Outstanding, absurdly hilarious — a grotesque comedy that still cuts to the bone of modern life. One of the greatest short stories ever written
I have returned to Dostoevsky’s The Crocodile several times, and each reading has felt as fresh, absurd, and piercing as the first…
The Crocodile is a surreal satire that critiques 19th-century Russian society, capitalism, and Westernization. In this bizarre tale, the civil servant Ivan Matveich is swallowed by a crocodile yet survives, discovering unexpected comfort and even intellectual purpose inside the beast. His predicament becomes a vehicle for exploring themes of alienation, commodification, and absurd rationalization in a rapidly changing world.
Dostoevsky blends humor with biting social commentary, using Ivan’s fate to parody political figures and societal values, particularly the superficial embrace of foreign ideas. The German owner of the crocodile views the creature purely as profit, refusing to cut it open since Ivan has become a valuable “asset.” Meanwhile, Ivan’s wife, Yelena Ivanovna, gains popularity and freedom from her husband’s misfortune, quickly contemplating divorce — a reflection of materialism’s corrosive effect on relationships.
Ivan’s plan to construct an entire social system from within the crocodile satirizes utopian socialists, especially Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who famously continued to write from prison. Dostoevsky ridicules the arrogance of reformers who propose grand schemes for humanity without practical experience. At the same time, the story lampoons Russian bureaucracy and the anxieties of civil servants: Ivan’s chief concern after being swallowed is not survival but “how my superiors will view this episode.” His passive acceptance and obsession with career advancement, even from inside the beast, underscore the absurdity of rigid hierarchies.
The grotesque premise — a man living comfortably inside a crocodile — exemplifies Dostoevsky’s use of absurdity, a style influenced by Nikolai Gogol. The characters’ mundane and selfish reactions to an extraordinary event expose the pettiness and moral indifference of society.
The story’s open-ended structure has led some scholars to speculate that Dostoevsky intended to expand it further, though he never did. Its unresolved conclusion heightens the satire, leaving the absurd situation hanging as a mirror of ongoing social and political contradictions.
Finally, the narrator’s account of newspaper reports misrepresenting the event — one “progressive” paper blaming Russian backwardness, another claiming Ivan was a gourmet who ate the crocodile — highlights the sensationalism and ideological distortions of the contemporary press. These conflicting narratives serve as a sharp critique of the media’s tendency to bend facts to suit agendas and national biases, completely obscuring the reality of Ivan Matveich’s misfortune.
Today’s Crocodile
If Dostoevsky wrote The Crocodile today, Ivan Matveich wouldn’t be swallowed by a reptile — he’d be swallowed by a corporate merger, a subscription plan, or a productivity app. And just like in the story, he’d sit there calmly, convinced that being digested is just another step toward career advancement. That’s late capitalism in a nutshell: you’re not a person, you’re a KPI.
The German owner’s refusal to cut open his profitable crocodile is the same logic behind billion-dollar companies hoarding user data or squeezing gig workers. Why save a human life when you can monetize it? Ivan isn’t a civil servant anymore — he’s a “premium feature.”
Yelena Ivanovna’s quick pivot to popularity is influencer culture before Instagram. Her husband’s misfortune becomes her personal brand, proof that selfish opportunism is timeless. Today she’d be selling crocodile-themed merch on TikTok.
And those newspapers? They’re the 19th-century ancestors of clickbait headlines and algorithmic outrage. One paper blames “Russian backwardness,” another claims Ivan was a gourmet who ate the crocodile — it’s basically Fox News vs Buzzfeed vs Twitter threads. The truth doesn’t matter; what matters is the spin, the engagement, the profit.
The unresolved ending of The Crocodile is the perfect metaphor for our own world: absurd crises left hanging, no solutions offered, just endless commentary, hollow diplomacy, and treaties so useless they might as well be written on toilet paper. We scroll, we shrug, we meme it, and then we move on. Dostoevsky’s satire reminds us that the crocodile is still here — only now it wears a suit, runs on Wall Street, and has a verified account.