Feb 8, 2025

Dostoevsky and Love

my notes on Dostoevsky's interpretation of love

Contains Spoilers of Dostoevsky's Works #

Most of Dostoevsky's works revolve around human introspection, conflict between rationality and love, and psycho-social predicaments.

But I did not know that "love" was such an important topic for Dostoevsky until I listened to Stephen West's analysis of Notes from Underground and read White Nights.

The reason I did not really paid much attention to "love" in Dostoevsky is because I was obstructed by my own definition of love. As I grow older, my definition of love is changing. It is not "a whim" anymore, but more like the Socratic idea of "love". And I can now at least comprehend other possible definitions and interpretation of love, which certainly helps in understanding Dostoevsky's interpretation.

For him, love is rapturous. It saves Raskolnikov, destroys the Underground Man, and makes the protagonist in White Nights feel the happiest in his whole life. Hence, "love" is the only concept which is capable of either destroying or building "life".

Love, as I have noticed in Dosto's works (like in Notes from Underground or Crime and Punishment) is merely an undertone, not the main focus of the plot. Instead, it serves as an instrument to the plot.

Dosto's description of love is not the most optimistic, but rather more practical, more real. Love is complex, and Dosto tries to show this complexity in his stories by producing different effects:

• "Love" as a source of suffering and guilt (as in White Nights)
• "Love" as cause for redemption (like how Raskolnikov feels in the end of C&P)
• "Love" clashes with rationality and intellectualism, creates internal conflict (thus, characters like the Underground Man exist.)
• "Love" is not what it seems (infatuations vs. "true love", as in White Nights)

And so on.

White Nights was a particularly shocking read to me, because "love" was not an undertone but the crux of the plot. It felt too simple and "romantic" to be written by Dostoevsky. I was even a bit disappointed. But I get it now. The whole point of White Nights is to show that Love is really not that simple. It is crazy.

I think White Nights was Dostoevsky's meditation on love: an emotion which remains a mystery to all of us, and Dostoevsky almost solved it.
My teacher, who taught Social Science in 10th Grade, had once said that Dostoevsky was a genius, and I absolutely agree with him. He was indeed a madlad.