 In her childhood Netochka lives in the shadow of Efimov's all-consuming artistic obsession, which initially distorts her moral sensibility, but is to become the motivation for the development of a compassionate and fearless conscience bound to her own love of artistic expression.Thus Dostoevsky wished to reject both the egoism of Romanticism, as portrayed through Efimov, and the materialism of those, like Belinsky, who wished to focus only on utilitarian and practical goals to the detriment of art.Another subject of much discussion at the time was the place of women in society, or what became known as "the woman question".