Mr. Prokharchin
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Mr. Prokharchin" (Gospodin Prokharchin) is a short story written in 1846 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and first published in the Annals of the Fatherland. Inspired by a true story, the story depicts the miserly life of the main protagonist. He lives an extremely poor life, eating frugal meals and sleeping on a mattress directly on the floor. His landlady and the other tenants feel sorry for him. On his death, they eventually discover that the man was in fact wealthy and was living in that way voluntarily. He was hiding his fortune inside his mattress.
In his review of the short story, Lantz comments that "'Mr. Prokharchin,' dreams dreams, in which the accumulation of money figures prominently, express his anxiety about his sense of self and his guilt over the selfishness that has isolated him from other human beings."
