Poor Folk is written in the form of letters between Makar Devushkin and Varvara Dobroselova, who are poor second cousins. It showcases the life of poor people, their relationship with rich people, and poverty in general. A friendship develops between the two until Dobroselova loses her interest in literature, and a rich widower proposes to her. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer and philosopher whose literary works explore human psychology in the context of the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia.