A CONVERSATION IN THE first part of The Possessed (1870) in which Shatov tells of his adventures and sufferings in America may fairly be taken as a summary of Dostoevsky's own views of the United States. Shatov relates how, two years earlier, he and two comrades had spent the last of their money to go in an emigrant steamer and find out for themselves what it was like to be a worker in America and to live under the worst social conditions.