The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“I had almost given up thinking by that time; nothing mattered to me. If at least I had solved my problems! Oh, I had not settled one of them, and how many they were! But I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.”

In his indifferent state, the narrator stops caring about everything, even his problems, finding temporary relief; feeling that his problems stopped existing, he didn’t have to think about what bothered him anymore. In retrospect, the narrator is able to see that not caring about his problems did not make them disappear. Rather, he was only able to hide from them.

“And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November—on the third of November, to be precise—and I remember every instant since.”

This quote marks the start of the turning point in the story. The narrator’s tone changes: Up until this point, he was indifferent to everything and felt like nothing existed, but now remembers “every instant since.” The discovery of this “truth” is so important to him that he remembers and points out the exact date it happened.

“I sat down quietly at the table, took out the revolver and put it down before me. When I had put it down I asked myself, I remember, ‘Is that so?’ and answered with complete conviction, ‘It is.’ That is, I shall shoot myself. I knew that I should shoot myself that night for certain, but how much longer I should go on sitting at the table I did not know. And no doubt I should have shot myself if it had not been for that little girl.”

Upon arriving home after the encounter with the girl, the narrator still desires to take his own life. He asks himself, “Is that so?” to confirm to himself that it is not just a feeling but a decision that has been made. He is, however, not certain it is time, and he ends up sitting at the table long enough for doubts to appear in his mind before falling asleep.

“I was vexed at the reflection that if I were going to make an end of myself that night, nothing in life ought to have mattered to me. Why was it that all at once I did not feel that nothing mattered and was sorry for the little girl? I remember that I was very sorry for her, so much so that I felt a strange pang, quite incongruous in my position. Really I do not know better how to convey my fleeting sensation at the moment, but the sensation persisted at home when I was sitting at the table, and I was very much irritated as I had not been for a long time past.”

The narrator is annoyed with the thoughts that linger in his mind, as they prevent him from acting on his plan. He is forced to confront unexpected feelings that arise in him: compassion for the little girl, even hurt. The narrator realizes a contradiction in his thoughts. He claims to not care about anything, but still feels a “pang” when the girl asks for help. It is starting to dawn on him that maybe certain things do matter to him. At this point, he is annoyed at the idea, as he thought to have made up his mind about suicide.

“For instance, a strange reflection suddenly occurred to me, that if I had lived before on the moon or on Mars and there had committed the most disgraceful and dishonourable action and had there been put to such shame and ignominy as one can only conceive and realise in dreams, in nightmares, and if, finding myself afterwards on earth, I were able to retain the memory of what I had done on the other planet and at the same time knew that I should never, under any circumstances, return there, then looking from the earth to the moon—should I care or not? Should I feel shame for that action or not?”

As he would have committed a shameful action just before his intended death, the narrator wonders whether he would be held responsible for it in the afterlife. Without explicitly stating it, the narrator feels shame for his behavior. Later, in his dream, he corrupts the local people. In a way, his shameful action with the girl does follow him to “another planet,” the utopia of his dream.

“But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth? If once one has recognized the truth and seen it, you know that it is the truth and that there is no other and there cannot be, whether you are asleep or awake. Let it be a dream, so be it, but that real life of which you make so much I had meant to extinguish by suicide, and my dream, my dream—oh, it revealed to me a different life, renewed, grand and full of power! Listen.”

The narrator reflects on the power of unreal things to be true. In this way, he justifies the significance he has placed in a dream, arguing that it doesn’t matter where the truth is found. The imperative “listen” shows that the narrator is telling his story in order to spread his truth, and wants to be actively listened to.

“Whoever you may be, if you exist, and if anything more rational than what is happening here is possible, suffer it to be here now. But if you are revenging yourself upon me for my senseless suicide by the hideousness and absurdity of this subsequent existence, then let me tell you that no torture could ever equal the contempt which I shall go on dumbly feeling, though my martyrdom may last a million years!”

The narrator, lying in his coffin, addresses God. He demands an explanation for what is happening to him. With an arrogant tone, he claims that even the revenge of some higher power would not amount to the contempt he feels. He also puts himself in the place of a martyr, still convinced that his suicide was the only sensible option, and he is now being punished for it.

“‘And if that is an earth there, can it be just the same earth as ours … just the same, as poor, as unhappy, but precious and beloved for ever, arousing in the most ungrateful of her children the same poignant love for her that we feel for our earth?’ I cried out, shaken by irresistible, ecstatic love for the old familiar earth which I had left. The image of the poor child whom I had repulsed flashed through my mind.”

Approaching the utopian earth, the tone of the narrator changes from arrogant to remorseful. He now sees himself as “ungrateful,” and instead of contempt, feels “ecstatic love” for the earth. Understanding that there is life after death and seeing the universe on a larger scale, he changes his mind about nothing being important.

“They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe; they had no creed, but they had a certain knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature, then there would come for them, for the living and for the dead, a still greater fullness of contact with the whole of the universe.”

The narrator describes the faith of the local people who live on the utopian earth. They have no “temples” or “creed” but a “sense of oneness with the whole of the universe.” Fyodor Dostoevsky asserts that the essence of faith is not the rules set by the church or any material aspect but the spiritual relationship between believers and the higher power.

“We may be deceitful, wicked and unjust, we know it and weep over it, we grieve over it; we torment and punish ourselves more perhaps than that merciful Judge Who will judge us and whose Name we know not. But we have science, and by means of it we shall find the truth and we shall arrive at it consciously. Knowledge is higher than feeling, the consciousness of life is higher than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal the laws, and the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness.”

In this mythological or fantastic account of the origins of modern society, the corrupted people claim that science is the solution to their misery. They now believe that science will lead to wisdom and knowledge of the laws of happiness, which is “higher than happiness” itself. Ironically, although they seek happiness, they value the laws of happiness more than the actual feeling of happiness because for them “knowledge is higher than feeling.” In essence, in overvaluing science and knowledge, they prevent themselves from feeling joy. Modern society devalues spiritual life and promotes utilitarian values and an economic rationality that Dostoevsky found trivial.

“As they became wicked they began talking of brotherhood and humanitarianism, and understood those ideas. As they became criminal, they invented justice and drew up whole legal codes in order to observe it, and to ensure their being kept, set up a guillotine.”

Dostoevsky points out that talking about the ideals of “brotherhood” and “humanitarianism” is an invention of corrupt humanity. Similarly, he writes that corrupt humanity invented “justice” and even “morality.” Ironically, to realize their noble ideals, humanity relies on violence—the guillotine. The reference here is to the French Revolution.

“But the instinct of self-preservation grew rapidly weaker; there arose men, haughty and sensual, who demanded all or nothing. In order to obtain everything they resorted to crime, and if they did not succeed—to suicide.”

The narrator is referring to himself and his own suicide. He sees in the corrupted people how those who demand “all or nothing” end up dying by suicide. The narrator may not have committed any crimes juridically speaking, but he did despise and mistreat other people. Just as he called himself “ungrateful,” he now considers his earlier mindset to have been the result of haughtiness and ingratitude.

“I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind.”

Waking up from his dream after witnessing the peaceful lives of the utopian earth, the narrator understands that the current condition of humankind is not an absolute. He will no longer live in the assumption that humanity is evil, but act as an example of the opposite being true.