“Uncle’s Dream” is a comic novella about an old phlegmatic gentleman, a sort of “remnant of aristocracy.” Vests and perfumes, gloves and ties—none of it can turn the “dead man on springs” into a young man…
In this short novella, Dostoevsky creates a hero who, on the one hand, absorbs traits of the textbook characters of Russian literature, and on the other becomes a prototype of the key figures for the author’s later, more important works.
To describe the heroes and the absurd situations that happen to them, Dostoevsky chooses bold, biting satire.