“The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Identifying the Objective of the Narrative
Identifying Features of the Narrative
Assessing the Narrative
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Storytelling is an essential part of every human interaction, and, therefore, stories and narratives take a significant place in society. According to Altman, “narrative exists independently of the media that give it concrete form” (1). It means a story can be told through a number of distinct visual, audio, and other expressive means, including fine arts, music, literature, and dance. Nevertheless, for a story to be a narrative, it must have a set of necessary characteristics, which include action, sequential order, and causal relationships among the described events, character(s), narrational activity, a unified theme, and some others (Foss 338). The process of revealing the way the author constructs and organizes the narrative material, as well as a possible way readers follow characters from one event and scene to another, constitutes the core of the narrative analysis. According to Foss, narrative criticism implies the evaluation of causal and thematic relationships between events and the manner of narrative organization, integrated with the assessment of settings, characters, narration, as well as the overall narrational objectives within a selected artifact (340). By following the suggested procedural model, the given paper will aim to provide a critique of The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Identifying the Objective of the Narrative

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is a short story written by Dostoyevsky in 1877. It is included in his periodical collection of writings, A Writer’s Diary. Crnković states that the given fantastic story stands out among all other sketches and short fictions included in the author’s singular journal because it provides a “sweeping overview of the ethical history of mankind and for its simple, though not uncomplicated, the moral message” (45). To understand the objective of the narrative in the selected artifact, it is important to note that in the majority of Dostoyevsky’s works, the search for an ethical ideal is one of the primary narrative elements (Barsht 20). Moreover, in many of his novels and stories, readers may find references and allegories to some Christian and philosophic ideas about morality and truth.

In The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, the focus on the ethical attitude of the narrator and its change due to a cathartic experience he has in the unusual yet realistic dream can also be regarded as an attempt to describe an image of an ideally moral person and humankind. The transformative experience about which the Ridiculous Man narrates in the story turns him from an indifferent and immoral person into a committed messenger of true morality and makes him realize personal responsibility in making the world a better or a worse place. Based on this, it is valid to say that the primary objective of the narrative in the selected artifact is to convey ethical truths and values to readers.

Identifying Features of the Narrative

Setting

The setting of the fiction story is divided into two geographical spaces. One of them is a real-world city, Saint Petersburg, where the narrator rented a room with “oilcloth sofa, and a table with books on it, two chairs, and an armchair, as old as can be” (Dostoyevsky 3). The second setting, resembling a mythical “Greek archipelago” with flowering trees, singing birds, and glittering grass, drastically differs from the first gloomy one (Dostoyevsky 7). This second space where the action takes place is the dream realm and, in particular, the paradise-like planet to which the Ridiculous Man is transferred after committing suicide.

Characters

The major characters in the fiction are the Ridiculous Man, a little girl whom he meets on the way home before seeing the dream, and a being that takes him from the grave to space in the dream. Additionally, the people whom he meets on the distant planet may be regarded as a single character with generalized features. It is possible to say that compared to the protagonist, other characters are rather flat because merely a few of their qualities are described, and readers can see them only from the outside. At the same time, the Ridiculous Man’s interior motivations and exterior actions are observable throughout the story.

Narrator

The main character is the narrator in the short story. Despite the fact that first-person narration always provides a subjective view, the Ridiculous Man’s narrative voice can be considered reliable. According to Murphy, the major characteristics of a reliable first-person fiction narrator include “ethical maturity; and a plot structure which involves the retrospective re-evaluation” (2). These are two important features of the narrative style in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man.

Events: Temporal and Causal Relations

The story incorporates a dramatic plot. It comprises both major and minor events, which are temporarily and causally interrelated in the retrospective narration.

Kernel 1: Initially, the Ridiculous Man feels that everything in life does not make any difference to him and decides to commit suicide. The evening before the planned suicide, he is approached by the girl whose mother is in trouble of dying. The man uses this event to test his current view on morality and decides to stay uninvolved despite the girl’s pleading and apparent misery.

Kernel 2: The same night, he suddenly falls asleep sitting in a chair and sees the dream in which he shoots himself in the hearth. After spending a short time in a grave, he is carried to an Earth-like planet by “some dark being” (Dostoyevsky 6). There, he finds himself surrounded by beautiful, happy, innocent, yet wise people who love him and each other and do not know cruelty and jealousy.

Trouble: Nevertheless, thousands of years after, the narrator unintentionally and “innocently” corrupts these people, who learn to lie, hate, and kill and consequently forget about their previous sinless life (Dostoyevsky 11).

Satellite: The incident becomes a cause of tremendous suffering and even the man’s death on that distant planet. When he wakes up in his room, he perceives the dream as the revelation of truth.

Kernel 3: It makes the Ridiculous Man seek redemption and entirely change the attitude to life and people and turns him into a preacher of truth.

Audience

The narrator directly refers to the audience when telling the story. He utilizes the phrases with second-person pronouns (such as “you see”) to establish the emotional connection with the reader and differentiates him/her from “them” − people surrounding the Ridiculous Man on a daily basis and considering him mad (Dostoyevsky 1-3). At the same time, a person or people to whom he addresses may also be members of the narrator’s immediate surroundings. Such a way of interaction with readers/collocutors creates a sense of personal communication and contributes to the preaching manner of narration.

Theme

The major theme in the selected artifact is the restoration or creation of what is defined by Sabo as spontaneous, ethical living, and collective humanity (52). The story incorporates Christian ideas of returning to the kingdom of God because the initial state of mankind found by the Ridiculous Man on the twin-Earth can be considered as the symbol of paradise. Additionally, it is worth noticing that in A Writer’s Diary, Dostoyevsky depicts reality from the perspective of a “Christ-like narrator” (Barsht 20). The given statement refers to the moment when the character openly took the blame and responsibility for the corruption of previously happy people yet was ridiculed by them for it.

Type of Narrative

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is a tragedy. According to Foss, “a tragedy is a narrative form in which a protagonist tries to achieve a goal but falls short because of an inability to overcome flaws of faults” (335). It includes the elements of “unrealized expectations and the failure of the protagonist’s dreams” (Foss 335). The major post-dream objective of the main character is to convey the vision of truth to others. However, it seems impossible because the very nature of the “defiled” society denies the chance for the acceptance of truth and the creation of a more sound and loving community (Dostoyevsky 11). For the same reason, people do not perceive the character as reasonable and consider him ridiculous instead.

Assessing the Narrative

The analysis results prompt the following question: do the strategies used by Dostoyevsky in the narrative help attain the intended objectives and communicate with the audience effectively? Considering that the identified aim of the given artifact is to convey the moral message to readers and to continue “the number of steps towards the kingdom of God,” which the author started in his previous works, it is possible to say that the incorporation of religious/spiritual motives and themes into almost all other described narration elements largely contributed to the successful attainment of the formulated goal (Barsht 21).

One may trace the reference to Christian ideas in story settings, characters, sequence of events, as well as causal relations between them. For example, the “dark being” with a “human countenance” who indicates the existence of “life beyond the grave” and who brings the Ridiculous Man to another planet to teach him a lesson can be regarded as an image of God (Dostoyevsky 6). Additionally, it is possible to say the first-person narration and retrospective re-evaluation of personal experience by the character plays an essential role in the attainment of the narrative objective. The protagonist’s transformation from an indifferent person into a loving and wise individual who wants to disseminate the knowledge of the revealed truth substantially contributes to the preaching intonation of the story. In a way, it provides a version of Christ’s viewpoint of the lapse from virtue. Thus, it is valid to say that the reader who has some basic knowledge of Christian narratives can easily understand Dostoyevsky’s intentions and perceive the educational value of the selected artifact.

Conclusion

The provided critique of The Dream of a Ridiculous Man shows that the narrative analysis allows the understanding of the author’s point of view by evaluating the use of characters, settings, and other narrative elements. Additionally, this type of criticism assists in the identification of the way one may follow through various narrative units by analyzing the causal and temporal links among them. It also gives an opportunity to establish the symbolic and particular functional purposes of any artifact. Thus, there is no doubt that narrative criticism can be regarded as a valuable tool for text interpretation.

Works Cited

Altman, Rick. A Theory of Narrative. Columbia University Press, 2008.

Barsht, Konstantin. Stages of Development of Dostoevsky’s Narrative System: From Early Correspondence with His Brother Mikhail Mikhailovich to A Writer’s Diary. 2017, Web.

Crnković, Denis. Christian Apatheia in Dostoevsky’s ‘Dream of a Ridiculous Man’. Slovo: Journal of Slavic Languages and Literatures, no. 53, 2012, pp. 45−57.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man: A Fantastic Story. Web.

Foss, Sonja K. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice. 4th ed., Waveland, 2008.

Murphy, Terence. Defining the Reliable Narrator: The Marked Status of First-Person Fiction. 2012, Web.

Sabo, Gerald J. “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”: Christian Hope for Human Society. Dostoevsky Studies, New Series, vol. 8, 2009, pp. 47-60.

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