Under Western Eyes

Under Western Eyes is a novel by Joseph Conrad. The novel takes place in St. Petersburg Russia and Geneva Switzerland and is viewed as Conrads response to the themes explored in Fyodor Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment; Conrad was reputed to have detested Dostoevsky. It has also been interpreted as Conrads response to his own early life; his father was a Polish independence activist and would-be revolutionary imprisoned by the Russians but instead of following in his fathers footsteps at the age of sixteen Conrad left his native land only to return briefly decades later.Indeed while writing Under Western Eyes Conrad suffered a weeks-long breakdown during which he conversed with the novels characters in Polish