The Function of the Writer in Dostoevsky’s Novel The Humiliated and the Insulted

Abstract

Ivan Petrovich, the author of the notes, stands out among the other characters of the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky The Humiliated and the Insulted. He is an unremarkable and modest person, who has devoted all his time and energy to others. Everyone likes him, trusts him and feels brotherly love for him. The attitude to Vanya is inseparably linked with the attitude to his novel – “the firstborn”. Firstly each character reads the novel and then hurries to say to Vanya that he or she loved him and reveals his or her mind to him. The most important characteristics of Vanya’s character and of Vanya’s creative writing are honesty and frankness. These characteristics define the main function of the writer which is to console and transform the other characters. In the article, Ivan Petrovich, who is honest and clever, is also compared with honest and frank but stupid Alyosha, and with the observant and smart but heartless Prince. The latter even acts as a rival of Vanya and firstly defeats him with the help of cunning and deception. The article also focuses on Nelly, the Prince’s daughter, who inherited from her father not only her intelligence, but also the bitterness of her heart. She fights it throughout the novel. Attention is also drawn to the fact that Ivan Petrovich was going to write a new novel but was constantly busy in consoling other characters and answering their requests. The article suggests a possible resolution of the main conflict with the help of this new novel which, however, was never written. That may explain Ivan Petrovich’s helplessness during the final scene, when he was forced to beg Nelly to console everyone instead of doing it himself. Maybe Ivan Petrovich calls himself a “failed” writer and feels guilty because of using Nelly’s story instead of his unwritten novel.

Keywords

• dostoevsky
• the humiliated and the insulted
• ivan petrovich
• novel
• writer
• cleverness
• frankness
• honesty