Netochka Nezvanova’s Childhood as a World of Negations

Abstract

The article examines the role of negation in the life of the main character of F.M. Dostoevsky’s unfinished story “Netochka Nezvanova” and speculates about the further unravelling of its plot. The quotes show how Netochka’s childhood is a “world of negations” that shapes the girl’s fate. The emphasis Dostoevsky put shows that the main character should undergo a transformation at the level of negative particles, namely, she should gradually get rid of them. The relations between a lot of “no’s” and “not’s” and the changes in the characters also provide us an interesting point of view.

Keywords

• dostoevsky
• “netochka nezvanova”
• negation
• idea of “un-love”
• unfinished work
• variant of the unravelling of the plot
• plot-making element
• character’s development/growing up
• russian literature