Bobok

Bobok is a short story written by Fyodor Dostoevsky and first published in 1873.

The story follows Ivan Ivanovich, a disillusioned writer, who visits a cemetery after attending a funeral.

There he overhears the conversations of the recently deceased, who continue to speak from their graves, revealing their innermost thoughts and hypocrisies.

Through this surreal eavesdropping, the story satirizes human nature, social norms, and the moral decay of individuals. Dostoevsky uses dark humor and philosophical undertones to examine the boundaries between life and death, and the enduring human need for self-expression.

“Semyon Ardalyonovitch said to me all of a sudden the day before yesterday: ‘Why, will you ever be sober, Ivan Ivanovitch? Tell me that, pray.’ A strange requirement. I did not resent it, I am a timid man; but here they have actually made me out mad. An artist painted my portrait as it happened: ‘After all, you are a literary man,’ he said. I submitted, he exhibited it. I read: ‘Go and look at that morbid face suggesting insanity.’”