The Cattle Creature Dostoyevsky Analysis

Ashish Biju

FYOS – Death, Desire, Madness

A Love Story Like No Other The Gentle Creature by Fyodor Dostoyevsky explores the juxtaposition of a woman who commits suicide while clinging onto an icon of her faith. In the end, a love story emerges through the disheveled thoughts of the husband. These thoughts are understandably chaotic, but ultimately, the real story can be unlocked through the further analysis of the narrator’s narcissism, cowardliness, and epiphany. The story that unfolds is the strikingly well-crafted tragedy of a man who confesses his love too late and a woman who cannot handle it. To begin with, certain details about the husband, the narrator, must be analyzed in order to fully understand the narrator’s narcissism. Before

Nevertheless, the narrator continues to love his wife very much, especially after she becomes ill. He “[does] not care how much money it cost” as long as she becomes well (Dostoyevsky, 696). However, throughout this entire situation, the narrator exhibits a strange desire to hide his love and affection for his wife from everyone, even his maid Lukerya. It is his cowardliness. “I kept my worries to myself,” says the narrator despite “the agony [he] suffered during her illness” (Dostoyevsky, 696). This curious wish to keep his love and affection hidden is mindboggling and can only be explained by one reason: the narrator lacks the courage to confess his love in person. This inability to voice his feelings may hark back to his isolation from society in the days following his forced retirement from the army. Of course, she would “[learn] the truth, the whole truth,” about his love one day, but in the meantime, he is hoping for a day when his wife will “come to [him] all of a sudden and of her own free will” (Dostoyevsky, 700). Meanwhile, their marriage trudges onward, characterized by silence and the narrator’s occasional “glance[s] at her now and again” (Dostoyevsky,

Even Lukerya is not surprised. The narrator, on the other hand, is stunned, feeling “bewildered and terribly surprised” (Dostoyevsky, 702). “She hasn’t forgotten about me, has she?” is the question reverberating in the narrator’s mind (Dostoyevsky, 702). This is a strange reaction to such a normal event, except when one considers the entirety of their relationship which has been characterized by various power games. In fact, the narrator, through his silence, is obviously still involved in such power games. For much of their relationship, his wife seemed to be involved in these games as well, or so the narrator thinks. Suddenly when she sings in his presence, it seems as if the games have ended. The narrator has an earth-shattering epiphany. He no longer matters. Through her song, the narrator believes his wife does not think him worthy of any more such games. Suddenly, she is acting the same way around him as with everyone else. The narrator receives no special treatment, no special silence, no special games. Over the years, the games have finally taken a toll on her as symbolized by her broken voice. The narrator realizes he is running out of time to confess his love and that there may never be a day when she comes to him of her own free will. Consequently, the narrator breaks down and does his best to convey his love. However, his inexperience in the matter ultimately