Psychological Novel

The psychological novel is a variety of the novel in which the chief object of depiction becomes the hero's inner world: the motives of actions, the struggle of feelings, the hidden movements of consciousness, while external eventfulness is subordinated to the analysis of the soul. The genre flourished in the nineteenth century together with the deepening of realism and the emergence of new narrative techniques — free indirect discourse and interior monologue. Its models are considered to be the novels of Stendhal, Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary), and Fyodor Dostoevsky. In Ukrainian literature, psychological depth was masterfully developed by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Fata Morgana), Valerian Pidmohylny, and Volodymyr Vynnychenko, and in women's prose by Olha Kobylianska (Land, The Tsarivna), who subtly explored the inner conflict of the individual and the milieu.