Poor Folk

Author: Dostoevsky

Translation: Sami Al-Durubi

The faces we encounter in this, Dostoevsky's first work, will reappear in his other works. They are the faces of "the poor" and their ways of life. We share their suffering as much as we perceive the capacity for love and sacrifice hidden within those souls.

In this novel, we will sense the deep abysses that Dostoevsky will delve into, and the metaphysical depths into which his novels will descend in their profound exploration of the human character, especially in depicting the lives of the poor and marginalized and entering their psychological worlds, which will revolve around most of his novels. The two protagonists in this novel are oppressed, tormented, humiliated, and insulted; villains inflict all kinds of injustice upon them, and they endure unbearable poverty. Makar endures humiliation and hunger and sacrifices everything he can obtain, which is very little, for the sake of the unfortunate girl whom he barely sees and dares not visit for fear of gossip. He willingly deprives himself to make her happy, sending her small gifts while enduring cold, hunger, and humiliation. Through the poverty Makar Devushkin suffers, Dostoevsky reveals all the poverty surrounding him, and when the man is about to complain and grumble about the torment endured by the good people in this world, we see him retracting his complaint and grumbling, accepting reality, submitting to the will of fate, his only concern being to make others happy with a naivety that, in its simplicity, carries an astonishing human spirit.