Citation

Wilkinson ML. CLCWeb - Comparative Literature and Culture 2012; 14(4).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012)

DOI

10.7771/1481-4374.1867

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In her article "Victims of the City in Novels of Zola and Dostoevsky" Marta L. Wilkinson argues that urbanity in its nineteenth-century setting functioned as the culpable agent in criminal behavior found in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and in several of Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels. Wilkinson presents an analysis of the novels based on Merlin Coverly's concept of psychogeography which supports the extension of the cityscape as an integral part of the novels' characters. Further, Wilkinson illustrates how in Zola's and Dostoevsky's novels the city reigns triumphant as characters fall victim to disease, drink, or are left with desperate choices: in Dostoevsky's novel suicide or banishment to Siberia and in Zola's novels the acceptance of inhuman life in the complicit city. © Purdue University.

Language: en