Fyodor Dostoyevsky's work reflects the social and religious issues with which he struggled as a nobleman in tsarist Russia. Dostoyevsky channeled his experiences to create characters and plotting: tormented heroes/anti-heroes and ideologies carried to extremes with devastating consequences. His pacing is leisurely, his narrative structure varied, but Dostoyevsky's are always character-driven stories, and his straightforward writing style utilizes repetition to make his point. He presents readers with novels of depth, often focusing on class consciousness and always providing detailed psychological portraits of the characters and an examination of the times in which they lived.