Uncle’s Dream

Commenting on his novel “Uncle’s Dream,” Dostoyevsky said: “My only concern when I wrote this first novel after the prison camp in Siberia was to resume my literary life. I was greatly afraid of censorship, so it came as fearful as a dove, completely innocent, and could be used as a farce.” This is how Uncle’s Dream came about, as if Dostoyevsky wanted to move away from depicting poverty, misery, and good spirits by creating a novel that portrays the life of the Russian aristocracy in a comic light. The main character, “Uncle,” is a Russian aristocratic prince fascinated by the West, who knows Western Europe better than he knows Russia, and who wants to marry a French countess. A group of Russian aristocratic women become aware of the prince’s passion, and a competition ensues over who will marry her daughter to him. The most famous lady in the town enters the competition and suddenly decides to marry the prince to her daughter, Zina, the beautiful girl. The girl submits to her mother’s wishes and captivates him by singing a French song while playing the piano. In portraying this character, Dostoevsky presented the reader with a caricature of a decadent aristocracy infatuated with the West. We will see a parallel to this caricature, with more biting irony, in the novel “Demons.”