Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story Сон смешного человека translated into English as The Dream
of a Ridiculous Man tells the story of a lonely and despairing man who has nothing
to live for so he is on verge of ending it all when something incredible happens.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man was published in 1877,
towards the end of Dostoevsky’s own life, two years before he published his greatest novel,
The Brothers Karamazov and 4 years before his own death in 1881. So this short story came at
a time when Dostoevsky had experienced life from the lowest of the low to the highest.
As usual, I will tell you the story and discuss its themes and how it can teach
us about the purpose of life. This is perhaps one of the most uplifting stories you will ever hear.
So stay tuned until the very end, when everything is revealed that might bring tears to your eyes.
Summary We are in Saint-Petersburg,
Russia. We meet a man on the streets of the capital who narrates his own story thus: “I am a
ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman.”—The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Dostoevsky) The
tale begins in the same way as in Notes from Underground,
Dostoevsky’s other most famous existentialist tale. The man says that he has always been
a ridiculous man. At school, at university and throughout his youth. But you know what,
he has always resented this title and never had the courage to confess to being a ridiculous man.
But then, as a grown man he comes to the realisation that nothing really matters in
this world. He feels it doesn’t matter if the world existed before or it would exist in the
future. This sudden realisation brings a huge feeling of relief and liberation in him. He’s
no longer burdened to carry the weight of his existence over his shoulder so suddenly he is
eased off his suffering. But this realisation has not turned our hero into a taoist who wants
to flow with nature but this realisation has turned him into a nihilist who sees
life without any value or meaning. Yes, there is no purpose in life. Everything is meaningless.
He’s not only indifferent to the world, but he has made up his mind that his life
is no longer worth living. It’s just a matter of time he would end it all.
One night as wanders the streets, the man is carrying a pistol,
intent on ending his empty life. The streets are dark except for some lamps. The man looks
up at the sky. Something catches his eyes. He notices a star all alone, just like him.
He sees his own existence as a lonesome star wandering in this empty universe. What is the
point? Why is he walking the semi-dark streets of Saint-Petersburg and up in the sky this tiny star
all alone? Why? But as he is watching the star, something extraordinary happens on the ground.
A little girl of about 8 grabs his elbow. Her clothes are tattered and soaked in the rain,
her shoes broken and she’s crying the word mammy. Quote: “I turned facing her, I did not say a
word and went on; but she ran, pulling at me, and there was that note in her voice which in
frightened children means despair. I know that sound. Though she did not articulate the words,
I understood that her mother was dying, or that something of the sort was happening to them,
and that she had run out to call some one, to find something to help her mother. I did not
go with her; on the contrary, I had an impulse to drive her away. I told her first to go to a
policeman. But clasping her hands, she ran beside me sobbing and gasping, and would not leave me.
Then I stamped my foot, and shouted at her. She called out "Sir! sir!..." but suddenly
abandoned me and rushed headlong across the road. Some other passer-by appeared there,
and she evidently flew from me to him.”—The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Dostoevsky)
Despite him pushing away the little girl, our hero is shaken by the experience. He returns
to his soulless apartment. But something like a struggle has creeped inside him. He was intent on
shooting himself but now he feels an inner pain. The encounter with the little girl has brought
something inside him. A flame. An idea. A nudge. But he doesn’t fully understand what it is. It’s
something. Despite this slight shift inside him, he still wants to end his life that same night.
As he’s pondering these ideas, he suddenly falls asleep. He dreams that he has gone
through his plan and has shot himself. He’s dead. Yes, it is all over. People hold a
funeral and bury him beneath the ground inside a tiny grave. He feels no pain. If anything,
the only feeling he has is loneliness and cold. Then as rain water sips into his grave,
he feels an utter despair and shouts these words: "Whoever you may be, if you exist,
and if anything more rational than what is happening here is possible,
suffer it to be here now. But if you are revenging yourself upon me for my senseless
suicide by the hideousness and absurdity of this subsequent existence, then let me tell you
that no torture could ever equal the contempt which I shall go on dumbly feeling, though my
martyrdom may last a million years!” —The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Dostoevsky)
Suddenly a dark figure opens his grave and pulls him out.
The shadowy figure grabs him and together they fly up the sky and eventually into the empty space.
He feels nothing but thrill and ecstasy as they soar up. Then he notices the lonely star
he saw from below a few hours earlier. It turns out that near the lonely star,
there is a lonely little planet, just like earth. Just then, he suddenly thinks about the suffering
child he saw on the street of Saint-Petersburg and wonders if this planet also has suffering kids.
Dostoevsky grappled with the idea of suffering kids throughout his novels and in the final novel,
the Brothers Karamazov, he made kids his main focus. For Dostoevsky suffering kids
was the biggest dilemma of human existence and religious belief. If god truly existed,
then why he would make innocent children suffer? He never found a satisfactory answer.
Now back to the story. Our hero is flying in space towards the little
planet by the lonely star with this strange figure. When he arrives at the planet,
he realises that everything is just like earth but with one exception. Here, on this planet,
people accept their fate. They accept death. In other words, they embrace what happens to them
with open arms. As a result of having this carefree attitude towards death,
people are incredibly happy and courageous. The universal principle on this planet is
love. Love people no matter who they are. Love people despite their shortcomings. Love
people despite their darkness. The people also love our narrator despite knowing the darkness
in his heart and despite him being a stranger. They accept him without a single question.
But here is the twist in the tale. Our hero from earth still has his earthly habits.
He introduces something we humans do every day. Deception. We lie. Old habits creep in. One day,
he accidentally teaches the people to lie. We all know what happens next. Soon the blissful
planet is turned into another earth. Instead of pursuing peace and happiness, they pursue
knowledge and power, instead of cultivating love, they develop science and technology, and instead
of the collective, they promote individualism and selfishness. Soon there is chaos, wars,
divisions and tribalism. People instead of being happy, or promoting well-being,
they study happiness and they study well-being like scientists.
In other words, instead of being happy, they want to become happy. Just like our world today.
Our hero tries his best to persuade people to return to their old ways of blissful life,
but everyone laughs at him and calls him insane. At the height of his despair,
he suddenly wakes up from his Saint-Petersburg dream and realises he is still in his room. He
also notices his pistol next to him but the dream has been so incredibly transformative for our hero
that the Chekhovian gun no longer fires. For the very first time in his life,
our narrator understands how incredible it is to be alive. How immensely powerful life
is. How lucky he is to be alive. It’s a one in a million or billion chance that he is alive.
He decides to live a full life and teach people to love one another. He firmly believes that
the planet earth is our true paradise. Instead of seeking another planet, it is here we make
a paradise for everyone. What happens to the little girl? Well, I will tell you at the end.
Themes Instead of intellectuals, Dostoevsky championed
ordinary people as a source of true existentialist wisdom. Why? Because intellectuals tend to
intellectualize life while ordinary people live life. This theme of living life, not questioning
things, was first elaborated by Cervantes in Don Quixote, but later Dostoevsky took it as
his foundational philosophy of existence. Life is not about pursuing knowledge and power, but living
your life to the fullest while simultaneously loving others. In other words, today we are
bogged down by tribal bickering and political pettiness, which ultimately makes us unhappy.
We don’t understand the truth about ourselves because we are too focused on judging or worrying
about others. Instead of enjoying and loving life, we focus on other people’s lives. The Ridiculous
Man’s dream opened a door into his subconscious self, like some gateway to his deeper existence
or higher consciousness. When we focus on others, we keep that door shut.
Today, loneliness is a real thing. To escape it, we fake things on social media for some temporary
validation. Michel de Montaigne, whom I have discovered recently thanks to Grace on YouTube,
argues that solitude gives us mental clarity as well moral integrity.
As a result, we don’t rush making snap judgments, decisions or mistakes.
Seeking others’s attention or validation can sway us in some unsavory ways,
turn us into mobs or foot soldiers of some tribal or political groups. In other words,
being among the crowd or seeking their validation can blinds us to see our true purpose.
Since we live an attention-seeking existence, Dostoevsky shows us how we tend to see the
glass half-empty. Life’s problems can also be opportunities for change. The Ridiculous
Man noticed the star among the foggy lights of Saint-Petersburg. Later his dream allowed him
to examine things with clarity and precision. It’s incredible that sometimes a simple idea or
inspiration can turn us from the depth of despair to the height of vitality. Just a simple nudge.
This shows how fragile the human mind is. You can cure the deepest of problems with
the smallest of change. Just like changing a lens on a camera. Suddenly everything focuses,
there is clarity and suddenly you are revitalized. Dostoevsky shows that to live a full life,
all you need is a simple mind. A clear mind. A simple purpose.
Dostoevsky’s psychological depth, at a time when psychology as we know didn’t exist,
is almost incredible. The subconscious wasn’t seen as something serious. Everything sort of
revolved either in the arena of religious belief or in the material world. Dostoevsky
understood that humans were ruled by things other than the material side of life.
There was something deeper, which we call the existential angst today.
At the time, and even today, most people believe that if your material life is sorted, i.e. a good
house and lots of money in the bank you will be happy. Dostoevsky understood that that was
rarely the case. Modernity has been incredibly successful in alleviating poverty and diseases,
but it has failed to provide us with the mental clarity or a higher purpose.
In the absence of a clear purpose, Dostoevsky saw a clear nihilistic tendency early on.
Despite the material comfort, a lot of people are not happy
because they lack mental clarity, or a sense of direction or an anchor.
Dostoevsky’s message in the Dream of a Ridiculous Man is that the purpose
of our existence is to love life but also love and care for others.
Once you fully understand this, it is unbelievably liberating and cathartic.
The Ridiculous Man’s encounter with the little child seeking help was enough to nudge him in the
right direction. Now he has a purpose. Suddenly a man’s protector or provider’s instinct kicks in
and you have a man transformed. The desire to provide and protect is incredibly strong
in men that they can sacrifice so much in order to protect and provide for his family.
Dostoevsky in all his novels, captured the spirit of a lonely man who is lost
for purpose in life. Men who had nothing to live for. And the cure
Dostoevsky saw was women and children who have an immense power to restore
broken men. In Crime and Punishment it was Soniya who ultimately saved Raskolnikov.
The little girl’s despair ignited a flame inside the ridiculous man.
Throughout history, the biggest purpose a man could have was to protect his wife and children.
When you are no longer able to have a family, you have pretty much nothing to live for, but
our Ridiculous Man has found a purpose. At the end of the story, there is an incredibly happy ending.
The Ridiculous Man has some great news. Quote: “And I tracked out that little
girl ... and I shall go on and on!”—The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Dostoevsky)