White Nights, written by Fyodor Dostoevsky, was published in 1848. It is a story about a nameless character, the Dreamer, a solitary individual who wanders the streets of St. Petersburg before meeting a woman named Nastenka, who for a brief while changes his life. The relationship of the two characters is an embodiment of loneliness, romantic aspirations, and the awkward disparity between our imagined and real life.

On the surface level, the plot is rather simple: an isolated person falls in love with a woman who picks somebody else. Yet describing White Nights as just another love story deals with romance fails to account for its appeal. For Dostoevsky, the central theme of his narrative is their experience of loneliness in the midst of a crowd and happiness as something that gives sense to an isolated existence.

The spatial theory looks at the link between the physical world and the experience of people in the environment. The city has its history of social relations, individual memories, and emotions. For example, according to Henri Lefebvre, space is socially constructed. Michel de Certeau also analyzes the role that everyday activities like walking play in shaping the way people experience the city.

Consider walking down a familiar street along with your companion and then compare it to walking down the same street alone when you’ve had a terrible day. There is no change in the physical environment, but the difference lies in the change in your connection with the space.

Existentialists, on the other hand, take another approach to this narrative. Philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre discuss the issues of individualism, freedom, alienation, and authentic living. One of the issues that existentialists bring up is the difference between imagining one’s life and being involved in it. Through fantasy, one can develop idealized images of themselves and their interactions. However, reality forces one to deal with uncertainty, frustration, and people’s independence.

The first thing that attracted my attention regarding the writings of Dostoevsky is the number of thoughts that occur in the head of the Dreamer. The person is very emotional and intimate in his descriptions. The Dreamer analyzes his feelings from all possible perspectives. I understand his approach quite well. Just give a person enough space, and even an insignificant talk will turn into a philosophical discussion.

At last, the Dreamer meets somebody who would hear him out, and it almost overwhelms him with its uniqueness. He has been watching life from a distance for such a long time, and taking part in it seems like a miracle.

But there were times when I wished he just stopped talking and did something about it. Eloquence is not always the same thing as maturity, and self-analysis is not the same as self-understanding. It is different to have a problem than it is to talk about it beautifully.

Nastenka’s observation about the way he speaks, as if he were reading from a book, is brilliant. I love the point in the book because it describes what makes the Dreamer’s character a paradoxical one. He learned how to describe life, maybe how to imagine it beautifully, but it is different from experiencing it.

His issue is not so much that he reads too much as it is that he seems unable to progress past the romantic tropes he has learned through literature. He knows the mood of love before he understands the logistics of being in love with someone else.

It was here where the novella reminded me of Her, Spike Jonze’s directorial debut. Theodore, the main character of the movie, forms a close connection with an artificial intelligence despite his feeling of loneliness and his heartbreak from his divorce. Both the Dreamer and Theodore realize intimacy can happen in unexpected situations, but there is also the question of projection, which begs the question of whether their connections are with another consciousness or with the consciousness that fits their requirements.

The same is true for Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation, where Bob and Charlotte find company as they get acquainted with an unknown city. The overcrowding of Tokyo streets creates an alienation experienced by both the main characters despite intimate moments occurring between them. Similarly to St. Petersburg in Dostoevsky’s novel, the capital of Japan also acquires a meaning of an environment of isolation and connection at once.

The presented films show the relevance of the movie White Nights for the contemporary audience. Whatever time people live, whether they travel around nineteenth-century St. Petersburg or stay in Tokyo hotels or fall in love with an AI, the problem remains the same. It is a desire to be known and understood, but it is mistakenly confused with understanding and love.

Nastenka makes the world of the Dreamer more complicated since she also has her own aspirations. She is waiting for another man who, however much she likes talking with the Dreamer, is not going to turn into her just because of it.

As when one makes you feel appreciated after a prolonged spell of loneliness, it is natural for one to assume something special must have happened. Sometimes it does; sometimes someone is just nice.

The problem for the Dreamer lies in the fact that Nastenka is not a woman who could be a romantic partner for him. In the figure of Nastenka, the Dreamer finds access to a different life. Through Nastenka, he feels the possibility of joining the life of another person instead of watching everybody else live it. Through her, he gets something to look forward to and turns what was once familiar surroundings into something more hopeful.

While the characters get closer, the streets and places of meetings in St. Petersburg start acquiring new meaning. A place that used to emphasize the Dreamer’s solitude becomes a place where things can happen between two people.

Indeed, the setting is conducive to the mood by itself, as in the period of the summer solstice the city of Saint Petersburg remains bright in the dead of night. The line between night and day blurs, creating a setting which is suspended between regular categories. Through the choice of setting Dostoevsky creates the image of the heightened condition of the Dreamer, things seem possible cannot be so in ordinary.

At the same time, the bright days are temporary, just like the happiness experienced by the Dreamer. In fact, for some time, life provides the Dreamer with the extraordinary. Of course, he does not have any chance to hold on to it.

In turn, the ending of the story is quite touching yet frustrating at the same time. Indeed, after the confession of the Dreamer, Nastenka manages to meet the man she was waiting for, and the Dreamer’s future vanishes along with his dream of happiness.

Commendably, Dostoevsky does not treat Nastenka like a prize for the Dreamer’s suffering. She has her own emotions, and his sincerity does not give him the right to have hers in return. It is nice in such ways it happens because, in a romantic story, the hero’s suffering may have been enough of an excuse for a happy ending.

Even so, the ending made me wonder if the Dreamer had truly changed after all. Had his experience with Nastenka taught him how to live better, or had it just provided him with another thing to think about when he was by himself? Maybe he learned how to be intimate with people, or maybe he learned you could not have love because of your sincerity.

From an existentialist point of view, the Dreamer cannot influence the emotions of Nastenka, but he has to choose how to act after going through the situation. The importance of it does not lie in his ability to get the desired relationship because even one short happy moment can be valuable in spite of the lack of development of their relationship.

However, I find his desire to remember moments of happiness a little ambiguous. On the one hand, there is dignity in understanding that a beautiful period has come to an end. On the other hand, it is possible to become too attached to the memory of happiness and stop looking for it in our lives at present. The Dreamer could learn from the situation or could just find another way of living alone.

Regardless of such ambiguity, one of the best features of the novella is that its flaws need to be mentioned as well. First, there are moments when the intensity of the Dreamer’s emotions can become redundant. Second, Nastenka appears less round as a character because she is perceived only from the Dreamer’s viewpoint. If a reader searches for a reserved portrayal of both characters and a fair balance between their aspects, he may be disappointed.

However, I believe such flaws make the novella intimate. Its central theme is the psychological state of the Dreamer himself, and the limited viewpoint helps to understand his peculiar combination of hopefulness, insecurity, and self-delusion. It is unnecessary to share his interpretation of events to admit the genuineness of his feelings.

Above all, imagination provides an outlet of consolation, but imagination can become a substitute for experience. The Dreamer knows the joys of interaction, yet does not know how to go about creating it until Nastenka appears in his life. While his tragedy lies in the loss of Nastenka, it further lies in having spent so much time preparing for a life he has experienced.

We continue to romanticize relationships in movies, novels, songs, and social networking sites, and have dreams about conversations we do not have and relationships that have never developed, loving our ideas more than the people involved. The tendency to replace involvement with observation lives on.

Completely, Dostoevsky certainly is not suggesting we give up our imagination or romantic ideals. Loneliness can have a recuperative effect on us, and fiction can provide understanding of experiences we have yet to undergo. The trouble lies in when our imagination becomes a haven where we can avoid the risks of relationships.

The reading of White Nights has taught me the significance of an experience lie only in a fleeting experience may provide new insight about who we are, although it will not provide us with the things we seek. However, I believe it also teaches us we should not make our disappointments into stories of ourselves again and again. There comes a point where one stops narrating and lives his life.

But St. Petersburg lives on, the white nights fade away, and all the Dreamer has to remember his experience of it is a memory that is at once a gift and a burden. The story seems timeless because of its common dichotomy. We need to feel connected to other people, yet we isolate ourselves in our daydreams.

It is possible to cherish an experience without fooling ourselves into thinking it was meant to last, and to see the beauty of an existence without forgetting reality, no matter how unpleasant, is the place for connections.

White Nights raises the possibility the more intriguing question is, perhaps, how much more we might see if instead of staring into the windows, we started turning a couple of the doorknobs. After all, a lifetime of dreaming about connections can result in wonderful tales.

References

  • Certeau, M. de. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life (S. Rendall, Trans.). University of California Press.
  • Coppola, S. (Director). (2003). Lost in Translation [Film]. Focus Features; American Zoetrope.
  • Dostoyevsky, F. (2023). White Nights. Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1848)
  • Jonze, S. (Director). (2013). Her [Film]. Annapurna Pictures; Warner Bros. Pictures.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Blackwell.
  • Sartre, J.-P. (2007). Existentialism Is a Humanism (C. Macomber, Trans.). Yale University Press.