Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘White Nights’ & Finding Hope for Dark Times

I explore themes of isolation, loneliness and unrequited love found in Dostoevsky’s White Nights.

‘White Nights’ by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Full look description below.

Note: This is the first installment of the All-Year Season Book Club series celebrating historic and unforgettable literary works and authors. This article contains spoilers.

“Can a single cherished memory of something noble and good suffice to resist the temptation of despair?” Dale E. Peterson asked this question in his essay entitled “Dostoevsky’s White Nights: Memoir of a Petersburg Pathology.” This question, which White Nights author Fyodor Dostoevsky contemplated over the course of his life, has been echoing in my ears this week. Since the days-ago election in the United States and the recent loss of someone who was once a major part of my life, I have wondered how moments of hope and joy can be juxtaposed with our deepest sorrows and disappointments. How do we find hope in dark times when it seems that one feeling cannot exist without the other? To lighten the load of these questions I turn to authors like Dostoevsky, who have found ways to explore these universal questions in a way that allows the rest of us to briefly escape them. In White Nights, an 1848 short story and one of Dostoevsky’s earliest works, we are introduced to a nameless protagonist of 26-years-old who takes us through a journey of inner restlessness, loneliness and unrequited love.

Among the greats. In a Uniqlo dress, Rothy’s flats, socks from Etsy and Goldstories necklace.

Over four nights and a morning, we are given a poetic if not slightly unsettling glimpse into the narrator’s life in isolation. The first night consists of his inner ramblings in which we discover his identity as a Saint Petersburg flâneur. He wanders the streets conversing with buildings, acting as more of an observer than a participant in the community he has lived in for years.

Despite his apparent intelligence, the narrator’s solitude leaves him with gaps in his awareness, so that when people he occasionally encounters around the neighborhood leave for vacation, he is flummoxed as to why he was not invited along. When he is given the opportunity to rescue a young woman being harassed and subsequently make her acquaintance, he believes it to be a defining moment in his life. They meet again on night two and share their life stories with one another. Here, we further learn the depths of his pathology as a lonely dreamer:

“Do you know that I am forced now to celebrate the anniversary of my own sensations, the anniversary of that which was once so sweet, which never existed in reality—for this anniversary is kept in memory of those same foolish, shadowy dreams—and to do this because those foolish dreams are no more, because I have nothing to earn them with; you know even dreams do not come for nothing!”

Surprisingly, the young woman, Nastenka, is not repulsed by the narrator’s clearly troubled line of thinking. She shares her own tormented reality in which her dress is literally pinned to her grandmother’s, and she is forced to live alongside her throughout her daily activities. She is eager to offer the narrator companionship, but has warned him not to fall in love with her. Despite this, the pair appears to be well-matched. That same night, however, we learn that Nastenka is in love with a former lodger in her home, someone who had been in Moscow for a year but who she’d planned to reunite with and marry.

At peace wearing a Tory Burch sweater, my dress from Uniqlo and Etsy socks.

It is at this point we are jolted back into the stark reality of the situation. We are reminded that while the two are joined in their seclusion, the narrator chooses to live in solitude while Nastenka is forced to. During the third night, the narrator laments that her love for him was “nothing else but joy at the thought of seeing another man so soon,” a mere desire to include him in her happiness over someone else. He battles with his inner anger over her flirting and teasing him. As Nastenka’s love interest continues to be tardy for their reunion, the narrator temporarily crushes her hopes at their impending marriage, but immediately regrets it and reassures her.

By the fourth night it appears Nastenka’s long-lost love will not come, and in her despair the narrator boils over and confesses his love to her. While stunned, she outwardly ponders whether his love is capable of driving away the love she once had for the man who abandoned her. The two childishly begin planning their lives together in a brief break from reality before Nastenka’s love suddenly appears.

The following morning, we find the narrator back home on a grey and gloomy day. His building looks more dilapidated and his maid more wrinkled than ever. He receives a sort of farewell letter from Nastenka, who is to be married, and she acknowledges that she will always view the narrator as a brother and a friend. Ouch. Dostoevsky’s final written words in White Nights capture the full extent of the unrequited love the narrator experiences:

“…that I should crush a single one of those tender blossoms which you have twined in your dark tresses when you go with him to the altar…Oh never, never! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and untroubled, and may you be blessed for that moment of blissful happiness which you gave to another, lonely, and grateful heart! My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man’s life?”

Some of the books I have been reading this year. Would you like to see more book analyses?

This brings us back to the earlier question of whether a single cherished memory can prevent us from falling into despair. Is the narrator better off having met Nastenka, or was he during night one prior to their meeting? There is haunting beauty in the way he loves her through each night and day, but is the joy experienced in their encounters worth the sorrow he feels when he returns home? Does the fact that he spent the nights before their first meeting in total social isolation say something about the way he allows his feelings to be jerked around after they’ve met? Would the narrator and Nastenka’s relationship be considered healthy or unhealthy in today’s world? In this regard, White Nights offers us the opportunity to reexamine themes of loneliness, solitude and unrequited love in an exceptionally human way.

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With that, thank you for being here. This is the first article in the All-Year Season Book Club series. If you enjoyed this and are interested in receiving more reading recommendations and analyses from me, I gently encourage you to subscribe below! That way you will hear directly from me in your inbox each time I post something new. Until next week. x

Yours Truly,

Kyoko

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