LAW AND LITERATURE: PERSONALITY RIGHTS IN THE SHORT STORY "THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN"

This paper aims to analyse personality rights from an ontological perspective, using Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella The Dream of a Ridiculous Man as a symbolic reference to explore the complexity between the normative formalisation of these rights and their existential essence. Through a deductive methodology and qualitative bibliographic research, the study seeks to investigate how positivist law addresses personality as an essential and inherent element of the human being, while confronting the limitations of this approach when applied to the legal context. The analysis revealed that the strict formalisation of personality rights tends to diminish the subject’s ontological dimension, creating a paradox between legal form and the individual’s real existence. Dostoevsky’s narrative, by portraying the existential crisis of the unnamed protagonist, provided a foundation for questioning the role of legal formalism and suggesting the need for a critical reassessment of these rights. The research concludes that, in order to ensure the effectiveness and applicability of personality rights, it is necessary to integrate their ontological dimension, thereby surpassing the confines of positivism. It is recommended that future studies pursue comparative analysis between different legal systems and examine the impact of new technologies on the conception of personality.