LANGUAGE FORUM (ISSN 0975-6396)

VOL. 45, NO. 1, JAN-JUN 2019

Fyodor Dostoevsky: A Stylistic

Study of The House of the Dead as
a Document of Prison Literature
AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY
Kashmir University, J&K, India

ABSTRACT

No writer intends to produce literature in prison. Just as

incarceration, house arrest, or detention involves its own
awful set of debauchery, toil, trauma, and abuses, so it marks
any writing done under its restrictions and limitations as part
of a genre, one of the oldest to which new work is still added
daily probably starting from Anicus Boethius to the present
day. The present paper, therefore, attempts to study this text as
a great piece of prison literature, and how the writers have
managed to escape if not physically but mentally. The text not
only brought him fame but also founded the tradition of
Russian prison writing.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, Siberian prison camp, Russian prison

literature, brutal punishment, torture.

Prisons have nearly always been spaces for constraint, especially

for writers. That freedom, coercion, imagination, and resistance
are viscerally evoked in texts concerned with incarceration
ranging from the eleventh to the twenty-first century, and in
Russian, Italian, Persian, English, Urdu and countless other
languages, suggests that there is coherent genre of prison writing
extending across world literature, albeit largely pertaining to the
modern period.
As with slavery, first-hand accounts of prisons in antiquity
are non-existent, records of medieval prisons are rare, while
A STYLISTIC STUDY OF THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 41

documentation of modern prisons abounds. However, writers

across the modern world who were/are incarcerated for different
socio-political reasoned by their governments have fully well
documented their prison life and have aestheticized the
experience to the extent of covering a more powerful political
comment on the situation through a veiled language.
The genre of prison literature is very old. Since the exile of
man from the heavens, people with literary taste have
documented their prison life in order to kill their own neurosis
and create a world of their own for understanding the
purpose/meaning of life. Who could have that the writer of
Consolation of Philosophy (523 AD) would have come up with
such a masterpiece behind the prison walls thereby establishing
the fact that a man could be physically chained but his
imagination and will to create meaning cannot be? John Bunyan
wrote his famous novel The Pilgrims Progress (1678) while he
was in custody, which again establishes the fact that aesthetics
does not require special conditioning in a man’s own comfort
zone but it could be put in action as and when a man would want
it through his sheer “will to meaning-making.” Many great
literary/non-literary works have been produced in jails in
different languages of the world touching on different socio-
political, personal, psychological, religious and spiritual themes.
It could be partly explained as the writers struggle against all
those powers that want to cripple his/her imagination through
incarceration. By writing diaries, novels, poetry, drama or
nonfictional prose, the writers not only kill his loneliness but also
defeat the design of his opponents through his artistic expression
of all that he/she believes in or through recording a written
protest against their inhuman and brutal system of control. Ngugi
Wa Thiong’ o wrote his Devil On Cross (1980) while he was in
jail, thereby putting on record his severest criticism of the
oppressive system that he was fighting against. The examples are
many because is very rich. In South Asia, some of the works that
may require a brief mention here are Ghubar e Khatir (1946) by
Abul Kalam Azad and a collection of poetry by Faiz Ahmad Faiz
of the title Zindnan Nama 1955 (Prison Chronicle) and Daste-e-
Saba 1955 (Hand of Breeze) which could be counted as
42 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

masterpieces of prison literary works in Urdu. With reference to

the above mentioned literary works produced in jails, one could
assert that prison literature exists in almost all the languages of
the world. Wole Soyinka chronicled his imprisonment in the
book The Man Died (1972) much of which was written in secret
between the lines of books smuggled by friends and sympathetic
jailers and on scraps of paper and tissue hidden in the cracks in
his cell, with a stolen pen, then with ingeniously homemade ink
and hand-crafted writing utensils
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was known
for being a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist,
journalist, and philosopher. Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to
four years at hard labor in a Siberian prison camp for
participating in the socialist discussion group. In 1849 of harsh
winter when Dostoevsky with his other young fellows like
himself was sentenced to death for their liberal political
propaganda, a sentence which was at last committed to
imprisonment in Siberian Prisons. He was arrested and taken to
the Peter and Paul Fortress prisons where he was held captive for
the anticipation of the trail. He was sentenced for the circulation
of the letter against the orthodox church and government and
most importantly for plotting the murder of Tsar. He asked for
the different translations of the Bible and got fascinated with the
reading and writing process. He had the will to make the best use
of his time even in the dark chambers, starry nights, fearful days
what in toto be called the will making of life a beautiful treasure
and gift. To be caught writing anything in these quarters was to
earn a flogging and troublesome affair which is not to say that
Dostoyevsky didn’t keep a notebook anyway: the scribbled pages
he entrusted to a loyal orderly in the prison’s hospital contained
many of the sayings, songs, notes he smuggled out and anecdotes
that would ripen into Notes from a Dead House (1860-62).
During a spell in the prison hospital, Dostoyevsky made notes on
sheets of paper sewn together into a booklet, kept for him
secretly by one of the medical officers and returned to him on his
release. The novel not only brought him fame but also found the
tradition of Russian prison writing. The extraordinary semi-
autobiographical novel published in 1860-62 is a fictionalized
A STYLISTIC STUDY OF THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 43

account of his four years in Siberian prison gives new imputes to

the art of prison literature. The novel is a collection of events,
facts, and philosophical discussion. The narrator Alexander
Petrovitch Goriantchikoff whom we believe to be the author
himself.
Alexander Petrovitch Goriantchikoff, formerly a landed
proprietor in Russia. He had been condemned to the hard labor of
the second class for assassinating his wife. After undergoing his
punishment of ten years of hard labor he lived quietly and
unnoticed as a colonist in the little town of K (Dostoevsky 2011:
2).
The novel he wrote after his release, based on notes he
smuggled out, not only brought him fame but also founded the
tradition of Russian prison writing. Notes from a Dead
House (sometimes translated as The House of the Dead) depicts
brutal punishments, feuds, betrayals, and the psychological
effects of confinement, but it also reveals the moments of
comedy and acts of kindness that Dostoevsky witnessed among
his fellow prisoners. His incarceration was a transformative
experience that nourished all his later works, particularly Crime
and Punishment.
Here in prison he felt all alone and was said to be
painstaking. In the beginning, he saw life to an end in itself but
with the passages of time as the narrator says; “First of all I
experienced an invincible repugnance on arriving, but oddly
enough the life seemed to be less painful than I had imagined on
the journey” ( Dostoevsky 2001: 24).
Notes from Dead House depicts brutal punishment, feuds
betrayals, and the psychological effects of confinement, but it
also reveals the moments of comedy and acts of kindness that
Dostoevsky witnessed among his fellow inmates. Life here in
dark chambers was very difficult and the convicts were given
hard labors to do:

...hard labor, as it is now on, presents no interest to the

convict…The convict makes bricks, digs the earth, builds; and all
his occupation have a meaning and an end. (Dostoevsky 2011: 25)
44 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

Dostoevsky incarceration proved into a transformative

experience for Russia and especially to the canon of prison
literature. The pages of the book are filled with the tragedy of his
life, at some places, the humor and comedy are also seen. He
started writing in the cell to give his soul the vent to not
surrender, everyday affairs of the jail, his relation with other
inmates, the years of the convict, the dead house, the prison
hospital, and minute details are to be found in the book. The
humiliation he had faced in the prison, the torture, and all the
suffering and troubles are filled in the pages of the book. Now in
prison Petrovitch has some good friends like Luka; a man of
determination, Ali a great fellow indeed. They were denied the
respect and the sense that after all convict is a human being. The
prison authorities were only concerned about their food and
clothings:

What exasperates the convicts above all is disdain or repugnance

manifested by anyone in dealing with them. Those who think that it
is only necessary to feed and clothe the prisoner and to act towards
him in all things according to the law are much mistaken.
(Dostoevsky 2011: 130)

There is no doubt that convicts used to play cards, drink vodka,

have fun and merry but torture and punishment as Luka was
punished “It brought me five hundred strokes, my friend, it did
indeed. They did all but kill me. Said Luka” (Dostoevsky 2011:
131). Another convict narrates, “I wanted to cry out, look out, but
could not, it was no use opening my mouth, my voice had
gone….I stared at them with my eyes starting from my head and
said to m self, I shall die here” (p. 131).
They felt lonely even in the company of so many convicts
and were longing for their return to the homes “There is nothing
more horrible than to live out of the social sphere to which you
properly belong” (Dostoevsky 2011: 309). At the end of their
sentence in prison, the narrator and all others seemed pleased
after facings so many hardships in those long hours of jail and
feeling the sweet smell of freedom, “Goodbye! Good-bye!
Goodbye! Said the convicts in their broken voice, but they
A STYLISTIC STUDY OF THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 45

seemed pleased as the said it. Yes farewell! Liberty! New Life!
Resurrection from the dead! The unspeakable moment”
(Dostoevsky, 367); so ends the novel.
Dostoevsky has achieved tremendous fame through his
writings he was often hailed as the psychological writer and his
works are renowned with psychoanalysis. Although his life was
difficult, he has a firm belief in inner faith and self-
determination. His works are filled with anxiety and frustration
and there is a need for redemption. Although he was a religious
man, as a socialist he has to break off from Christianity when he
got involved in the Russian Utopian Socialist he lost his faith in
religion. But in prison, he regained his belief in spirituality which
was found in his writings. At the arrival of prison, he feared of
the fellow prisoners “found myself hating these fellow-sufferers
of mine” (Dostoevsky 2011: 305). So many prisoners approached
him; even some asked him for the Kopecks (money) his refusal
to this gathered more convicts around him. The novel presents
the life inside the Siberian prison and that is why a book becomes
a beneficial source of information for Russia. Many sections of
the book deal with flogging and punishment, but it also deals the
comic life of the convicts where prisoners are enjoying vodka,
clothing and prison meals. Dostoevsky presents a prisoner who is
here for thirty years. He even asks one prisoner to kill an officer
to delay his death sentence. Life inside the prison walls is
presented in a comic and tragic way.
The prison guards were hostile and especially the most
hostile was Major Kristov. The dead house is entirely filled with
his life in Omsk Fortress prison. Petrovitch often occupied with
the inhuman behavior of prison wards and especially the Major.
Major believed in breaking the body and spirit of prisoners.
Major often moved around the prison with gruesome sight and
orders for agonizing torture and pain to the prisoners. Prisoners
were often abused by the guards and even manipulated by them
where there was no sense of humanity. Petrovitch was
experiencing all this abuse, humiliation, corruption and torture
and was a victim of all this. The novels are a mixture of tragic
and comic episodes, portraying prisoners and to how to get out
from jails. In prison, Dostoevsky was moved by the working
46 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

class and gathered his faith in God. The book is the drama of a
person working out continuously how to reproduce prison life, its
trauma, its torture, and its pleasures. It took almost six years
Fyodor to complete this book after his release, and across its two
main parts the reader can feel him at once organizing his
memories, his time spent in the dark chambers and high walls of
prison cell artfully revising them, and struggling scarcely to get
and write them down before they fade away. The book records
and is the drama of writer in the prison its pain, its deviations, its
pleasures, traumas, humiliation etc.
The power of writing in prison has to do with the way to
console writer, a daily exercise of consolation, sometimes gives
reins to the restless, fervor and desperation and also to give hope
for better tomorrow. It might be not in the mind of Dostoevsky to
compose great prison literature what he was scrabbling in those
raw papers, but he couldn’t help stopping to emerge powerfully
as the greatest prison writer and makes the way ahead for this
genre. As it is fictional autobiography Dostoevsky narrates, no
doubt it can be hardly described as a novel, because this text
differs radically from his other fictions, as it is primarily
documentary in narrative style and is detached in emotional
response. The trauma, memory, loss, mental suffering of the
convict and his survival, and how to fight and resist the
oppressive regime, his experience of penal servitude in these
words:

Besides, I can’t be sure of my memory as to all I saw in these last

years, for the faculty seems blunted as regards the latter compared
with the earlier periods of my imprisonment, there is a good deal I
am sure I have quite forgotten. But I remember only too well how
very, very slow these last two years were, how very sad, how the
days seemed as if they never come to the evening, something like
water falling drop by drop. I remember, too, that I was filled with a
mighty longing for my resurrection from that grave which gave me
the strength to bear up, to wait, and to hope. And so I got to be
hardened and enduring; I lived on expectation, I counted every
passing day; if there were a thousand more of them to pass at the
prison. I found satisfaction in thinking that one of them was gone,
and only nine hundred and ninety-nine to come. I remember too,
A STYLISTIC STUDY OF THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 47

that though I had round me a hundred persons in the like case, I felt
myself more and more solitary, and though the solitude was awful I
came to love it. Isolated thus among the convict-crowd I went over
all my earlier life, analyzing its events and thoughts minutely; I
passé my former doing in review, and sometimes was pitiless in
condemnation of myself; sometimes it went so far as to be grateful
to fate for the privilege of such loneliness, for only that could have
could have caused me so severely to scrutinize my past, so
searchingly to examine its inner life and outer life. What strong and
strong new germs of hope came in those memorable hours up in
my soul…. It is painful to go back to these things, most painful;
nobody, I know can care much about it at all except myself; but I
write because I think people will understand, and because there are
those who have been, those who yet will be, like myself,
condemned, imprisoned, cut off from life, in the flower of their
age, and in the full possession of all their strength. (Dostoevsky
2011: 204)

The book shows the aesthetic and moral principles of the author.
Leo Tolstoy famously regarded The House of the Dead as
Dostoyevsky's finest work; indeed, he elevated it to a supreme
position among nineteenth-century books written by Russian
authors “1 have read The House of the Dead. I do not know a
book better than this in all our literature, not even excepting
Pushkin. Not its tone, but its point of view is admirable: sincere,
natural and Christian. A good, instructive book.”

REFERENCES

Arsheel, I. 2015. An analogous study of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor

Dostoevsky with their perceptions of reality: Revisiting Tolstoy
and Dostoevsky. BA English thesis, BRAC University, Dhaka,
Bangladesh.
Dostoevsky, F. 2011. The House of Dead. Ed. Ernest Rhy.
Elimelekh, G. 2017. Arabic prison literature: Resistance, torture,
alienation and freedom. Middle Eastern Studies, 53/4, 677-679.
Johae, A. 2012. Prison treatment in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from
the Dead House and Crime and Punishment. The Explicator, 7/4.
Nelson, M. 2015. Notes From a Dead House. Paris Review. 15 Sep. 11
Sep 2018. Available online: <www.parisreview.org/notes-from-a-
dead-house-89802>.
48 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

Schwan, A. 2011. Introduction: Reading and writing in prison.Critical

Survey, 23/3, 1-5.

AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

PH.D. RESEARCH SCHOLAR,
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH,
KASHMIR UNIVERSITY,
SRINAGAR, J&K, INDIA.
E-MAIL: <[email protected]>