Violência e condição humana em recordações da casa dos mortos, de Fiódor Dostoiévski

Abstract

The present work aims to analyze the theme of violence and the human condition in Memoirs from the House of The Dead, by the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoievsky. From the analysis of the book, it is intended to highlight such thematic elements based on reflections the critical and theoretical studies developed by Hannah Arendt, in The human Condition, as well as those approached by Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, among others that are identified in this dostoyevskian work. Focusing on understanding the relations of violence built in the setting of the prison narrative, the comparative literature methodology enables the investigation of the constitution of the human condition and institutionalized authoritarianism in this environment. Regarding the situations constructed in this specific piece, administrative violence is established as a result of methods and political relations that are inseparable. It is, therefore, a totalitarian model in which the instrument of domination is torture, based on the established penitentiary system, which comprises, above all, a representation of social spheres that intertwine and tighten the collective and individual elements. Thus, the novel can provide a debate that circulates through the hybrid fields of literature, allowing a critical analysis of the actions, feelings, individuality, and freedom of the individual, as well as a critique on the prison system.