The Land Lady

The Land Lady is one of Dostoevsky's first short stories, written after Poor Folk (his first novel) and The Double (his longest of the pre-exile literature). The main character, Ordynov, is a 'dreamer' of sorts typical in most late romantic novellas--a character who's searching for meaning in life, isolated from society, with a profound sense that he is singled out for some great achievement in life. Upon gaining possession of an inheritance, Ordynov decides to throw himself into book learning and artistic self discovery...

He is in the process of searching for an apartment when he encounters a couple in a back alley church that captures his attention. Ordynov notices something "strange and unusual" about the couple immediately after seeing their dynamic, saying Katerina seemed to possess a "childlike horror and mysterious fear" in the presence of her male companion. Ordynov's curiosity overcomes him and he follows the couple from the church through St Petersburg. Driven by a deep, unconscious fascination and attraction to Katerina, Ordynov seeks out a room close to the couple's flat in order to gain access to Katerina. Dostoevsky uses Ordynov's subsequent interaction with the couple, Murin and Katerina, to frame the remainder of the story.

Ordynov secures a room and has a few short conversations with Katerina but then falls ill and slips into an altered consciousness, with fitful dreams and convulsions. After Ordynov breaks from delirium, brought on both by sickness and sensual ecstasy, Katerina confides her situation to him. As the story progresses, you learn that Murin is Katerina's father and after killing her mother has taken her captive by exerting "a mysterious and irresistible power" over her. Katerina's story becomes a confession, how she cannot escape Murin's influence and control, not for lack of ability but because she "is his degraded slave...and her shame and degradation are sweet to her." The final and tense dialogue between Murin, Ordynov and Katerina sees the situation reach a climax of sorts, with Ordynov contemplating the murder of Murin and Katerina sinking back into her masochistic relationship with Murin. A few days later, Ordynov encounters the couple again while he's packing his things in preparation for yet another move. Murin justifies his actions toward Katerina to Ordynov once again and Ordynov pensively leaves the apartment.

The central theme in The Land Lady, as I see it, is the troubled relationship between Murin and Katerina. Dostoevsky seeks to explore this relationship to make a broader point about the nature of oppression and bondage on the human psyche. Although in the story Dostoevsky seeks only to display Murin's dominion over Katerina, I suspect he's also making a more general argument about the distorting effects of despotism and subordination on humans, both reminiscent of the political realities of the time and also making a point about the virtue of human freedom as a principle.

The form this sort of oppression takes is particularly pernicious. This is apparent in how Katerina confesses to Ordynov her realization that she's enslaved but that she lacks the will to change her situation. Indeed, she's even grown to enjoy Murin's abusive control. Murin is completely aware of what he's doing to Katerina and he generalizes his theory for Ordynov by claiming that "a weak man cannot stand alone. Give him everything, he will come of himself and return it all...give a weak man his freedom--he will bind it himself and give it back to you. To a foolish heart, freedom is no use." Thus, Dostoevsky attempts to portray both the dubious arguments for subordination and also the enjoyment that's derived in such a relationship.

The end of the novella has Ordynov pondering Murin and Katerina's relationship and puzzling to himself about what he's witnessed in a few short days. Especially in these few lines from Ordynov one can see the broadening of Dostoevsky's themes from the personal to the political, depicting a relationship who's dynamic implicated an entire political system built on fear, distortion, and tyranny.

"It seemed to him that Katerina was of perfectly sound mind, but that in his own way Murin had been right when he had called her a 'weak heart'. It seemed to him that some mystery bound her to the old man, and that she, though ignorant of any crime and as pure as a dove, had somehow fallen in his power. In his mind's eye he kept envisaging a deep, desperate tyranny over a poor, defenseless creature; and his heart grew troubled...It seemed to him that the frightened eyes of her suddenly awakened soul had been insidiously presented with the notion of its downfall; her poor, weak heart subjected to insidious torture, the truth gratuitously distorted to her...and that little by little the wings of her free, untrammeled soul had been clipped, until finally it was incapable either of rebellion or of an unconstrained breakthrough into real life..."