Dostoevsky’s Early Short Prose: The Visuality (“Tactility”) of Inner Turmoil

Abstract

Three works by F.M. Dostoevsky-Poor Folk, The Double, and A Faint Heart-are examined through a particular method of plastically visual ("tactile") representation of the characters' emotional experiences. A similar approach can also be found in other works by the writer, in particular in the novels Crime and Punishment (which I discussed in my article "Choreography of Text and Text of Choreography") and The Adolescent (to which several sections of my article "No Longer an Adolescent, Not Yet a Prince" are devoted). The article argues that the device of visualizing the invisible is already evident in the early period of the writer's work, in his short fiction. Both in his short debut novel and in the novellas that followed it, there are moments when Dostoevsky, like a film director or choreographer, makes visible what cannot literally be seen. Without directly describing the character's inner state, he creates verbal images of situations, physical objects, or movements that convey the movements of the soul.The article also argues that a Pushkinian motif unites all three early works. In particular, the protagonist of A Faint Heart not only repeats, in his innermost unfulfilled hopes, the story of Evgenii's heart from The Bronze Horseman, but, like Pushkin's "little man," he also goes mad. In the context of the topic under discussion, it is important that, following Pushkin, Dostoevsky presents this tragic event not as a factual report, but indirectly and in a physically "tactile" manner. Such a device, in which an action is transferred from the abstract to something visible, may be called a "materialized" or "visual" metaphor. Recognizing this device requires the reader to adopt a particular mode of perception and to be able to read the image as a text that is written indirectly rather than explicitly. This device is also relevant to the specific vocabulary of cinema and ballet, as well as to the modern concept of the "cinematic literary text."