The Dream of the Uncle | Fyodor Dostoevsky

In his comment on the novel "The Dream of the Uncle," Dostoevsky said: "My only concern when I wrote this first novel in Siberia after the prison was to resume my literary life, and I was very afraid of censorship, so it came out as a trembling dove, innocent and completely pure, to the extent that it could be turned into a comic play." Thus, the novel "The Dream of the Uncle" was as if Dostoevsky wanted to distance himself from depicting poverty, misery, and good souls through a novel portraying the life of Russian aristocracy in a humorous way. The main character: "The Uncle" is a Russian aristocratic prince fascinated by the West, knowing Western Europe more than he knows Russia, and he wants to marry a French countess. A group of Russian aristocratic women realize the prince's passion, and a competition ensues over which of them will marry his daughter. The most famous lady in the city enters the competition and suddenly decides to marry the prince to her daughter Zina, the beautiful girl. The girl submits to her mother's wish and is enchanted because she sang a French song while playing the piano. When Dostoevsky depicted this character, he presented the reader with a caricatured image of the decadent aristocracy obsessed with love for the West. We will see a similar caricatured image, with more biting satire, in the novel "The Possessed."