Essay On Bobok

Bobok by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a witty anecdote that satirizes the extent in which human depravity exists and thus makes a social commentary on the futile and foolish nature of Russian Utopianism and assigns moral revival as the call for real change.
In the late 19th century, as writers like Chernyshevsky propagated novels detailing the idealistic and hopeful future in a utopic Russia, Dostoevsky wanted to make clear in his short story, Bobok, that a flaw existed in such ideal: that even in death, lies human depravity. The story starts as Ivan Ivanovitch, the protagonist, finds himself in a graveyard where he encounters the extraordinary, the talking dead. It is soon discovered that most of the conversation is directed toward gambling, theft, and fraud and that a foul stench permeates throughout the graveyard. Judging by how the dead complain despite having lost the sense of smell, it becomes clear that the stench is not only representative of the rotting physical bodies of the dead, but of a moral rotting of the soul as well. The stench is
symbolic in that it is not only felt within the conscience but showcases, in a tangible way, the gravity of the corruptive state of the people as even though the inhabitants are surrounded and bothered by the offensive odor of their own making, they make no effort to change their ways. Dostoevsky paints a picture in which the characters, even when left with just a conscience and voice, are only riddled with vice, immorality and overall debauchery. Although there seems to be an afterlife and perhaps a chance at renewal, nothing has changed and people continue on with their frivolous ways and general shrewd human behavior instead of one of repentance and reconcile.
Such shameful behavior is heightened by the fact that this takes place around a cemetery and a funeral, a sanctified and holy time to respect the dead, yet Ivanovitch is presented with an insight that the dead are only full of vulgar and baseless talk. The dead and their behavior is just an extension of the living and their everyday trivial activities and thus represent an exchange that implies the depravity of the moral state of the living. Human condition, according to Dostoevsky, is that people are inherently tied to sin and try, as one might, seem not only unable to escape it but revel in it.
In the graveyard, a great deal of symbolic parallelism can be made with the idealistic world that utopists hope to create.
In a sense, the graveyard is representative of the new and near future that everyone is soon to face and one that provides a different sort of freedom. The grave inhabitants talk of letting shame go and cries to “strip and become naked” (Dostoevsky 270), uniting the once scattered ramblings and divided people together in one voice. Here, death had become a whole new world as it granted them a new kind of freedom-one not of redemption but a sanction to indulge in their own impiousness. In a seemingly utopic fashion, no laws, obligations, or positions exist, but Bobok is what Dostoevsky sees as the result of such freedom. When given “absolute freedom”, human nature only permits people to fall in the same despicable habits, as it is not the environment that first need changing but the immortality of the
soul.
It seems without first changing the petty values that people hold onto, utopia may not be the coveted solution after all, but just extended version of the corruptive society of today. Such instances are depicted by the ironic fact of how much social class status seems to follow people to their grave with not only how and where the dead are buried, but also in their mindset. Even when they are dead and all else is insignificant, the inhabitants in the graveyard sprout on and on about their entitlement to status and respect. There is no real advantage held over one another by holding unto past titles, yet such values are still kept. The inhabitant’s insistence to hold unto such illusory status only heightens the revelation that through it all, they instead appear all the same in terms of the only thing they have left-souls whose characters appear depraved and degraded. This is proof that change of nature and transition to a utopia is difficult when people can not even let go of the petty issues such as social status in a place where such thing should hold absolute zero value. Even when given the opportunity to live in an utopia-like scenario in which everyone is presumably as “equal” as one can get, traces of the inherent selfish and crude nature of man come into light and a utopic future seem impossible. Dostoevsky believes Utopia to be too idealistic as it is under the premises that people are inherently good and, when first given the freedom, humans are capable of change. Through Bobok, there is a certain refutation of naïve utopianism with the condition of man being what it is and how it remains.
In another sense, Bobok may make an additional statement of how complete freedom does not actually exist. Even within utopic conditions of newfound freedom and despite their declarations to be naked and free, when the dead realized that there was an outside listener, they became quiet and silenced. The frailty in the idea of complete freedom was revealed as it was shattered by something so simple as a sneeze. The interruption from Ivanovitch, the only seemingly moral character in the story, represented a break from the false illusion of freedom that was created and a return to reality.
In Bobok, Dostoevsky creates the imperfect world to affirm the importance of spiritual consciousness and lay a harsh social criticism that the current moral state of humans is far too embedded in the nature of our being for mere idealistic notions to fix. With the people in the graveyard being presented as stuck in their fate with neither hope nor desire of change of redemption, there is a hypocrisy in people asking a change for the greater good when they cannot even change themselves. Dostoevsky want to emphasize and draw attention to the dangers and threat of dying moral standards and to the importance in efforts of changing oneself instead of chasing after idealistic and illusory dreams.
Dostoevsky uses Ivan Ivanovitch as the remaining inkling of hope for a moral revival as Ivanovitch represents the outside view and bestows a moral judgment on what he is witnessing. Ivanovitch can be seen retaining a certain level of moral right as he despairingly proclaims, “Depravity in such a place, depravity of the last aspirations, depravity of sodden and rotten corpses-and not even sparing the last moments of consciousness…No, that I cannot accept” (272). He is not only disgusted by the rank smell of decaying bodies and the petty talks of debauchery among the dead, but is outraged and renounces it completely. By instilling the only moral voice in a sea of immoral ones, a sharp contrast is made in efforts to evoke the reader to question and reevaluate one’s own moral status. With Ivanovitch’s declaration and silencing of the immoral dead at the end, Dostoevsky highlights that it is not utopia that is important but the revival of moral consciousness and values becoming the hope of mankind.
By revealing of the immoral and weak nature of man, it can be judged that man is irreconcilable for and even perhaps undeserving of a perfect world such as a utopia. If tangible change is wanted, Dostoevsky urges that one must first awaken to the hypocrisy of living alongside a damned world with only talks of a better one, and instead begin to act upon the rejuvenation of the moral consciousness first.

Work Cited
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Bobok. Paris: Éditions Mille Et Une Nuits, 1994. Print.