“White Nights” by F.M. Dostoevsky
Tale « » written by Fyodor Dostoevsky in the fall of 1848 and was soon published in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski.
In addition to the title, the writer gave his work two subtitles. The phrase "white nights" indicates scene- Petersburg, and also symbolizes a certain fantasy, unreality of the events taking place. The first subtitle "Sentimental Romance" defines how traditional genre work and its plot. The second subtitle, “From the Memoirs of a Dreamer,” informs readers that the events will be narrated in the first person. But can the dreamer be completely trusted in this matter?
...Or was he created for this purpose?
To be there for just a moment.
In the neighborhood of your heart?..
There is one inaccuracy here: the original contains a statement, not a question. Did Dostoevsky make a mistake on purpose? Without a doubt. In the new interpretation, the epigraph echoes the ending of the story and sets the tone storyline, making the reader think about the fate of the main character. Such diversity is characteristic of all of Dostoevsky’s work.
By choosing a first-person narrative, the writer gave the work the features of a confession and reflections of an autobiographical nature. It is not for nothing that some literary scholars in image of the main character recognize young Dostoevsky. Others believe that the prototype of the dreamer is the poet A. N. Pleshcheev, with whom Fyodor Mikhailovich had a strong friendship.
It is characteristic that main character the story has no name. This technique strengthens his association with the author or a close friend of the writer. The image of a dreamer worried Dostoevsky all his life. Fyodor Mikhailovich even planned to write a novel with that title.
The main character is an educated and full of energy young man, but calls himself a timid and lonely dreamer. He is immersed in romantic dreams, which he constantly replaces reality with. The dreamer is not interested in everyday affairs and worries, he performs them out of necessity, and, by the way, feels like a stranger in the world around him.
The work does not contain detailed references to the hero: where he serves, what type of activity he is engaged in. This further depersonalizes the main character. Lives without friends, has never dated girls. Such nuances make the hero an object of ridicule and hostility from others. The dreamer himself compares himself to a rumpled, dirty kitten who looks at everything around him with resentment and hostility.
Dostoevsky believes that ghostly life is sinful, it takes you away from the world of reality: “A person is made not by a person, but by some strange creature neuter". At the same time, dreams have creative value: “he is the artist of his own life and creates it for himself every hour according to his own will”.
The dreamer is a peculiar type « extra person» . But his criticism is directed exclusively inward; he does not despise society like Onegin and Pechorin. The hero feels sincere sympathy for strangers and even houses. An altruistic dreamer is ready to help and serve another person.
A tendency to dream about something bright and unusual was characteristic of many of the young Dostoevsky’s contemporaries. There was still clearly despair and disappointment in society caused by the defeat of the Decembrists, and the rise liberation movement The 60s have not yet matured. Dostoevsky himself was able to abandon empty dreams in favor of ideals democracy. But the hero of “White Nights” never escaped from the sweet captivity of dreams, although he realized the destructiveness of his worldview.
The hero-dreamer is contrasted with the active girl Nastenka. The author created the image of a sophisticated and romantic beauty, "soul mate" heroic, but at the same time childish and a little naive. Respect is evoked by the sincerity of Nastenka’s feelings and desire to fight for her happiness. She is capable of running away with her lover and using a random acquaintance for her own purposes. At the same time, the girl herself constantly needs support.
Compositional The construction of the story “White Nights” is quite traditional. The text consists of five chapters, four of which are titled "nights", and the last one - "Morning". White romantic nights greatly changed the protagonist's worldview. The meeting with Nastenka and his love for her saved him from fruitless dreams and filled his life with real feelings. A dreamer's love for a girl is pure and selfless. He is ready to sacrifice everything for Nastenka and help arrange her happiness, without even thinking that in the process he himself is losing his beloved.
The last chapter “Morning” is a kind of epilogue, full of drama and hope. The best moments in the hero's life end with the onset of a rainy, gray morning. The magic of the beautiful white nights disappears, the hero is lonely again. But there is no resentment or disappointment in his heart. The Dreamer forgives Nastenka and even blesses her.
Separately, it should be noted image of St. Petersburg. The city occupies so much space in the work that it can rightfully be considered actor. At the same time, the author does not describe specific streets and alleys, but masterfully recreates the amazing aura of Northern Palmyra.
“White Nights” is a beautiful utopia, a dream of what people can be if they are honest and selfless in their feelings. This work of Dostoevsky is one of the most poetic in his creative heritage. The fantastic nature of the white nights creates a magical romantic atmosphere of the story.
Literary critics consider Dostoevsky's "White Nights" one of the best works "sentimental naturalism". A touching story dreamer and Nastenka has not lost its meaning to this day. She lives on the theatrical stage and in numerous film adaptations, including by foreign directors. The latest television version, where the action is transferred to our time, was created in 2009.
Please note: the entire action of the novel takes place at night. It doesn’t even have the usual division into chapters, there are nights: “Night One”, “Night Two”... Only four nights.
The night scenery is spare and laconic: only the canal embankment where the dreamer and Nastenka met; bench - “our bench” on which they sat. Everything else goes into darkness. Just like on stage: the spotlight picks out only two or three objects and characters from the darkness.
The dreamer says: "Yesterday was our third date, our third White Night..." The count goes on "nights", as in other cases on days, days, months or years. Because every night is an event, a date with her.
This creates a contrast between day and night. Night " better than the day". The day is usually not good - "...sad, rainy, without light, as if my future old age." And in another place: "The day was not good. It was raining and knocking sadly on my windows..."
In the "Petersburg Chronicle", a work anticipating the "White Nights", the city's awakening from sleep is depicted: "Petersburg arose angry and angry, like an irritated society maiden, turned yellow with anger at yesterday's ball"
From these lines, by the way, it is clear why the narrator does not like yellow paint. This is the color of illness, irritation, bile; or the color of withering, autumn. At night it is not visible, but in the morning and during the day in St. Petersburg (where yellow paint really predominated) it just catches your eye.
On the very first pages there is an image that anticipates the development of the action - the image of a “girl, stunted and sick,” with which the short and fragile St. Petersburg spring is compared. “And it’s a pity for you that instant beauty withered so quickly, so irrevocably... it’s a pity that you didn’t even have time to fall in love.” The dreamer managed to fall in love with Nastenka, but just as quickly, just as quickly, the time of hopes and expectations, the wonderful time of nightly seductions, flew by for him...
But while the denouement has not yet arrived, a kind of omnipotence of the night is diffused in the novel. “It was a wonderful night, the kind of night that can only happen when we are young... The sky was so starry, such a bright sky that, looking at it, you involuntarily had to ask yourself: can different angry people really live under such a sky? and capricious people? Starry sky - old artistic image, expressing the idea of the infinite, the introduction of man to world harmony, agreement...
And in general, the symbolism of the night, the opposition of night and day - all this has deep roots in art, especially in romantic art.
But this contrast (night and day) also has a downside. In the dreams of the night there is hidden something incorrect, transient, which cannot withstand the rays of light, the radiance of the day. “...After my fantastic nights, moments of sobering up are already upon me, which are terrible!” - says the dreamer. The night is fantastic not only because it is the kingdom of the imagination, but also because what is created by the imagination is fragile. And here it’s not just nights, but white ones.
What does this epithet mean?
First of all, it has the flavor of the place, i.e. a characteristic feature of the northern capital. After all, white nights are a feature of the St. Petersburg landscape, as they say today - business card cities.
I remember the lines of B. Sadovsky:
The white night is painful, pale
Here is young Dostoevsky at the window.
Nekrasov, Grigorovich are in tears before him...
The night, sickly and pale, like a girl, “sick and sick,” flashed on the first pages of the novel. Such nights are also doomed to quick disappearance, to death. In a work consisting of “four nights” replacing chapters, there is only one “morning”. But this morning is like an epilogue. “My nights ended in the morning. It wasn’t a good day,” etc. Morning brought with it the end of the “nights”, the end of the dreamer’s “story”, i.e. his real, not fictitious, relationship with the girl, and at the same time the end of the “sentimental romance”.
Dostoevsky's White Night novel
One of the brightest literary works, belonging to the early work of F. M. Dostoevsky, is the story “White Nights”. The author himself classified his brainchild as a “sentimental novel”, thereby revealing the problems of love, loneliness, and the meaning of life described in it. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the analysis of the work according to a plan that will be useful to 9th grade students in preparing for a literature lesson.
Brief Analysis
Year of writing– 1848.
History of creation– Immediately after writing, the novel was published in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. Dedicated to the writer’s close friend, Alexey Pleshcheev.
Subject– Love, loneliness, search for the meaning of life. However, the central theme is the so-called “dreamers” - lonely young people living in an illusory world, but at the same time in need of real events and unimaginable feelings.
Composition– The work consists of five chapters: four of them represent the numbering of St. Petersburg nights, while the last one is called “Morning.”
Genre- Novel.
Direction- Sentimentalism.
History of creation
Fyodor Mikhailovich began writing the novel at the end of 1847, and already in 1848 the work was published in the literary magazine Otechestvennye zapiski.
IN early work Dostoevsky traces the writer’s obvious interest in the topic of “St. Petersburg dreamers.” It was to her that he dedicated several of his feuilletons in 1847, which were included in the collection “Petersburg Chronicle”. However, these articles were published by Fyodor Mikhailovich almost anonymously, since he signed the feuilletons with only letters - “F. M." Later it turned out that some of the material from the collection was used by the writer while working on the novel. In particular, these were the characteristics of the heroes and descriptions of everyday life.
Dostoevsky dedicated his novel to his close friend, the writer and poet Alexei Pleshcheev.
Subject
The central theme of the work- loneliness in big city. A similar condition was very common in St. Petersburg mid-19th century, which was facilitated by the unstable social situation in the city. As a result, most young people felt lonely and deeply unhappy, having lost the meaning of life.
Nastenka and Dreamer are typical representatives of “little people”. They live a simple, modest and unpretentious life. Their circle of contacts is extremely narrow: the Dreamer communicated only with his colleagues, and Nastenka with her grandmother and residents. In order to escape from the gray reality and forget about pressing problems for a while, young people became “dreamers”, plunging headlong into their own fantasies.
Love theme is revealed in the work through the prism of Nastenka’s feelings for her lover, and unrequited love A dreamer for a fragile girl. The latter is not angry with Nastenka, blaming her for all his troubles when she leaves him in all alone. On the contrary, he comes to the conclusion that he needs to be grateful even for those moments of happiness that she gave him. He carefully nurtures his idea of happiness - even if there are only grains of true bliss in his life, he will forever keep them in his soul.
The main idea of the work- isolation of “dreamers” from real world, their inability to live among people and get the joy of life from simple, everyday things. Preferring to have their head in the clouds, they inevitably doom themselves to loneliness.
Composition
The peculiarity of the composition of the novel lies in the interesting construction of the plot: the first four of the five chapters are devoted to St. Petersburg nights, while the last chapter is called “Morning.” This most accurately reflects the dynamics of the development of the storyline - from sleep to awakening.
The construction is symbolic in nature. Against the backdrop of the romantic white nights of St. Petersburg, the reader reveals all the stages of the protagonist’s love for Nastenka, all his dreams and emotional experiences. But, in the end, “morning” inevitably comes - a moment of insight, which becomes a personal drama for the Dreamer. He has already found love, albeit unrequited, but so sweet. And now he is forced to say goodbye to her forever - the merciless morning dispels empty fantasies, but at the same time gives hope for a bright future.
The work is filled with various artistic techniques and means. Thus, Fyodor Mikhailovich skillfully uses the method of parallelism: almost every chapter begins with a detailed description of nature, which gives an involuntary hint as to how this chapter will end - cheerfully or sadly.
In addition to the two main characters - the Dreamer and Nastenka, a third character is invisibly present in the work, creating a special atmosphere. This is Petersburg, acting as an interlocutor and an old friend of the narrator. The city sensitively responds to the inner experiences of the Dreamer, creating an indescribably beautiful environment for his romantic mood and justifying meaning of the title of the work- "White Nights".
Main characters
Genre
When analyzing the work in “White Nights,” it should be noted that it was written in the genre of a story. But the author himself insisted on his belonging to a sentimental novel.
The specificity of the direction of sentimentalism is that the focus is on the emotional experiences, emotions and feelings of the main characters. They can be quite realistic, since the images of Nastenka and the Dreamer fit perfectly into the description of the writer’s favorite category of “little people.” However, in the novel they are shown to be overly idealized, their relationship is utopian.
In Dostoevsky's novel "White Nights" there are no heroes in conflict with environment : it does not suppress them and does not force them to direct all their strength to resistance. In the spotlight - inner world characters, their emotional impulses and feelings.
In addition, the Dreamer's torment does not lead to a tragic ending. On the contrary, even having failed on the love front, he is grateful to fate for even a ghostly hint of the happiness that befell him. The hero is in complete harmony with himself, which once again proves that the novel belongs to the direction of sentimentalism.
F.M. Dostoevsky is a classic of Russian literature, whose works always touch on the theme of the relationship between man and the world around him, the theme of internal doubts, experiences, the primacy of love over all other feelings and laws.
This is exactly what the story “White Nights” is about. If you want to know the plot of the story, but you do not have time to read it in detail, read “White Nights” in the abbreviation presented in our article.
Night one
A young man, an official of 26 years old, walks through his favorite places in St. Petersburg, indulging in various dreams. He is not a native Petersburger, he came here eight years ago, he still lives as a recluse and all his friends are at home, who meet him on familiar streets.
He comes up with stories of their “life”, “listens” to their complaints and considers them his loved ones, whose fate he needs to look after.
Strangers evoke similar feelings in the Dreamer - he does not need to approach and communicate with them, the young man already imagines the circumstances of someone else's life, as if living it instead of real events.
But on this walk the young man is upset. The dacha period began, and all the townspeople rushed en masse to the dacha. The romantic feels abandoned and only after passing the city outpost does his mood improve.
There is nature all around, it pleases the eye with its resurrection after winter. The young man smiles and returns to the city in high spirits.
On the way to the house, already at ten o'clock in the evening, the Hero notices a girl standing on the bridge. As he passes by, he hears muffled sobs and wants to rush to help.
But he is embarrassed, and the girl, seeing him, briskly goes away. Dreamer follows her across the street. And suddenly he notices a fairly tipsy gentleman who intended to pester the girl. The official rushes to the defense of the stranger and this is how their meeting takes place.
The girl allows herself to be escorted home and on the way listens to the strange story of a young romantic who admits that he has never communicated with women, since he is too timid and can only dream about it.
The girl is intrigued and agrees to the next meeting. The young man goes to his room, thinking that he will not survive this night waiting for a date.
Night two
The next evening, the two meet, and our hero finally finds out the girl’s name - Nastenka. She promises to reveal to him the reason for her tears, but only after he tells her his story. The young man calls himself a Dreamer, whose waking life is boring and uninteresting.
It all takes place in his fantasies - in stories about fatal passion and ardent love. In fact, he is afraid of women, considers himself unworthy of them, an awkward eccentric. He avoids people; he is closer to invented images and even inanimate objects.
Nastenka is amazed. “Is this really how you lived your life?” - asks the amazed girl. “All my life,” our hero admits with a smile.
After listening to the young man, Nastenka begins her story.
Nastenka's story
She lives with her grandmother, who is many years old, and she is almost completely blind. Grandmother treats Nastenka with love, but strictly. To prevent the girl from going for a walk and doing something indecent, the grandmother fastens her granddaughter with a pin to the hem of her dress.
So they sit together all day long. That’s how her new tenant, who rented a room on the second floor, saw her. The young man went to the old woman to settle matters and noticed Nastenka, who was embarrassed by her situation to the point of tears.
After this, the lodger offered Nastenka books so that she could entertain her grandmother by reading aloud. The old woman agreed, and the girl began to see the young man more often. Soon he invited his granddaughter and grandmother to the opera. Gradually the girl fell in love.
After some time, the tenant began to get ready to go home to Moscow, since his business trip was ending. Hearing this news, Nastenka was so upset that she decided to run away with him.
However, the young man dissuaded her from this rash step, promising to return in a year and take her from her grandmother.
And now a year has passed. Nastenka was sure that her beloved had returned to St. Petersburg, but did not make himself known. It was because of this that she shed tears on the bridge.
The dreamer was shocked by the girl's story - here she is, real life, the secret love he dreamed about in his dreams. And he offers his services.
Nastenka writes a note dictated by the Dreamer, which he promises to give to her lover. Nastenka happily agrees to accept help.
Night three
The hero takes the letter to mutual friends. It is to them that the former guest should visit upon arrival in St. Petersburg. The girl is looking forward to the meeting with hope, to which she invites the Dreamer - after all, he took such a part in her destiny.
However, our hero is not at all happy about this. He understands that he himself has already fallen in love with the beauty, and is afraid of the upcoming meeting. But his fears were in vain - the former tenant did not come.
Nastenka is upset and the Dreamer immediately rushes to console her, assuring her that the groom simply has not arrived yet and she needs to wait another day. The girl believes in his words and asks to visit his friends again.
Night four
It is raining, but our Hero still came on a date, although the girl warned that in case of bad weather, she would not be able to come.
The meeting takes place only the next day. But there is still no answer from the “groom”. This time Nastenka is no longer offended. She is offended and decides to stop loving her boyfriend, who has completely forgotten about her.
Here the Dreamer decides to confess his feelings. Nastenka replies that even though she hasn’t cooled down yet old love, but she can try to love someone new young man. The inspired Hero is already making plans for a happy future together.
A couple is walking down the street. They are cheerful, laugh often and are going to live together in the mezzanine of their old grandmother. The dreamer is happy. But then they meet the same “ ex-lover" Nastenka immediately rushes into his arms, forgetting about all her promises.
“I stood for a long time and looked after them...” - The Dreamer was left alone again.
Morning
It's raining and our hero is sitting in his room. He is depressed, sad and has a headache. Suddenly there is a knock on the door - they brought a letter from Nastenka. In it, a girl apologizes for her love for another.
She writes that she understands how she offended the Dreamer, but also thanks him for his help and participation. After all, everything turned out well for her and a week later she marries her lover.
The girl asks not to forget her, she wants further communication and hopes that the Dreamer will become good friend to her fiance.
Our hero understands that his life has lost the meaning it had just acquired. He looks at himself, his room, his landlady - and everything seems old, unnecessary and boring to him.
But he is grateful to his new acquaintance, who awakened him from this dream and showed him his true feelings. He will never forget Nastenka, because she gave him, albeit for a minute, real happiness. And this will be enough for the rest of his life.
Having become familiar with summary based on the chapters of Dostoevsky's novel "White Nights", we strongly recommend reading this wonderful story about love, dreams, friendship and selflessness.
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