a specific role is taken from Vossler, Karl, Geist und Kultur in der Sprache (Heidelberg, 1925), ppGoogle Scholar.

4 Komarowitsch, W., F. M. Dostojewski—die Urgestalt der Brüder Karamasoff (Munich, 1928), pp. 177–81 Google Scholar, points out a number of parallels between Devushkin and Saint-Preux. There are also similarities between Devushkin and Werther. Like Werther, he loses his love to a rival and is broken by that blow. Like Werther, he is humiliated socially. Like Werther, he philosophizes much and makes comments on the literature of the day. Like Werther, he lacks the energy to rise against the ills which he observes and which he suffers. Like Werther, he seeks solace in drink. He does not commit suicide but threatens to do so several times. Of course, the middle-aged, ignorant, timid Devushkin is in other respects quite different from the young, brilliant, fiery Werther—but this is precisely the clou of Dostoevsky's generative idea. Poor Folk contains a number of more or less obvious “echoes” from other sentimental novels. For instance, the maid and janitor are called Tereza and Fal'doni, after the heroine and hero of Léonard, Nicolas-Germain's Lettres de deux amants (1783)Google Scholar; Devushkin is facetiously called a “Lovelace” by his co-roomers; one of the few books Devushkin says he has ever read is (p. 141), which is a translation of a novel by Francpis-Guillaume Ducray-Duminil (1761-1819).

5 See A. A.J BeM, III, 82-123.

6 I, 9-38, has established such a conception for The Double. A translation of this article, entitled “The Theme of the Double in Dostoevsky,” appears in Ren6 Wellek, ed., Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, 1962), pp. 112-29.

7 The whole, rather long letter of July 8 ( Moscow, 1956, I, 144-47) is devoted to Devushkin's polemic with the author of The Overcoat. There are other allusions to The Overcoat throughout the novel. All further references to the text, unless otherwise specified, will be to the given edition (hereafter referred to as ). Translations are my own.

8 This, at a time when the epistolary novel, after many years of decline, was just about to expire. See the chronological tables in Black, Frank Gees, The Epistolary Novel in the Late Eighteenth Century: A Descriptive and Bibliographical Study (Eugene, Ore., 1940)Google Scholar.

9 See note 4 above

10 For example: “Yesterday, when I stepped across to have dinner with you, they were all hanging out of the windows; and the landlady said: Look at that old devil getting mixed up with that babe, and then she called you an unbecoming name. But this is nothing compared with Rataziaev's foul intention to put us into his literature, and to describe us in a subtle satire" (letter of August 1, Coó. cou., I, 155).

11 Devushkin seems to be using “reputatsiia,” “chest'” “dostoinstvo,” “dobroe imia, “ and “ambitsiia” indiscriminately, but prefers “ambitsiia” to the other terms.

12 This was first pointed out by B.Φ (2nd ed.; Moscow, 1922), p. 68.

13 ”,.. ot neobrazovannogo muzhika” (letter of August 11, Coó. cou.,., I, 169).

14 See note 6 above.

15 “Svoe mesto“—the focal importance of this expression is pointed out by , op. cit., pp. 14-16.

16 For comparison with other Doppelgängers, see Tymms, Ralph, Doubles in Literary Psychology (Cambridge, Eng., 1949).Google Scholar

17 (Moscow, 1957), pp. 60-61.

18 In a letter to his brother Mikhail, dated Oct. 1, 1859, Dostoevsky refers to Goliadkin as to “a truly great type in its social significance” (“velichaishii tip po svoei sotsial'noi vazhnosti“) I (Moscow and Leningrad, 1928), 257.

19 Most interesting and pertinent observations concerning this point (with reference to E. T. A. Hoffmann) are found in Schenck, Ernst von, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Ein Kampf urn das Bild des Menschen (Berlin, 1939), pp. 367–69 Google Scholar.

20 See note 5 above.

21 We know, from a letter dated Sept. 17, 1846, and addressed to Mikhail Mikhailovich, that “Mr. Prokharchin” suffered a number of major cuts at the hands of the censor (“Prokharchin strashno obezobrazhen v izvestnom meste,” says Dostoevsky).

22 “Don't you swagger! Calm down, Senia, and humble yourself, or I'll inform on you; that's right, my friend, tell them all, understand?” says Zimoveikin at one point (Coó. cou., I, 410).

23 He denies, in turn, the stability of his position in the department, as well as that of the department itself; the security derived from severance pay or pension (the money can be stolen by thieves!); the permanence of his own personal qualities which, so far, have helped him to maintain his position and, finally, his very loyalty (Ibid., pp. 411-13).

24 Ibid., p. 413. N. A. Dobroliubov, in his otherwise incisive analysis of this character (, Moscow, 1956, pp. 78-80) ignores this passage. As a result, he assigns Prokharchin—wrongly, I think!—to the “zapugannye, “ rather than to the “ozhestochennye” category of his “zabitye liudi.“

25 He has managed to conceal his hoard from his co-roomers for many years; has created a clever “camouflage” for it in the form of an—empty!—trunk which he pretends to be guarding most jealously; last but not least, he has made up a “myth” about a needy sister-in-law, to whom he must send all his extra money—to account for his lack of funds.

26 He spends a lifetime in the most sordid penury while actually in possession of a secure job and ample savings.

27 He cheats a poor cabman out of his fare (Coó. cou., I, 406).

28 “The fact that the Dreamer is presented as a “social type” appears even more strongly in Dostoevsky's feuilleton (anonymous) in , June 15, 1847. See $. M. , with a preface by V. S. Nechaeva (St. Petersburg and Berlin, 1922), pp. 71-72.

29 The following passage is, I think, the decisive one:”… or is it, perhaps, that the whole vista of my future flashed before me, ah, so sad and so bleak, and that I saw myself as I am now, fifteen years hence, an aged man, in the same old room, just as lonely, with the same old Matriona, who hasn't grown any brighter with the years …” (Coó. cou., II, 58). I have made sure that the passage in question is found (in exactly the same form, tool) in the original version of 1848.

30 , LVII (1848), 305-6.

31 “With such depth of feeling for art, and understanding it so perfectly, no wonder he went astray in his judgment, taking himself not for what he really was—a profound, instinctive critic of art—but for a priest of Art itself, for a genius …” (Coó. cou., II, 70).

32 Passage, op. cit., pp. 86-98, establishes a number of parallels between Efimov and some of Hoffmann's heroes. He observes that there is an essential difference between Efimov and Berthold, hero of Die Jesuiterkirche in G., namely that, whereas the latter is an artist of genius, Efimov only fancies himself to be one. Dolinin (, I, 465-66) does not seem to be aware of this distinction when he says that “there undoubtedly exists a no less real connection between Gambara and Netochka Nezvanova.” Balzac's Gambara is a story about the tragic failure of a misunderstood genius, and I do not see many similarities otherwise. Of all Russian stories dealing with the conflict between artist and society, I think V. F. Odoevsky's short story “The Painter” (1839) is closest to Dostoevsky's treatment of that theme in Netochka Nezvanova.

33 ”… Ego zhizn'—strashnaia, bezobraznaia tragediia,” says Efimov's friend, the musician B. (Coó. cou., II, 105).

34 “A ved’ chto eto za chelovek, chto eto za liudi, kotorym sirotu oskorbit* nipochem.- Eto kakaia-to drian', a ne liudi, prosto drian'; tak sebe, tol'ko chisliatsia. a na deie IKII ne.. i v etom ia uveren” (Poor Folk, in ibid., p. 178).