Poor Folk · Chapter
I explained
Barbara Alexievna recounts her early childhood in the province of Tula, her family's move to St.
What happens
Barbara Alexievna recounts her early childhood in the province of Tula, her family's move to St. Petersburg after her father's dismissal, his subsequent death, and their descent into poverty. She describes her unhappy boarding school experience and the family's eventual acceptance of help from the distant relative Anna Thedorovna.
Themes in this chapter
Poverty and Deprivation
The family's descent into destitution after the father's death, loss of their home, and reliance on a distant relative's charity.
Memory and Nostalgia
Barbara's fond recollections of her happy childhood in the countryside contrast sharply with her bleak present.
Isolation and Loneliness
Barbara feels forgotten and lonely in St. Petersburg, and later suffers from the strict, unfriendly atmosphere of boarding school.
Characters to notice
- Barbara Alexievna Dobroselova
Narrates her childhood memories, her father's death, and her family's move to St. Petersburg.
- Anna Thedorovna
A distant relative who offers assistance to Barbara and her mother after the father's death.
- Old Prince
The prince on whose estates Barbara's father worked as steward; his death leads to the father's dismissal.
Key passages
“How he could treat my poor mother so I cannot understand. It used to rend my heart to see her, so hollow were her cheeks becoming, so sunken her eyes, so hectic her face.”
Barbara is bewildered by her father's harsh treatment of her mother, whose health visibly deteriorates.
Highlights the domestic tension and the mother's suffering.
“The instant my father was dead creditors seemed to spring up out of the ground, and to assail us en masse. Everything that we possessed had to be surrendered to them, including a little house which my father had bought six months after our arrival in St. ┬аPetersburg.”
After her father's death, creditors immediately appeared and took all their possessions, including their recently purchased house.
Illustrates the sudden and total financial collapse of the family.
“How strict, how exacting was the system! Appointed hours for everything, a common table, ever-insistent teachers! These things simply worried and tortured me.”
Barbara found the rigid schedule and constant demands of boarding school oppressive and distressing.
Conveys her sense of alienation and misery in the school environment.