The novella “Poor People” is a successful debut by the writer. The story of Makар Девушки́н and Varенька Добросе́лова’s love captured hearts even of established writers, who saw in the young writer a new Gogol, and readers as well. The heroes represent Werther and Lotte from Goethe’s novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” placed into impoverished life in Petersburg.
The difference in Dostoevsky’s work is that in it, the correspondence is conducted by intellectual heroes. When creating “Poor People,” Fyodor Mikhailovich did not imitate European equivalents and did not argue with them. The heroes’ speech is full of diminutives and marked by sentimental sensitivity; it is close to the language that Dostoevsky’s parents used in their letters. The small worries of little people are shown with such humanism that they inevitably evoke sympathy and compassion in readers.