Between Ideal and Real: Romantic Dream and Identity in “White Nights” by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Sfetcu, Nicolae (2025). ”Between Ideal and Real: Romantic Dream and Identity in “White Nights” by Fyodor Dostoevsky”, in Index Academic, I 2025, DOI: 10.58679/IA42545

 

The article analyzes “White Nights” as much more than a sentimental idyll: a philosophical meditation on alienation, romantic idealism, the tension between dream and reality, and the crisis of identity. “The Dreamer,” the anonymous narrator, is a typical Petersburg urban misfit, for whom loneliness is both a curse and a refuge, anticipating existentialist themes. His idealism – nourished by reading and fantasies – is portrayed ambivalently: Dostoevsky admires his inner richness, but exposes his escapism, and the ending (the reappearance of Nastenka’s fiancé) shows the price of breaking away from reality. The “four-night” structure creates a liminal space in which the dream seems to win, until “morning” restores the concrete; however, the moment of happiness remains valuable as a memory. The protagonist’s identity – nameless, split between the ideal self and the almost non-existent social self – is (re)constructed narratively and in dialogue with the otherness (Nastenka), the experience bringing a discreet maturation. The conclusion underlines the universal relevance of the text: dreams can save and deceive, reality can hurt and mature, and art and memory offer a possible reconciliation between the ideal and the real.

Keywords: White Nights, Feodor Dostoevsky, alienation, loneliness of the individual, existentialism, idealism, dreamer, reality, identity, self

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