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The novel is narrated in the first person. The narrator, Ivan Petrovich, is a poor writer and civilian intellectual in Petersburg who is just learning to write. The story describes Natasha leaving her parents and eloping with Prince Valkovsky's son Alyosha. Due to the pain, her father Nikolai Ikhmenev cursed her. Ivan was deeply in love with Natasha and despite being rejected by her, he still cared about and provided Natasha with all the assistance she needed. Duke Valkovsky ruined Alyosha's plan to marry Natasha in order to let Alyosha marry the wealthy girl Katerina. Eventually Natasha sacrifices her feelings and quits. At the same time, Ivan reaches out to the orphan girl Yelena (Nellie). Nellie's mother was abducted from home by a man and defrauded her father of all his assets. When Nellie was born, the man abandoned her and later learned that he was Duke Valkovsky. The novel begins with the sudden death of Nellie's grandfather, Jeremy Smith. It uses a structure like a detective novel to take readers to see the tragic experiences of these "insulted and damaged" people. Nellie's mother and grandfather, who were robbed and deceived by Valkovsky, both died; disaster suddenly struck the Ikhmenev family, who were also harmed and insulted by him; Ivan Petrovich's private life and literary creation plans were also destroyed. "The Insulted and Damaged" is considered by critics to be a leapfrog work in Dostoevsky's creation. It was his first time to create this kind of "ideological novel", so it is not artistically perfect yet, but it contains the germs of many ideas, images and poetics in the writer's mature period. Oscar Wilde called The Insulted and Injured "in no way inferior to the other great classics", and Nietzsche is said to have cried while reading the book.