Pastiche Of Dostoyevsky's Style

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Statement of Intent My pastiche will be presenting a scene in which Rodia talks to his mother and sister about leaving home to go study at the university in St. Petersburg. The scene that I will be portraying was not specifically mentioned or described in the text; however, it is a conversation that is implied to have taken place at some point. In my pastiche I aim to mimic the writing style of Crime and Punishment’s author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, so that it will read like a scene that Dostoyevsky might have written but decided to leave out of the story. In order to best mimic the unique writing style of this book, I will focus on a number of specific factors that influenced the text’s overall style. One of the main characteristics that I focused on was the use of complex sentences. A great deal of Dostoyevsky’s sentences are composed of at least one dependent clause and an independent clause. For example, on page 477 the narrator says, “When he so wished, however, Arkady Ivanovich could be a man of the greatest charm, so that the original conjecture (fairly acute) of the fiancée’s parents, to the effect that Arkady Ivanovich was drunk and out of control, quickly dropped of its own weight” (Dostoyevsky). Another quality that I will be trying to mimic is the “dialogic” nature of the text. What I mean by this is that when the characters in the play are talking, they are talking to at least one other character as opposed to simply speaking one’s mind to no one in particular, which would be a monologue. Raskolnikov has an “inner dialogue” after he reads a letter from his mother where, although he is literally talking to himself as he walks; however, he is also talking to Sonia, Pulcheria, Luzhin and Dunia. An example of this is when Raskolnikov says, “But what about you Mr. Luzhin? After all she’s your bride” (40). Another characteristic that I will be mimicking is the
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