Heroine Abuse: Dostoevsky's "Netochka Nezvanova" And The Poetics Of Codependency

Marullo shows how, at age twenty-eight, Dostoevsky intuited and illustrated the workings of "relationship addiction" almost a century and a half before it became the scholarly focus of practitioners of mental health. The moral monsters, "infernal" women, children-adults, and adult-children who populate Netochka Nezvanova seek codependence in people, places, and things, and in images, ideas, and ideals to satiate cravings for love, dominance, and control, as well as to indulge in narcissism, sexual perversion, and other aberrant or alternative behaviors. (Indeed, in no other work would Dostoevsky examine such phenomena as pedophilia and lesbianism with such abandon.) Racing from tie to tie, bond to bond, and caught in a debilitating loop that they claim to detest, but sadomasochistically enjoy, the characters in Netochka Nezvanova wreak havoc on themselves and the world.

• | Author: Thomas Gaiton Marullo
• | Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
• | Publication Date: Oct 15, 2015
• | Number of Pages: 260 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0875807208
• | ISBN-13: 9780875807201