I love the following passage by Dostoyevsky but I don't

>>7683787
I think by "on a square yard of space" he could be referring to an infinite and deep sense of ennui, hopelessness, being bored with life and knowing one will go nowhere beyond that "square yard" which is their life.
"A foretaste of eternity" is his glimpse of this future of hopelessness, seeing life spread bare before him as an ultimately hopeless endeavor.
As for the quotes, I have no idea.

>>7683787
If I had to take a guess, he's feeling claustrophobic, that the walls are closing in and there's nowhere to go or hide. I think he knows about the years of boredom and misery to come, and recognizes that he can't do anything about it.

>>7683787
It's definitely a sense of anxiety, perhaps the crushing knowledge that he will never be anything but himself, and that maybe he cannot change what he wants to change?

Presumably it's a Russian common phrase that hasn't translated well into English. My guess is that it was originally a euphemism for prison (like being 'sent down the river') or for being in the grave (like being 'si feet under').

>>7683796
>>7683804
>>7683811

Great answers ty

>>7683826

Yeah, could possible be an idiom referring to prison.

Iirc earlier he said/thought that life, even an eternity on a square yard of space, was better than dying. This was him glorying in the beauty and freedom of the world.
This quote then is him thinking about what he said/thought earlier. It's been a while since I've read the book but this may be (from the context) when he's considering turning himself in or killing himself. Maybe a hopeless eternity on "one yard of space" (prison) isn't better than death.
Of course later, through Sonya, this eternity doesnt seem so hopeless.

>>7683796
>>7683804
>>7683811
>>7683787
Have you guys read the book?

>>7683787

What part and what chapter is your quote from, OP? I see 'a square yard of space' used in Pt II, Chap. 6, but it's not your quote. Maybe the use of quotes is because Raskal is quoting himself from earlier. I'm looking in the Russian to see whether the quotes are used there as well.

>>7683861
Something similar is in the idiot about living on one yard of space.

>>7683873
I think I remember something in the very beginning of Notes similar to that as well

Square yard of space is jail you dumb fucks.

welp, i've always wondered if /lit/ actually read books, this thread is proof. that they don't.

>>7683804
Assuming it doesn't simply refer to prison, it's clearly meant to express a fundamental dissatisfaction with his situation, that he is utterly doomed, doubly so, doomed and doomed in such a way that even that too is limited.

>>7684594
yeah he is referencing a humorous way of describing something.

They are at least reading don't be mean

It's a foretaste of hell.

>>7683869

Book 5, chapter 5.

>>7684961

Yeah, the brackets around 'a square yard of space' in that passage are present in the original Russian. I'm still inclined to think (cf. >>7683869) the quotes indicate that this is quoting the turn of phrase as used earlier in the book. I think the quotes, and the repetition, also foreground the concept too. Raskolnikov's living quarters are described as extremely small. There are perhaps other things mentioned in the book that reinforce this imagery; it's been a few years since I last read the book. It seems to me to tie in with the Punishment aspect of the book, but maybe also in a broader way the ultimate smallness/emptiness of the 'Superman' ideology that seems so liberating to Raskolnikov but is in fact the opposite.