Poor Folk
After his release from prison, Dostoyevsky became more concerned with elucidating psychological and philosophical themes, and his writing style moved away from the kind of "sentimental naturalism" found in "Poor Folk" and "The Insulted and Injured". Despite having spent four years in prison in horrendous conditions, he wrote two humorous books: the novella "Uncle's Dream" and the novel "The Village of Stepanchikovo". "The House of the Dead" is a semi-autobiographical memoir written while Dostoyevsky was in prison and includes religious themes. Characters from the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Islam, and Christianity– appear in it, and while the Jewish character Isay Fomich and characters affiliated with the Orthodox Church and the Old Believers are depicted negatively, the Muslims Nurra and Aley from Dagestan are depicted positively. Aley is later educated by reading the Bible, and shows a fascination for the altruistic message in Christ's Sermon on the Mount, which he views as the ideal philosophy.