Poor Folk
According to critic Rebecca Epstein Matveyev, Pushkin's "The Stationmaster" serves as a "thematic subtext, as a basis for Devushkin's literary experiments, and as a resource for his epistolary relationship." Both, "The Stationmaster" and "The Overcoat", are mentioned in the letters between Dobroselova and Devushkin. Dostoyevsky may have chosen the epistolary genre to include his personal critical observations, similar to real-life letters between writer and addressee. According to Yakubovich, Dostoyevsky uses "Poor Folk" as his diary. However, as an external narrator is missing the only source for the character's motivation and personality is available in the letters and Dobroselova's diary. The numerous different voices, that is Devushkin's quotations from stories, his commentaries about these books and his own works, is an example of polyphony. These effects confuse the reader and hide the narrator.