The Crocodile by Dostoevsky not only provides indirect social criticism of the ills of its time but also serves as a harsh indictment of the unreliability of the press and the absence of journalistic ethics. Even an outrageous event, such as a crocodile devouring a human, cannot be presented in the same way by the newspapers of Dostoevsky's time. And has anything changed in this regard over the years...?
The surrealism and satire in The Crocodile strongly recall Nikolai Gogol, whose influence on Dostoevsky – at least regarding his shorter works – is undeniable. A government clerk, a ridiculous semi-educated man who considers himself almost a genius - but his colleagues regard him as a "birdbrain" - before departing from Petersburg for a leisure trip to Europe, visits with his young and handsome wife, a brainless and self-admiring petty bourgeois, the shopping center of Peridromos, where a crocodile is on display.
And while the wife is entertained by the monkeys exhibited in the same room, the "birdbrain" husband begins to annoy the crocodile. And suddenly, a terrible, unnatural scream shocked the hall...
