Classics Without All the Class discussion

Why is it titled White Nights?

Terry wrote: "doesn't it take place during the summer when the sky never gets all the way dark?"


That would make sense why it is called White Nights! LOL! I haven't read it yet, bad moderator! Isn't it funny that Western culture (American for the most part) think of the term of white nights as snowy cold nights, where as in Russia it would be the peak of summer when the sky doesn't get completely dark!

Terry wrote: in Russia it would be the peak of summer when the sky doesn't get completely dark!

Right, and St Petersburg, where the story is set, is pretty far north, so the summer days are quite long there, like the far northern part of the US. The chapters are titled "First Night", "Second Night" etc, and the final one "The Morning".
The phrase "white nights" is used by the protagonist near the end of the story but without an explanation for the term at that point: "Last night was our third meeting, our third white night..." Does he mean it as a description of it's emotional impact on him as well?

Yeah I think it's related to the emotional impact on him and his lifestyle. I remember him describing the dark corners of Petersberg where the dreamers are trapped.

"There are, Nastenka, though you may not know it, strange nooks in Petersburg. It seems as though the same sun as shines for all Petersburg people does not peep into those spots, but some other different new one, bespoken expressly for those nooks, and it throws a different light on everything. In these corners, dear Nastenka, quite a different life is lived, quite unlike the life that is surging round us, but such as perhaps exists in some unknown realm, not among us in our serious, over-serious, time. Well, that life is a mixture of something purely fantastic, fervently ideal, with something (alas! Nastenka) dingily prosaic and ordinary, not to say incredibly vulgar."

"Foo! Good Heavens! What a preface! What do I hear?"

"Listen, Nastenka. (It seems to me I shall never be tired of calling you Nastenka.) Let me tell you that in these corners live strange people—dreamers. The dreamer—if you want an exact definition—is not a human being, but a creature of an intermediate sort. For the most part he settles in some inaccessible corner, as though hiding from the light of day; once he slips into his corner, he grows to it like a snail"

Yes I agree the white night is a spark of brightness in his dark life as he writes :“My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man's life?”

So, what do you think, is a moment enough? Are we happy he had his moment or sad it's all he had?

Or does he make this statement sarcastically, because it isn't enough?

It is a curious and thought-provoking final sentence! Our narrator is so peculiar, it seems like he really has no idea how much happiness a man is entitled to have. He seems resigned to have no more, since in the closing chapter he imagines his own life exactly the same with his same old landlady, and Nastenka is gone from his life :(

It does seem like his White Nights are over and he is resigned to have no more happiness in his life based on his last statement. Anyone would feel self pity right after being jilted, but this poor guyis so vuinerable that one can only assume he will go back to being a self imposed outcast..

It very interesting that there is a play on words in English (White Night vs. White Knight, as in, rescuing knight in shining armor) but I doubt that the connection exists in Russian. Works out well in translation though!