The Story Archive

The Adolescent

Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1875 CE · Novel · Russian · Victorian

The illegitimate son of a serf mother and a charming landowner arrives in Petersburg with a plan to become a Rothschild, a compromising document sewn into his coat, and a resolve to despise the father whose notice he cannot stop seeking. Two households, two fathers and a blackmail plot take his idea of himself apart faster than he can write it down. Composed between the two great novels and narrated throughout by the boy, it is Dostoevsky's one sustained experiment with an adolescent voice.

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Attributes

Genre
PsychologicalComing-of-Age
Theme
Identity & SelfComing of AgeLegitimacyWealth & GreedGuilt & Conscience
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanAnti-Hero
Plot structure
BildungsromanConfessionUnreliable Narrator
Symbol / motif
The LetterThe City
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
RealistIronic
Culture / tradition
Russian

Closest analogues