Makar Devushkin Dostoevsky portrait of a hero. "Poor People": what the novel is about, the image of Makar Devushkin

("Poor People")

A 9th grade official (titular councilor), a poor and lonely man of middle age (45-46), who fell in love with a young girl and experienced a touching “epistolary romance” with her - they met very rarely, mostly in church, but they wrote to each other letters to a friend every other day or every day. In Devushkin’s simple-minded letters, his entire character, his entire fate, his everyday existence emerges clearly: “I’ll start with the fact that I was only seventeen years old when I reported for duty, and soon my career will be thirty years old. Well, there’s nothing to say, I’ve worn out my uniform quite a bit; matured, wiser, looked at people; I lived, I can say that I lived in the world, so much so that they even wanted to present me with the opportunity to receive a cross. You may not believe it, but I’m really not lying to you. So, little mother, there were evil people for all this! But I’ll tell you, my dear, that although I am a dark person, a stupid person, perhaps, my heart is the same as anyone else’s. So do you know, Varenka, what the evil man did to me? And it’s shameful to say what he did; ask - why did you do it? And because I’m humble, and because I’m quiet, and because I’m kind! They didn’t like it, so that’s what happened to me.<...>No, little mother, you see how things went: everything went to Makar Alekseevich; All they knew how to do was introduce Makar Alekseevich into a proverb in our entire department. Not only have they made a proverb out of me and almost a swear word, they’ve even gotten to my boots, my uniform, my hair, my figure: everything is not according to them, everything needs to be remade! And this has been repeated every single day since time immemorial. I'm used to it, because I get used to everything, because I'm a humble person, because I'm a small person; but, nevertheless, what is all this for? What harm have I done to anyone? Chin intercepted from someone, or what? Did you denigrate anyone in front of your superiors? Requested the award again! Did you cook up some kind of bondage? Yes, it’s a sin for you to think such and such, little mother! Well, where do I need all this? Just consider, my dear, do I have abilities sufficient for deceit and ambition? So why attack me like this, God forgive me? After all, you find me a worthy person, and you are far better than all of them, little mother.<...>I have my own piece of bread; True, a simple piece of bread, sometimes even stale; but it is there, obtained through labor, legally and impeccably used. Well what to do! I myself know that I do a little by rewriting; Yes, I’m still proud of it: I work, I shed sweat. Well, what’s really wrong with this that I’m rewriting! What, it’s a sin to rewrite, or what? “He’s supposedly rewriting!” “This rat, they say, is an official copying!” What's so dishonest about that? The letter is so clear, good, pleasant to look at, and His Excellency is pleased; I rewrite the most important papers for them. Well, there is no syllable, because I myself know that it does not exist, the damned one; That’s why I didn’t take the job, and even now, my dear, I’m writing to you simply, without pretense, and as the thought fell on my heart... I know all this; yes, however, if everyone began to compose, who would begin to rewrite? This is the question I’m asking and I ask you to answer it, little mother. Well, now I realize that I am needed, that I am necessary, and that there is no point in confusing a person with nonsense. Well, perhaps, let it be a rat, if they found a similarity! Yes, this rat is needed, but this rat is useful, but this rat is held on to, and this rat gets a reward - what a rat it is! However, enough about this matter, my dear; That’s not what I wanted to talk about, but I got a little excited. Still, it’s nice to do yourself justice from time to time...”

In another letter, discussing the story “The Overcoat” by N.V. Gogol, Makar Alekseevich characterizes himself this way: “I have been in the service for about thirty years; I serve impeccably, behave soberly, and have never been seen in disorder. As a citizen, I consider myself, in my own consciousness, as having my own shortcomings, but at the same time virtues. We respect our superiors, and His Excellency themselves are pleased with me; although they have not yet shown me any special signs of favor, I know that they are pleased. Lived to see gray hair; I don’t know of any great sin. Of course, who is not sinful in small ways? Everyone is a sinner, and even you are sinners, little mother! But I have never been seen to have committed any major offenses or insolence, to do anything against the regulations or to disturb public peace, I have never been seen to do this, it never happened; even a cross came out - well, that's okay!<...>So after this, you can’t live in peace, in your little corner - whatever it may be - live without muddying the water, according to the proverb, without touching anyone, knowing the fear of God and of yourself, so that you won’t be touched, so that in they didn’t sneak into your kennel and didn’t spy on them - they say, how do you feel at home there, that, for example, you have a good vest, do you have anything that follows from your underdress; Are there boots, and what are they lined with? What are you eating, what are you drinking, what are you copying?.. And what’s so wrong with that, little mother, that even if I sometimes walk on tiptoe where the pavement is rather bad, that I’m taking care of my boots! Why write about someone else, that he is sometimes in need, that he doesn’t drink tea? And everyone should definitely drink tea! Do I really look into everyone’s mouth and say, what kind of piece is he chewing? Who did I offend in this way? No, little mother, why offend others when they don’t affect you!..”

And a little later Devushkin adds characteristic touches: “Well, what a slum I ended up in, Varvara Alekseevna! Well, it's an apartment! Before, I lived like such a wood grouse, you know: calmly, quietly; It happened to me that a fly flies, and you can hear the fly. And here there is noise, screaming, hubbub! But you still don’t know how it all works here. Imagine, roughly, a long corridor, completely dark and unclean. On his right hand there will be a blank wall, and on his left all the doors and doors, like numbers, all stretching out in a row. Well, they hire these rooms, and they have one room in each; they live in one and in twos and threes. Don't ask for order - Noah's Ark! However, it seems that the people are good, they are all so educated and scientists.<...> I live in the kitchen, or it would be much more correct to say this: here next to the kitchen there is one room (and we, you should note, the kitchen is clean, bright, very good), the room is small, the corner is so modest... that is, or even better to say, the kitchen is large with three windows, so I have a partition along the transverse wall, so it looks like another room, a supernumerary number; everything is spacious, comfortable, there is a window, and that’s it - in a word, everything is comfortable. Well, this is my little corner. Well, don’t think, little mother, that there is anything different or a mysterious meaning here; what, they say, is the kitchen! - that is, I, perhaps, live in this very room behind the partition, but that’s okay; I live apart from everyone, I live little by little, I live quietly. I set up a bed, a table, a chest of drawers, a couple of chairs, and hung up an icon. True, there are better apartments, perhaps there are much better ones, but convenience is the main thing; After all, this is all for convenience, and don’t think that it’s for anything else. Your window is opposite, across the yard; and the yard is narrow, you’ll see you in passing - it’s all the more fun for me, the wretched one, and it’s also cheaper. We have the very last room here, with a table, it costs thirty-five rubles in banknotes. Can't afford it! And my apartment costs me seven rubles in banknotes, and a table of five rubles: that’s twenty-four and a half, and before I paid exactly thirty, but I denied myself a lot; I didn’t always drink tea, but now I’ve saved money on tea and sugar. You know, my dear, it’s somehow a shame not to drink tea; All the people here are wealthy, it’s a shame. For the sake of strangers you drink it, Varenka, for appearance, for tone; but for me it doesn’t matter, I’m not whimsical. Put it this way, for pocket money - whatever you need - well, some boots, a dress - will there be much left? That's all my salary. I don’t complain and I’m happy. It's enough. It's been enough for a few years now; There are also awards. Well, goodbye, my little angel. I bought a couple of pots of impatiens and geraniums there - inexpensively. Maybe you also like mignonette? So there is mignonette, you write; yes, you know, write everything down in as much detail as possible. However, don’t think anything and don’t doubt me, little mother, that I hired such a room. No, this convenience forced me, and this convenience alone seduced me. After all, little mother, I save money, I put it aside: I have some money. Don’t you look at the fact that I’m so quiet that it seems like a fly will knock me over with its wing. No, little mother, I am not a failure, and my character is exactly the same as befits a person with a strong and serene soul. ..”

The persistent references to tea are very typical here: Dostoevsky himself several years earlier, while studying at the Engineering School, (May 5-10, 1839): “Whether it will or not, I must comply fully with the statutes of my current society<...>The camp life of every student in a military educational institution requires at least 40 rubles. money. (I am writing all this to you because I am talking to my father). In this amount I do not include such needs as, for example: having tea, sugar, etc. This is already necessary, and it is necessary not out of decency alone, but out of necessity. When you get wet in wet weather in the rain in a canvas tent, or in such weather, coming home from training tired, chilled, without tea you can get sick; what happened to me last year on a hike. But still, respecting your need, I will not drink tea...” Meanwhile, in the camps, government tea was given twice a day. For Dostoevsky throughout his life, tea played the role of not only his favorite drink, but also a measure-boundary of any kind of well-being. If a person doesn’t have his own tea, it’s not even poverty, it’s poverty; and poverty is certainly, as it will be formulated later in “Crime and Punishment,” a vice: there’s nowhere else to go, gentlemen! Tea will serve, so to speak, as the basis for the well-known ambitious exclamation-motto of the hero of “Notes from the Underground” that, they say, it would be better for the whole world to go to hell, if only he could drink tea.

As paradoxical as it may sound, Makar Alekseevich Devushkin is essentially a writer, writer, and composer. Although he himself seems to admit to Varenka that he has been deprived of a gift from above: “And nature, and various rural pictures, and everything else about feelings - in a word, you described all this very well. But I have no talent. Even if you scribble ten pages, nothing comes out, nothing can be described. I’ve already tried...” This “I’ve already tried” directly speaks of Makar Alekseevich’s literary attempts. Apparently, having lost faith in his abilities, he consoles himself with rhetorical questions to reassure himself: “... if everyone began to compose, then who would rewrite?” But it is no secret to the reader that the hero of the novel is clearly being modest. After all, it is his pen, Devushkin’s pen, that accounts for a good half of the text of “Poor People”; after all, his letters, like Varenka’s letters, from which Dostoevsky “composed” the work, are a literary reality. One has only to remember his description of the tragedy of the Gorshkov family, full of real artistry, or the scene he recreated on paper with a torn button during a reception with His Excellency... No, Makar Alekseevich is a real writer of the “natural school”, only due to his excessive modesty and habit of not hiding suspecting this. However, he vividly imagines what kind of embarrassment he would have to endure if the book “Poems of Makar Devushkin” was published. In his first work, Dostoevsky had already fully applied a technique that would become fundamental in all of his work - he entrusted the word to the heroes, made them co-authors of the text, endowed them with independence of creativity, independence of judgments and conclusions (which later, already in the 20th century, M M. Bakhtin defines it as “polyphonic”), and in the end made the characters extremely lively and convincing. In (February 1, 1846), speaking about critics, Dostoevsky wrote: “They are accustomed to seeing the writer’s face in everything; I didn't show mine. And they have no idea that Devushkin is speaking, not me, and that Devushkin cannot say otherwise...”

The fate of this hero, alas, is bleak - no matter how Devushkin begged not to marry him, he even threatened suicide, but the irreparable happened, and Makar Alekseevich remains completely alone. Already from a later story (1848), the reader indirectly learns that poor Devushkin repeated the fate of Pushkin’s hero Vyrin, from the story “ Stationmaster”, which once shocked him, he drank himself to death and died. in “The Honest Thief” he talks about, who in “Poor People”, having become close to Devushkin, dragged him into “debauches”: “And before, like me, he also went after one employee, became attached to him, everyone drank together; Yes, he got drunk and died from some kind of grief...”

The plot of the work

Petty official Makar Alekseevich Girls takes care of his distant relative Vara Dobroselova. The titular councilor, having no means of subsistence, nevertheless tries to help the unfortunate orphan by renting housing for her. Despite the fact that Varya and Makar live nearby, they see each other extremely rarely: Devushkin fears for Varya’s reputation. Relatives are forced to content themselves with letters to each other.

From the stories of Varvara Dobroselova herself, one can judge that her childhood was quite happy. The family lived in a village where the father served as manager of the estate of a certain Prince P-go. The move to St. Petersburg was forced: Alexey Dobroselov lost his position as manager. The difficult life in the capital and numerous failures destroyed Varya’s father. Dobroselov’s widow was taken into her house by a distant relative, Anna Fedorovna, who immediately began to “reproach the new tenants with a piece.”

In order to compensate for the material “losses” caused by Varya and her mother, Anna Fedorovna decided to marry the orphan to the rich landowner Bykov. By that time, Dobroselov’s widow had already died, and there was no one to intercede for Varya except Devushkin, who took the orphan from Anna Fedorovna’s house. It was necessary to hide Varvara’s new address from her insidious relative.

Despite all the efforts of Makar, Vara Dobroselova had to marry the rude and cynical Bykov. Devushkin spent all his meager savings and could no longer help his ward.

Composition of the novel

The novel “Poor People” is presented in epistolary form, that is, in the form of correspondence between the characters. The author's choice cannot be called random. Letters are the direct speech of the characters, completely excluding the subjective opinion of the author.

The role of the reader

The reader is entrusted with a difficult task: having “overheard” someone else’s personal conversation, he himself can figure out what is happening and draw a certain conclusion. We can learn the biography of the main characters from them themselves. You will have to draw your own conclusions about the character of the characters.

To help the reader, the author draws parallels, mentioning the well-known stories “The Overcoat” and “The Station Agent.” In Devushkin it is not difficult to recognize the powerless Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin. The choice of the story “The Station Agent” is also not accidental. Samson Vyrin was the same powerless petty official as Bashmachkin. And if Akaky Akakievich’s new overcoat was stolen, Vyrin was deprived of his daughter. By analogy with the previous two literary characters, Makar Devushkin had to lose the only joy of his life - Varya.

Characteristics

The reader focuses on 2 main characters: Varya Dobroselova and Makar Devushkin. Of course this is goodies, and for the full disclosure of images it is also necessary negative characters, presented by Anna Fedorovna and landowner Bykov.

Makar Devushkin

Image " little man"existed before the appearance of the novel "Poor People". And the author himself does not deny this, drawing a parallel between his work, Gogol’s “The Overcoat” and Pushkin’s “The Station Agent”. It is enough for Dostoevsky to mention these two stories, point out that Makar recognized himself in the main characters, and the reader already understands what the titular adviser Devushkin is like. According to Makar himself, he was unable to move up the career ladder only because he was “meek” and “kind.” To obtain titles you must have an iron grip.

One should not ignore the surname of the main character, which can rightfully be considered telling. Makar is sensitive and vulnerable, like a girl. He completely lacks the brutality characteristic of a man. In Makar’s speech one can often find nouns and adjectives with diminutive suffixes: little mother, boots, dress, quiet. Everything in Devushkin’s appearance testifies to the weakness of his character.

Varya Dobroselova

Like Makar Devushkin, Varya Dobroselova is a carrier speaking surname, the characterizing element of which is the word “good”. The main characters of the “positive camp” have the same middle names, and this is not a coincidence. The sameness indicates the similarity of the characters of Varya and Makar, a kind of common parent of the main characters, despite the fact that they were not the children of the same person named Alexey.

Makar and Varya are kindred spirits. It is very difficult for both to live in this harsh world, mostly due to the excessive softness of their character. Devushkin and Dobroselova were united by the lack of spiritual warmth, which they need, but which they do not receive from others. Two people completely different in age and education find moral support in each other.

There are, however, some differences in the characters of Varya and Makar. Varya, despite her young age, is more practical than her relative. She tries to earn money by sewing on her own, without relying on her patron. Dobroselova agreed to marry an unpleasant but rich man who could save her from poverty. Unlike Makar, who cannot give up his principles for the sake of a more comfortable life, Varya is sure that living in poverty is much worse than with an unloved husband. The author shows in his heroine hidden power. This strength will certainly help you survive and perhaps even succeed.

Bykov

By the name of the main character it is easy to judge his character: rude, stubborn, daring and strong. Bykov is the “master of life.” He is used to getting what he wants and does not like being denied. From Varya’s letters we can conclude that Bykov does not need a family, as such. The landowner dreams of the birth of a legal heir. After all, if he dies childless, his entire fortune will go to his hated nephew. Varya Dobroselova means nothing to Bykov. Her only mission is to give birth to an heir to the “master of life.” If a girl does not agree to get married, the landowner will quickly find a replacement for her in the person of a rich Moscow merchant's wife.

Bykov does not notice living people around him. The life of each individual person is dear to the landowner as much as this person maybe it will be useful to him, Bykov. Even before she becomes the landowner’s legal wife, Varya already becomes his property, his personal property. And Bykov is not used to standing on ceremony with things.

Anna Fedorovna

A distant relative of the Dobroselov family lives a strange and ambiguous life. Varya sees mystery in her activities. Anna Fedorovna is constantly fussing, leaving somewhere several times a day. The woman came to her poor relatives herself and offered to move in with her.

The mask of Christian virtue, of which Anna Feodorovna is so proud, hides a cruel and treacherous soul. Even Bykov admits this. At one time, Anna Fedorovna helped the landowner “cover up his sin” by marrying a woman pregnant with Bykov to the official Zakhar Pokrovsky.

Many researchers of the work of F. M. Dostoevsky believe that some of the heroes of the novel “Poor People” had their prototypes in life. For example, the writer was inspired to create the image of Varya Dobroselova by his sister V.M. Dostoevskaya (by her husband Karepin).

MAKAR DEVUSHKIN is the hero of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky’s “Poor People” (1845), a titular councilor, 47 years old, copying papers for a small salary in one of the St. Petersburg departments. He has just moved to a “mainstream” house near Fontanka, where he huddles behind a partition in a shared kitchen with a “rotten, pungently sweet smell” in which “little siskins are dying.” In the same yard M.D. rents a more comfortable and expensive apartment for his distant relative Varenka, a 17-year-old orphan, for whom there is no one else to stand up for her. Living nearby, they rarely see each other, so as not to cause gossip. They draw warmth and sympathy from almost daily correspondence with each other. M.D. happy, having found heartfelt affection. Denying himself food and clothes, he saves money on flowers and sweets for his “angel.” “Smirnenky”, “quiet” and “kind”, M.D. - the subject of constant ridicule from others. The only joy is Varenka: “It’s as if God blessed me with a house and a family!” She sends M.D. stories by Pushkin and Gogol; “The Station Agent” elevates him in his own eyes, “The Overcoat” offends him by publishing pitiful details of him own life. Finally, M.D. luck smiles: summoned for a “scolding” to the general for a mistake in a paper, he received the sympathy of “His Excellency” and received 100 rubles from him personally. This is salvation: paid for the apartment, board, clothes. M.D. depressed by the boss’s generosity and reproaches himself for his recent “liberal” thoughts. Understanding how overwhelming it is for M.D. material concerns about herself, Varya agrees to marry the rude and cruel Bykov and goes to his estate. In the last letter from M.D. to her - a cry of despair: “I worked, and wrote papers, and walked, and walked... all because you... here, on the contrary, lived nearby.” In other works of the 1840s. Dostoevsky paints the “little man” in a slightly different way, emphasizing his moral inferiority (Goayadkin, Prokharchin, etc.), and in the 1850s, even ugliness (Opiskin). Since the 1860s this type becomes secondary for the writer, giving way to the central place to the extraordinary intellectual hero. The first artistic performance of Dostoevsky is connected with the novel “Poor People”: in April 1846, at a literary concert in the house of the famous Slavophiles Samarins, M.S. Shchepkin read one of the “letters” of M.D.

Lit.: Belinsky V.G. “Petersburg collection” // Belinsky V.G. Complete collected works M., 1953-1959. T.9; Grigoriev A.A. “Poor people” // Finnish Bulletin, 1846. No. 9. Dept.U; Maikov V.N. Something about Russian literature in 1846 // Maikov V.N.

Literary criticism. L., 1885; Tseitlin A.G. The Tale of Dostoevsky's Poor Official (On the History of a Plot). M., 1923; Vinogradov V.V. The evolution of Russian naturalism. Gogol and Dostoevsky. L., 1929; Bakhtin M.M. Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics. M., 1979; Bocharov S.G. The transition from Gogol to Dostoevsky // Bocharov S.G. ABOUT art worlds. M., 1985.

Makar Devushkin is a modest and very kind hero, from whom some characters in other works of Dostoevsky were “born”. identifying the role of an unremarkable person in the huge secular Petersburg.

Makar himself understands who he is, knows his place and expresses his state openly, but with due pride. He often points out that he is dressed in cast-offs, that he cannot afford not only excesses, but also ordinary daily needs.

Characteristics

Makar has lived in rented apartments all his life. Hates being under the slightest attention. It even seems to him that he is being watched, he imagines discussions behind his back, and often does not take his eyes off the floor. He does not have any ranks or awards, but even without this he knows what honor and conscience are. He is unquestioningly proud that he knows how to live without doing mean things to others. Varenka sympathizes with Makar, but she also believes that his kindness is excessive, and you can’t live like that: taking everything that happens every day around a person too close to your heart. It is Varenka who shows him literary world, which causes a revolution in Devushkin’s soul. Previously, Makar was only favorably interested in the written works of poets and writers, but did not find in himself the gift of distinguishing masterpieces and delving into true essence read work.

The image of the hero in the work

(Makar Devushkin reads Gogol's story "The Overcoat". Illustration by N. Vereshchagin)

The fateful “Overcoat” by Gogol, proposed for reading by Devushkin, Varvara, hit state of mind"little man" Makar discovered phenomenal similarities between the main character and himself. The era of rebirth, rethinking his entire life and further actions began. Of course, Makar was in a real state of shock and his experiences brought the man to the bottle. Initially, he began to scold and deny all possible literature. It seemed that he was rejecting out of resentment and anger, having understood the criticism of his own life. However, along with this, the understanding came that we should not treat what is happening this way - folding our arms and submitting to fate. Makar begins to say that for too long he lived for anyone, but not for himself. At a time when everyone around didn’t care about other people’s problems and life in general.

(Scene from the play "Poor People" Theater of Young Spectators named after A.A. Bryantseva, St. Petersburg)

Along with the surge of emotions, his true attitude towards Varvara Dobroselova also manifests itself. If initially the reader could think about the quiet Makar falling in love with the soulful Varenka, then by the end of the work it becomes clearly clear that Devushkin is moving from his isolation to energetic vampirism. Varya for him is free ears and that island in the ocean of loneliness from which the answer always comes. Whether a person like Makar will be able to enter the normal social mainstream is, alas, not clear. But the complex of the “little man”, not adapted to the aspirations of accepting two sides of the same coin, is revealed by the author in the hero with amazing accuracy.

Image

A middle-aged petty official who has no chance of making a career. Nothing remarkable happens in his life. He lives unnoticed, avoiding human eyes, in a cheap rented apartment on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. As the image unfolds, Devushkin begins to seem like a person with a subtle and unique character. In addition, he represents a model of a hero who will subsequently appear in other works of Dostoevsky.

Judging by the writer's letters and writings, Dostoevsky had little interest in his ancient ancestry. His father "never spoke about his family and did not answer when asked about his origins." From the notes of Fyodor Mikhailovich’s brother, Andrei Dostoevsky, it follows that even the brothers were no longer sure of their grandfather’s patronymic and grandmother’s maiden name. The writer's biographer Lyudmila Saraskina noted that already in Devushkin, the main character of Dostoevsky's first novel, the same attitude towards his ancestry is manifested. The character only knows about his father that his “name, presumably, was Alexey Devushkin; He was “not of the noble rank,” burdened with a family and extremely poor.”

Relation to Varenka

In the same house, opposite his window, lives a young lonely girl, Varvara Dobroselova. Every evening Makar Devushkin writes long letters to her, which he tries to convey as discreetly as possible along with sweets and clothes. In his letters, he talks about everything he saw, heard or read, shares his feelings, describes in detail his work, his roommates, and even promises to set a date with the girl.

Varenka is especially necessary for Devushkin as a listener to his very different feelings, capable of accumulating and neutralizing these feelings. At the same time, Makar does not plan to marry her, refusing even to visit the girl sometimes: “What are you writing, my dear? How can I come to you? My dear, what will people say? After all, if you need to cross the yard, our people will notice, they will start asking questions - rumors will start, gossip will start, they will give the matter a different meaning. No, my angel, I’d rather see you tomorrow at the all-night vigil; it will be more prudent and harmless for both of us.”

Devushkin is only able to throw out his emotions, confessions, and fantasies on Varenka. At the same time, without these letters, his emotional intensity will reach a dangerous degree, which can lead to insanity. “Well, what will we do without you; What will I, an old man, do then? We don't need you? Not useful? How not useful? No, you, little mother, judge for yourself, how can you not be useful? You are very useful to me, Varenka. You have such a beneficial influence... Now I’m thinking about you, and I’m having fun... Sometimes I’ll write you a letter and express all my feelings in it, to which I receive a detailed answer from you,” he himself writes about this to Varenka.

Attitude to the opinions of others

During the service, Devushkin is afraid of the glances of his colleagues and does not dare take his eyes off the table. “What, Varenka, is killing me? It’s not money that’s killing me, but all these everyday anxieties, all these whispers, smiles, jokes,” he writes in one of his letters. Colleagues appear to him as enemies.

Devushkin is very concerned about rumors and gossip. He tries on any novel he reads for himself. It always seems to him that he is being watched and tracked, and there are only enemies around him. He develops an acute inferiority complex, fear, and suffering, which prevents him from communicating with others on equal terms. In an effort to hide from reality, Devushkin focuses on letters, as they allow him to avoid communicating with real people.

"The Overcoat" by Gogol

Critics of the 1840s, drawing attention to the historical and genetic connection of “Poor People” with the story “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, noted that Akaki Akakievich served as the literary prototype of Makar Devushkin - main character stories In one of his letters to Varenka, talking about the fear of being judged by others, Devushkin writes: “... It doesn’t matter to me, even if I walk in the bitter cold without an overcoat and without boots, I will endure and endure everything... but what will people say? Are my enemies, these evil tongues, all that will speak when you go without an overcoat?

Origin of first and last name

The origin and meaning of the name Makar Devushkin was suggested by Dostoevsky himself. In one of his letters to Varvara Dobroselova, his hero writes: “Here, little mother, you see how things went: everything goes to Makar Alekseevich; All they knew how to do was introduce Makar Alekseevich into a proverb in our entire department. Not only did they make a proverb and almost a swear word out of me, they even got to my boots, to my uniform, to my hair, to my figure...” Thus, the name Makar is interpreted by the proverb “All the bad things fall on poor Makar.” Philologist Moses Altman especially emphasized that already in his first novel Dostoevsky used artistic device understanding the name literary hero by comparing it with the identical name from the proverb.

The possible origin of the main character's surname was already noticed by the first readers of the work. Makar himself admits in one of his letters: “The poor man... has the same shame that you have, for example, girlish.” Particular attention of readers and critics was drawn to this recognition, as well as to the diminutives characteristic of the “girlish” style of Devushkin’s letters. Another version of the origin of the hero’s surname is based on the similarity of his style of letters and the style of letters of Dostoevsky’s mother. Hence, researchers come to the conclusion that the surname Devushkin can serve as a symbol of maternal origin.

The name of the main character turned out to seamlessly reflect the school of sentimentalism and the school of naturalism, while the surname “Devushkin” relates more to sentimentalism, and the name “Makar” to naturalism.

Identification with the author

Critics contemporary to Dostoevsky at first identified the styles and characters of Makar Devushkin and Dostoevsky himself, which irritated the writer: “In our public there is instinct, like in any crowd, but there is no education. They don’t understand how you can write in such a style. They are used to seeing the writer’s face in everything: I didn’t show mine. And they have no idea that Devushkin is speaking, not me, and that Devushkin cannot speak otherwise.”

Before “Poor People,” Dostoevsky was fascinated by the historical dramas of Schiller and Pushkin, but having discovered a “strange” man and feeling deep sympathy and interest for him, he wrote the first novel about him, at the same time realizing his literary destiny. This character lived within himself, so with the help of “Poor People” Dostoevsky wrote himself. An indirect sign of similarity is the fact that Devushkin dreams of becoming a “poet”, and Dostoevsky himself dreams of becoming a “writer”. Indignant at the identification of the character with the author, Dostoevsky wants to say that Makar Devushkin is, in fact, his double, but the writer so skillfully pretended to be Devushkin that the reader did not notice it.

Criticism

A researcher of Dostoevsky's work, Kennosuke Nakamura, having attempted an unbiased reading of the novel, comes to the conclusion that the main character is a strange person with an inferiority complex. Makar Devushkin’s imagination and sensitivity are unusually developed, so he is unable to communicate with other people and expresses his thoughts in letters. The excessive delicacy and fear of reality inherent in him also make him completely powerless in real life, forming a strange and funny type. In the hero of “Poor People,” Dostoevsky discovered the secret spiritual world of a humiliated and sick person, and this novel anticipates all subsequent works of the author.

Influence on further creativity

Makar Devushkin served as the literary prototype of Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, the main character of the story “The Double,” who is also a petty and powerless official who is afraid of communicating with people and feels that those around him despise him