White Nights

Dostoyevsky uses the setting to echo and amplify the narrator’s emotional state. The astronomical phenomenon of the “white nights” of St. Petersburg—a city so near the Arctic Circle that summer nights only experience twilight rather than complete darkness—mirrors the ambiguous, in-between nature of the narrator’s brief connection with Nastenka: neither full love nor complete loneliness, neither day nor night. When he is joyful, the city glows and opens; when he is despondent, the weather turns dreary, the canals drip with rain, and buildings seem to close in.

This dynamic setting acts as a visual and atmospheric metaphor for hope, fantasy, and isolation. The narrator often walks the city at night, suggesting both his disconnection from society and his romantic affinity with solitude and dreams.

The story is rich with imagery that situates the narrator’s intense emotional world in his body’s experiences. When he sees Nastenka for the first time, he says, “My heart was fluttering like a captured bird” (9). This nature imagery conveys his excitement, vulnerability, and helplessness—he is already emotionally captive. His physical reaction—his heart pounding—mirrors his internal anxiety and yearning for connection.