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Today I finished reading one of the novels of famous Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky ― The insulted and Humiliated. My impression was that the novel is not that amazing as Crime and Punishment or my favorite The Brothers Karamazov, but I decided to write something about it. In my opinion, this novel deserves more attention and it seems to me that it is a little bit forgotten. This book maybe is not that good as his latest works, but I found something so deep and emotional inside of it and I want to share my impression with you. If you love literature or if you are fan of Dostoevsky, I would be so happy to hear your opinion about it.
As I said, this novel has some imperfections. Sometimes I thought that some characters are not that realistic and that they are talking too much and explaining themselves instead of letting us understand them by their actions. It was just my opinion and it can be wrong, of course. In the end, who am I to judge? But, we should be aware of fact that this book was written a couple of years before his masterpieces. Writing this book he maybe was just preparing for some amazing works in the future. However, the writer can make his style better, but he cannot learn how to express the deepest emotion through the words. That is something that good writer always has and we can feel that in every work of this famous Russian writer, from his first to his last book.
The Insulted and Humiliated is a book about poor citizens of Saint Petersburg, their everyday lives in cold, small and wet apartments in the poorest parts of the city. This is the book about the contrast between rich and powerful people, their money, luxury, and big and bright palaces and poor, humiliated, hungry people from the filthy streets of Saint Petersburg. In one side there are palaces and monumental houses of the nobles and in another sid,e there are dark and dirty places of almost homeless people. Their suffering is not only caused by hunger, coldness, and poverty. The real suffering for them in that world comes from rich people, from their insults and humiliations. For them, it is not enough to have everything that they want. Real satisfaction comes from hurting, insulting and humiliating the poor.
The book has a couple of plots. Everything is told by the student Vanya, a young and poor writer. In my opinion, he could be an alter ego of Dostoevsky. Through this story and his life, we can see how young writers without money and backup lived in that time. That was a life full of suffering and renunciation. He lived a very poor life, in some cheap small apartment in the attic, without fire, worm clothes and food most of the time. Magazines sometimes gave him some money but that was not enough for a decent life. As one of the characters said, muse always had to live in the attic and once again she was starving. However, Vanya is a good, young writer. He is a nice young man in deep love with Natasha.
One plot is following her life and her destiny. She left him because of another man (Alosha) and run away with her lover from her parents’ house. Vanya is a great man and he is ready to forgive her everything and help her to convince Alosha’s father to approve marriage between them. Natasha and Alosha’s love is impossible because they don’t belong to the same social class and his father, count Valkovsky, wants him to marry with another girl, rich and beautiful Katerina. Natasha’s father curses his own daughter because of her decision even he still loves her and he is suffering because of humiliation. He can’t forgive her and the things get too complicated when he loses the case on the court against count Valkovsky and when count Valkovsky takes all of his money and land and humiliates him in public saying that Natasha seduced his son only because of money. However, Alosha will not marry with Natasha because his father is not going to allow that marriage and Natasha will stay alone, hurt and humiliated as the girl who had a lover and didn’t get married in the end. For our time this is not something that terrible, but in the 19th century that was the worst destiny that one girl could have. She was abandoned and humiliated in public as some lady without morale. Her family also had to suffer because of this.
Another plot concerns a little girl whom Vanya found at the streets of the city. That was Nely, poor and alone orphan. She is one of the most important characters in the book and she is maybe one of the best characters that Dostoevsky has ever made. She is a child without any protection, sick, hurt and humiliated in the worst ways. Vanya rescues her from one woman who wanted to sell her to some pervert guy as a prostitute and takes her with him in his poor apartment on the attic. Day by day he discovers her life story and finds out how much she suffered on the street, begging and earning money for her sick mother who died from tuberculosis. In the end, we find out that Nelly’s mother once was rich and that she left her father and took his money so she can run away with one man (that was Valkonsky). He seduced her, took her money and left her with the child and her father never forgave her so she died cursed by him. That was similar life story as Natasha’s and Nelly with her talking about her and her mother’s suffering helps Natasha to convince her own father to forgive her and take her back to the home. Those two plots have a lot of common things and in the end, everything is connected.
Reading this book I felt that every humiliation of those characters goes strictly to me. I felt their pain, suffering, and angriness. Every person who felt humiliation and who was insulted in this book had some kind of satisfaction in own pain. Nelly didn’t want any help and even when Vanya took her from the street, she wanted to run away from him, go back there and keep bagging. She was proud of her poverty and humiliation because he didn’t feel shame to beg from all of the people but she felt shame to take help from just one person. She knew that she is the daughter of count Valkovsky and that she can ask her right and right of her mother as legal wife of the count, but she didn’t want even one penny from him. That was her greatest victory. Even he kept the money, he was one who lost in the end. Her daughter didn’t forgive him and she died cursing his name. Those who were victims and who deserved forgiveness, in the end, got forgiveness. Maybe they stayed without money, hurt and humiliated, but they kept their soul and their honor. They stayed poor but in the end, they won. Count took the money, he prevented public scandal and high society didn’t find out about his marriage and abandoned the child, but he lost in the end. One story ended unhappily but the suffering of those who died in pain and sorrow helped to another hurt and humiliated to stay together in their own suffering, forgive each other and won important life battle.
Thank you for reading. I will appreciate your comment and I will be more then happy if you share with me your impressions of this book. Steem on!
Ovo mi je jedna od omiljenih knjiga. Bukvalno sam je u jednom dahu procitao. Bravo (:
Hvala, meni su omiljeni Karamazovi, ali ovo je takođe jedno od boljih njegovih dela. Čini mi se da ga je u velikoj meri pripremilo i izgradilo za sve ono što je kasnije napisao. Uživala sam stvarno. A kraj je da ti srce stane. :)
I began reading your post and I stopped because I want to read the book!! Your introduction caught my attention, totally. And I read Crime and Punishment in the high school and I can say that is one of the best books I have ever read. ... I love the way you write, this is some serious work on your behalf. I'm sorry I haven't read the whole post, but I don't want to know what happened in the book when it comes to plot, because, as I already said, I want to read it myself and I thank you for sharing this!!
Thanks, don't read whole post, because I wrote about plots and that can ruin your reading. I am glad that you liked my writing and that you are interested in reading this book. It is really amazing. Especialy beginning and the end, so emotional, deep. It is realistic. In life there is a lot of suffering and Dostoievsky knew about it because he was also suffering too much. Unfortunately, in life good doesen't win every time and it's like that in his books also. Sad but true. He said that the worst thing in this world is to insult and humiliate the kid and he always have in his books some kid who suffered so much and who was insulted and humiliated in the worst possible ways.
I always say that the worst thing you can see is an old person and a child suffering, because they don't have the strength and ability to improve their situation without the help of others. And we all know how the reality looks like.
Amazing writing. You put some real passion in it. I am proud of you :)
Thank you so much. I am glad that you liked it. :)
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