Poor Folk – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1846)

Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in 1846, is the Russian author’s debut novel and a pioneering work in psychological realism. Set in the backdrop of mid-19th-century St. Petersburg, the novel unfolds through an epistolary exchange between two impoverished individuals. Celebrated for its raw emotional power and humanistic depth, Poor Folk was Dostoevsky’s literary entrance into the Russian literary scene and marked him as a voice of the underprivileged and downtrodden in society.

Plot Summary

In the grey labyrinth of St. Petersburg’s tenements and bureaucratic hallways lived Makar Devushkin, a humble copy clerk, whose days passed in solitude and silence until they were warmed by letters to a young woman across the courtyard. Barbara Dobroselova, frail and impoverished, stitched her way through each meager day, her small window opening onto the soul of the one man who still saw her as something more than a burden. Between them flowed a river of words – tender, awkward, yearning – that held back the flood of despair seeping through the walls of their world.

Makar, old and self-deprecating, penned his thoughts with reverent care, pouring his small joys and many anxieties into ink. A glimpse of Barbara behind the curtain, the scent of spring, or the memory of a walk through the courtyard was enough to stir his weary heart. He sent her little gifts – bonbons, geraniums, a few coins pressed from his meager wages – and pleaded with her to write often, to keep him tethered to hope. To Barbara, those letters were both comfort and pain. She scolded him gently for his extravagance, knowing the cost of every ruble he sacrificed for her sake, even as she craved the affection they wrapped around her like a fragile shawl.

Their words grew into shelter, but not without the bitter wind of life creeping in. Barbara’s body was weak, her health often failing. Behind the tender exchanges lay wounds long festering. Her past clung to her like damp clothes – years spent in the house of Anna Fyodorovna, a supposed benefactress who gave shelter only to smother dignity. Barbara’s mother had died under that roof, slowly and silently, a ghost among the living, and Barbara had grown up beneath the weight of false charity and whispered cruelties. Pokrovsky, her former tutor, had once opened a window of light – a pale young man with books and quiet sorrow, who lived beside her and Sasha, the crude daughter of Anna. For a time, Barbara found herself drawn to his awkward kindness, though he too was swallowed by illness and resignation.

In the room next to Makar’s, a different kind of silence reigned. Gorshkov, a disgraced government worker, lived with his family in ghostly poverty. Their suffering was nearly invisible – a mother in rags, a child too weak to cry, a father trembling with shame. Makar, ever sensitive to sorrow, listened to their muted sobs through the walls and recognized his own shadow in them. In this place, pain was not dramatic, but persistent, gnawing at the edges of life like mice at bread.

Barbara’s letters veered between light and shadow. She described the past with the clarity of loss – childhood in the countryside, the sweetness of freedom among fields and sun, followed by the grey confinement of boarding school and the slow decline into dependency. Anna had mocked her misfortunes and reminded her daily of debts unpaid. What choice did Barbara have, when society offered no hand to a girl with no dowry and no name? Even her cousin, Sasha, turned against her, echoing the bitterness of their guardian. The only solace left to her came from across the courtyard, from the man who asked nothing and gave everything.

But hearts, even the kindest, do not beat in isolation. When Barbara encountered Bykov again – a rich man of her past, and once a suitor who had left her with nothing but disgrace – the ground beneath her shifted. He was powerful, self-assured, and offering something Makar never could: escape from poverty. The bargain, though not spoken in clear terms, was cruelly transparent. Makar sensed it before the words arrived. Her tone grew distant. Her letters, once trembling with affection, became careful and polite. Then came the truth.

She was leaving.

Not for love, not even for happiness, but for survival. She was to marry Bykov and follow him to the provinces, far from the tenement, from the letters, from Makar.

The news shattered him like porcelain dropped in a dark hallway. His letter trembled with the weight of unspoken grief. He told her he understood. That he wanted only her well-being. That she should go, if this meant safety, warmth, peace. He begged her not to worry for him. He would be fine. He would manage. His words were brave, but the edges of the pages ached with loneliness.

And so, she left.

Makar’s world shrank again to his small room behind the kitchen, his ink-stained desk, his window staring into absence. The courtyard no longer held the echo of a soft curtain drawn aside or a figure passing in the morning. He returned to his quiet rituals, to tea brewed weakly, to letters never sent. There remained only the hollow murmur of the city, the bureaucratic scrawl of his daily tasks, and the ghost of a woman who had once said his name with kindness.

The city moved on, indifferent. New tenants arrived. Spring came and went without fanfare. But somewhere in the stacks of paper and unopened windows, an old man still sat by candlelight, remembering warmth in words once exchanged and watching the empty window opposite his own.

Main Characters

• Makar Devushkin – A low-ranking copy clerk in a government office, Makar is a deeply emotional, generous, and self-effacing man who pours his heart out in his letters. His poverty and aging body are in sharp contrast to the tenderness and almost fatherly devotion he displays toward Varvara. Despite being surrounded by squalor and ridicule, he clings to his dignity and finds solace in small joys and acts of love.
• Varvara Dobroselova (Barbara Alexievna) – A young, poor seamstress and orphaned girl who shares a complex, affectionate bond with Makar. Intelligent, introspective, and fragile in both health and spirit, she represents a victim of society’s harshness. Through her past traumas, particularly her fall from grace and abandonment, she seeks solace and protection in Makar’s letters, though her trajectory reflects quiet resignation more than resistance.
• Anna Fyodorovna – Varvara’s manipulative relative and a symbol of social hypocrisy. She takes Varvara and her mother in under the guise of charity but humiliates and exploits them. Her false piety and control exert a powerful psychological toll on Varvara, contributing to her descent into dependency and vulnerability.
• Pokrovsky – Varvara’s former tutor and a quietly suffering intellectual. Pokrovsky’s character, though secondary in the main epistolary narrative, holds symbolic significance in Varvara’s reflection of idealized love, lost potential, and the decline of kindred spirits in a cruel world.
• Gorshkov and Family – Fellow tenants of Makar’s lodgings, the Gorshkov family represents silent suffering and degradation. Their abject poverty and humiliation mirror and intensify the novel’s overarching motif of societal neglect.

Theme

• Poverty and Dignity: At the heart of Poor Folk lies the relentless tension between crushing poverty and the desire to maintain personal dignity. Makar and Varvara’s correspondence is filled with accounts of deprivation, yet neither character fully succumbs to despair, underscoring a Dostoevskian belief in the spiritual resilience of the poor.
• Compassion and Self-Sacrifice: Makar’s every action revolves around giving – emotionally, financially, and spiritually – to Varvara. His altruism borders on martyrdom and offers a powerful critique of a society that fails to reward goodness or kindness. Sacrifice here becomes both a mode of survival and of silent protest.
• Social Critique and Bureaucracy: Dostoevsky uses Makar’s monotonous office work and living conditions to critique Tsarist bureaucracy and the dehumanizing effects of class stratification. Through satire and lament, the novel exposes how institutions alienate and crush individual lives.
• Alienation and Loneliness: Though Makar and Varvara exchange letters, their physical and emotional worlds remain fractured. Their isolation – from society, family, and even each other – is conveyed poignantly in their longing for connection and understanding, and in the tragic realization that love is not enough to redeem their suffering.
• Illusion vs. Reality: Both characters engage in self-deception: Makar in imagining a future with Varvara and a better life through thrift and patience; Varvara in clinging to dreams of past love and romantic rescue. These illusions are gently dismantled by the harsh truths of poverty, illness, and exploitation.

Writing Style and Tone

Dostoevsky’s style in Poor Folk is epistolary, with the narrative conveyed entirely through letters exchanged between Makar and Varvara. This intimate format allows for a deep psychological dive into the characters’ minds, revealing their vulnerabilities, desires, and anxieties in raw, unfiltered prose. The style is at once humble and poetic, with Makar’s letters frequently veering into lyrical digressions, sentimental reflections, and vivid sketches of daily life. The effect is a delicate balance between realism and romantic idealism, with the letters serving as both confessionals and lifelines.

The tone of the novel is suffused with melancholy, tenderness, and pathos. It shifts gently from affection and wistful reminiscence to desperation and quiet despair. Dostoevsky crafts this emotional ebb and flow masterfully, ensuring that the reader is not simply a spectator but a participant in the emotional weight of the characters’ lives. The tone is never sentimentalized beyond credibility; it remains tethered to the grim reality of poverty, yet manages to preserve the human spirit that resists annihilation.