In his twenties, Dostoyevsky joined a group of Russian utopian socialists. It was because of his membership in this groups as well as his writing that Dostoyevsky was sent to prison. Utopian socialism has been presented as the ideal political and social system, In the early nineteenth century, utopian socialism was in some ways a forerunner to Marxist and communist ideas.

A utopia, a term first used by the English Renaissance philosopher Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), refers to a type of community in which all social conflict and distress have been resolved. One of the ideals or goals of utopian socialism was to create a social system in which everyone in the community worked toward the goal of improving his or her lives and in the process played a role in materializing the greater good of the community. An ethical system was to be employed in the utopian community through which all members were included in the benefits and no one was exploited.

A persistent philosophy that people’s actions and all other events are determined, or set in motion, by forces over which human beings have no control. People’s concept of the nature of the outside force has varied over time. Characters in the Literature of the ancients struggle in vain to avoid their fate – that which has been predestined for them by the gods. Christian thinkers have debated the precise balance between the free will of human beings and God’s foreknowledge of events.

At the end of the nineteenth century, theological predestination was replaced by scientific and social determinism, in which heredity and environment were seen as the determining forces.

Literature influenced by Marxist SOCIALIST REALISM presents characters who are products of the conflicts between economic systems.

Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its utility in providing happiness or pleasure as summed among all sentient beings. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome.

A central CHARACTER, or PROTAGONIST, who lacks traditional heroic qualities and virtues (such as idealism, courage, and steadfastness). An antihero may be comic, antisocial, inept, or even pathetic, while retaining the sympathy of the reader. Antiheroes are typically in conflict with a world they cannot control or whose values they reject.