The absence of affective memory and the non-conversion of Goryanchikov in Dostoevsky’s Notes from the House of the Dead

Abstract

This article analyzes the narrator Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from the House of the Dead, arguing that his inability to achieve spiritual redemption and union with the common people stems from a narrative construction centered on the sterility of affective memory. The analysis identifies three interconnected characteristics: the narrator's immateriality, as he observes the prison from a detached perspective, without embodying the physical experience; temporal stasis, which confines him to a cyclical and empty present, reflected in the fragmentary structure of the narrative; and, most crucially, the absence of pre-incarceration affective memories. Goryanchikov does not evoke positive recollections from his past and remains entirely silent about his crime, preventing any elaboration of guilt or remorse. This deficiency renders inner conversion impossible. The article contrasts this condition with the sketch "The Peasant Marey," in which Dostoevsky himself recounts how an affective memory from his childhood brought about a redemptive transformation in his perception of the convicts. The deliberate absence of this resource in Goryanchikov's characterization consolidates his tragedy: reason, divorced from affective memory, becomes an inner prison, condemning him to a sterile freedom and isolation.