SparkNotes: The Idiot: Analysis of Major Characters Analysis of Major Characters Themes, Motifs and Symbols Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin The hero, protagonist, and title character of The Idiot, Myshkin is a descendant of an old noble line and a distant relative of Madame Yepanchin. He is a fair-haired, blue-eyed epileptic in his late twenties who comes to Russia after four years in a sanitarium in Switzerland. From the onset, Myshkin appears to be an outsider in Russian society: he dresses like a foreigner and acts as if unaware of the societal norms of the Russian aristocracy. Indeed, he is different from the other Russian aristocrats in several regards. First, Myshkin does not follow societal conventions and is not afraid of its sanctions, which mainly come in the form of ridicule. In Part I, he goes to Nastassya Filippovna's even though he has not been invited. He thinks to himself that the worst that could happen would be that the guests would laugh at him and then escort him out. Some of the other characters in the novel, such as Ganya, such shame would be absolutely terrible; for Myshkin, however, it is no big deal.

He is not afraid of being laughed at; in fact, when others laugh at him, he joins in with them. When Myshkin first visits the Yepanchins, the girls indirectly call him an ass and then laugh, but he laughs with them. Furthermore, Myshkin is very open and frank. He tells new acquaintances his personal history—including the bit about living in a sanitarium for several years—right away. He does not believe in societal small talk, instead preferring to immediately jump into a discussion of the issues that are his prime concern. For instance, when Myshkin visits the Yepanchins for the first time, he immediately talks of public executions and the story of Marie. At the "engagement" dinner party at the Yepanchins, he fervently discusses grand subjects such as religion and the future of aristocracy. However, Myshkin's is highly naïve, and he is therefore fooled by members of the high society. He takes their affected friendship for genuine and sincere feeling. Perhaps his innocence is the reason for his special affinity for children. The adult world, however, is too superficial and conventional for him. Myshkin does not take offense at anyone, no matter how horrific the character's action toward him.

After Ganya's slap, Myshkin does not hit back or challenge Ganya to a duel—a common recourse for action at the time. Instead, Myshkin tells Ganya that he should be ashamed of himself and leaves the room. In response to Burdovsky's lie that he is Pavlishchev's son, not only is Myshkin not angry, but he is also still willing to help Burdovsky financially. Even after Keller writes a slanderous and insulting article about Myshkin, the prince still makes Keller the best man at his wedding. Lebedev constantly lies to Myshkin and even tries to commit him to an insane asylum; when Lebedev admits this, Myshkin merely laughs in response. Aglaya constantly mocks and insults the prince, but this only saddens him. When Aglaya expresses any wish for reconciliation, Myshkin is ecstatic with joy. In short, Prince Myshkin does not bear grudges against anyone, even Rogozhin, who almost kills him. In light of Myshkin's seemingly impossible naïveté, virtually all the characters in the novel call him an "idiot." Prince Myshkin is perhaps the ultimate Christian ideal of humble selflessness and giving.

He attempts to help everyone he meets and always holds the needs of others above his own. In the end, he is ready to marry Nastassya Filippovna because he feels it is necessary to save her, even though he is in love with Aglaya instead. Myshkin's compassion toward others knows no boundaries. He is too good for a world corrupted by money, lust, and individual vanity. As a result, he unwittingly adds to the destruction and is destroyed himself. Anastassya Filippovna Barashkov Nastassya's dishonor at Totsky's hands leads to wallow in self-blame and sets in motion her tendency for self-destruction. She is willing to sacrifice her own life to cause pain to her offender. At the end of Part I, Ptitsyn draws the example of a Japanese custom of committing hara-kiri in front of one's offenders. Indeed, this is precisely Nastassya Filippovna's psychology. She is willing to ruin her life—by running away with Rogozhin—in order to prove that she is a shameless woman and that her torrid past is Totsky's fault.

In the end, she even willingly goes to her death, which she knows she will find in Rogozhin. Nastassya cannot overcome her spite and outrage. Although Prince Myshkin tries to help her by offering his love out of pity, she rejects his offer in the end. Not only does she deem herself unworthy of his love, but she also cannot bring herself to be with someone who loves another woman. In short, Nastassya Filippovna represents beauty and talent that has been ruined by the corruption of the world. Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin The dark-haired, dark-eyed Rogozhin represents all of the darkness of the novel's world that contrasts with the light that Prince Myshkin brings. Rogozhin's passionate love for Nastassya Filippovna leads to extreme obsession and is characterized by jealousy and violence. He beats her and ultimately stabs her to death. Rogozhin is descended from a long line of merchants, and in keeping with this heritage he tries to woo Nastassya by offering her money. His connection with money is a further sign of the degradation and moral corruption his character represents.

If Prince Myshkin is a Russian Christ, Rogozhin is a version of the Russian devil. Indeed, his last name contains the word "rog," which means "horn" in Russian. Dostoevsky contrasts Rogozhin's devouring passion with Myshkin's compassion. Although the Prince's pity is stronger than Rogozhin's all-consuming love, it is ultimately unable to save Nastassya Filippovna from death. More Help Review: The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky | Books | The Guardian by Fyodor Dostoevsky , translated by David McDuff 732pp, Penguin Classics, £7.99 The forms of 19th-century European fictions, including the Russian, have a powerful relation to older Christian stories, from the Bible to Bunyan. The novels meet the old tales with part parody, part dialogue, part rejection and reconstruction. Middlemarch opens with a paradigm of its heroine as a "later-born" St Theresa, "helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul". Dorothea's virtue cannot find a form in her modern world.

Unlike Eliot, Dostoevsky was Christian, and increasingly passionate about preserving faith. DH Lawrence, another maker of fictive prophecies and apocalypses, was reading The Idiot in 1915. "I don't like Dostoevsky," he wrote. "He is like the rat, slithering along in hate, in the shadows, and in order to belong to the light professing love, all love." It had become, he shrilled, "a supreme wickedness to set up a Christ worship as Dostoevsky did: it is the outcome of an evil will..." The central idea of The Idiot as we have it was, as Dostoevsky wrote in a letter, "to depict a completely beautiful human being". Prince Myshkin is a Russian Holy Fool, a descendant of Don Quixote, and a type of Christ in an un-Christian world. Author and character face the problem all good characters face in all novels - good in fiction is just not as interesting as wickedness, and runs the risk of repelling readers, even those less worked up than Lawrence.

There is another problem - goodness tends to mean unselfishness, and unselfishness tends to lack sexual energy, another great driving force in fictions. In the letter quoted above, written in 1868 as Dostoevsky was writing and sending out the first chapters of the novel, he acknowledges uneasily that he has seized this ambitious project prematurely, out of financial and professional desperation. The writing and publication of the novel were certainly both tortured and strained. It was written abroad, unlike his previous novels, for serial publication, put together by his second wife and stenographer, Anna Grigoryevna. Their daughter died during the writing. Dostoevsky gambled suicidally and had epileptic fits. Anna preserved the notebooks, which show that both plot and characters were in a state of fluid and volcanic chaos, even while the book was appearing. The good prince appears in the early notes as proud and demonic, and the rapist of his adopted sister (a prototype of Nastasya Filippovna). He also commits arson and wife-murder. The first part of the novel, as it appeared, is acknowledged to be powerful.

Dostoevsky appears not to have had a clear idea of how to proceed. The second two parts are phantasmagoric and rambling, unplotted and fitfully energetic. John Jones, in his excellent study of Dostoevsky, rejects The Idiot as a major work on the grounds that, alone among Dostoevsky's novels, it does not have the intricate tissue of language and punning Jones makes available to non-Russian readers. Other critics complain that the "good" prince makes everyone's life worse and achieves nothing - though in this he may be compared to the resurrected Christ of Ivan Karamazov's fable of the Grand Inquisitor. The world does not know what to do with him. I think The Idiot to be a masterpiece - flawed, occasionally tedious or overwrought, like many masterpieces - but a fact of world literature just as important as the densely dramatic Brothers Karamazov or the brilliantly subtle and terrifying Devils . In those two novels, as in the simpler Crime and Punishment , Dostoevsky had plots and political and religious ideas working together.

In The Idiot he is straining to grasp a story and a character converting themselves from Gothic to Saint's Life on the run. What makes the greatness is double -the character of the prince, and a powerful series of confrontations with death. The true subject of The Idiot is the imminence and immanence of death. The image of these things is Holbein's portrait of Christ taken down from the cross, a copy of which hangs in Rogozhin's house, and which was seen by both Dostoevsky and Prince Myshkin in Basle. It represents, we are told, a dead man who is totally flesh without life, damaged and destroyed, with no hint of a possible future resurrection. The form of the novel is shaped by the inexorable outbreak of Dostoevsky's deepest preoccupations. It is the quality of Dostoevsky's doubt and fear that is the intense religious emotion in this novel - to which Lawrence was no doubt reacting.

I had known, without fully understanding before I read this excellent new translation, that the idea of death in this novel is peculiarly pinned to the idea of execution - what I had not thought through was that in a materialist world the dead man in the painting is an executed man, whose consciousness has been brutally cut off. There is a rhythmic meditation on murder and execution in this story, at its most powerful and unbearable when Myshkin makes us confront the horror of the certainty of being about to die, of knowing that it is exactly appointed and inevitable, while the body and mind are in ordinary good health. The appalling nature of the close examination of these unimaginable emotions derives from the authority with which Dostoevsky can describe them, since he was himself condemned to death and reprieved, by an imperial whim, or display of power, as he stood in line at the scaffold behind a friend who had indeed just been killed. The novel describes the execution by guillotine of a French murderer. The unholy fool, the talkative Lebedev, takes it into his head to pray for Madame du Barry, elegant and witty, asking for another moment with the executioner's foot on her neck.

Connected to the certainty of execution is the plight of the consumptive boy, Ippolit, staring out at a blank wall, trying to make a gesture of his death (he bungles his suicide) with a paper pathetically entitled " Après moi le Déluge ". Rogozhin is not executed but transported to Siberia for his murder of Nastasya Filippovna. The prince recedes into blank idiocy after watching with the killer over the corpse. Connected to the terrible lucidity of the condemned man in the tumbril is the unearthly lucidity of the pre-epileptic aura, bliss without time or space, eternity in an instant. The images are their own meaning. Part of the problem of the plot of The Idiot is that most of the other characters appear insubstantial, and the women's capriciousness leads to a series of wild and inconclusive gestures to which it is hard to react. Much - not all - of this is to do with the problem I mentioned earlier, of the awkward relation between sexual energy and goodness. The women think they are in a story about seduction, rape, proposals, money and marriage, like most novels in the realm of the passions and economic forces.

The prince is in some absolute moral world in which he can instinctively gauge who is being cruel to whom, who is in need and who is tormenting or tormented, without having in him any genuine sexual response of his own to help him to judge his own effect on people. It is the old problem of "How could Jesus be a perfect man if he had no sexual desire or experience?" There is considerable psychological subtlety in the moment-to-moment actions and reactions of Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya, who both consider "loving" the prince for those qualities of patience and attention and kindness, which do attract both over-experienced and gawkily innocent women. Both are also, I think, repelled without knowing it by something abstract in the prince's practical virtue, which appears alternately as a deficiency of some kind, and as an alarming right to judge impartially. He isn't really in their world, and neither they nor he quite understands this. He does resemble his comic models, Don Quixote and Mr Pickwick, in that his innocence causes damage.

Quixote inhabits the first real novel, in which the old forms of romance and religion become phantasms in his head and on our page, present but shadowy. Myshkin is a later, more riddling and more tragic figure of lost absolutes. In a world where God is simply dead flesh, a good man becomes simply an idiot. AS Byatt's The Little Black Book of Stories is published by Chatto & Windus. The Idiot Essay - The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky - eNotes.com The Idiot Essay - The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky link Link The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky The following entry presents criticism of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot (1868). See also Dostoevsky Short Story Criticism and Notes from the Underground Criticism. In The Idiot Dostoevsky attempted to portray what he termed a “positively good man” in the character of Prince Myshkin.

Endowed with Christ-like spiritual attributes and professing a childlike, innocent belief in the possibility of achieving heaven on earth, Myshkin obliviously enters a Russian society corroded by avariciousness, moral corruption, and spiritual desolation. The ensuing action presents a starkly apocalyptic and pessimistic vision of how inconsequential goodness and humility are in the midst of a society on the verge of moral and spiritual disintegration. Despite Dostoevsky's best literary intentions, The Idiot has been faulted by many critics for its undeveloped characters, its artificial plot structure, and its bitter polemicism. Biographical Information Dostoevsky wrote The Idiot between 1867 and 1868, at a time when he endured dire financial and emotional difficulties. In an effort to avoid his numerous creditors, Dostoevsky and his wife fled Russia and traveled from city to city in Europe, trying to eke out a humble living. During this gloomy period of poverty, the author suffered a number of serious bouts of epilepsy, which left him in a fragile emotional and physical condition.

Some critics and biographers have speculated that Dostoevsky endowed Myshkin with epilepsy in an almost cathartic attempt to come to terms with the circumstances of his own condition. Dostoevsky also continued to succumb to his obsession with gambling, which left him desperate and penniless. Asa result, Dostoevsky realized that he needed to produce a work that would lift him out of debt and change his family's fortunes. To that end, he began work on a novel which he had promised the journal Russian Messenger. When The Idiot appeared in serial form beginning in 1868, readers responded with bewilderment to what they considered to be incomplete characters, an incoherent narrative structure, and a fantastical, unrealistic setting. Given the initial reticence of the periodical subscribers, publishers were reluctant to purchase the book rights to the novel. Indeed, readers and commentators alike considered The Idiot a step backward for Dostoevsky after the resounding popular success of his previous novel, Crime and Punishment (1867). Plot and Major Characters The Idiot begins with the meeting of Prince Myshkin and Parfen Rogozhin on a train traveling from Switzerland to St. Petersburg.

Myshkin had been receiving treatment for epilepsy in a Swiss sanatorium, and now was on his way to visit his distant relatives, the Epanchins, in Russia. At first, Myshkin is welcomed into the upper-class society as something of a curiosity, a penniless and childlike character upon whom the cynical group focuses with amusement. Almost immediately upon arriving, Myshkin makes clear his dream to influence all of his acquaintances on the merits of living a life of honesty and humility. Little does he know that the group he intends to influence includes Rogozhin, a sinister and jealous predator, who is Myshkin's alter-ego; Ganya Ivolgin, General Epanchin's greedy and ruthless secretary, who will consider any means to amass personal wealth; Ippolit Terentev, a terminally ill intellectual who arrogantly flouts Myshkin's naïve spirituality; and Nastasya Filippovna, a haughty and beautiful woman who, as a young girl, was seduced by her guardian, Afanasii Totsky, and who now schemes to exact revenge on him.

Despite his good intentions, Myshkin succeeds in embarrassing and offending nearly everyone with whom he comes in contact, but his presence, however awkward, becomes tolerated when he receives a sizable inheritance from a distant relative. Myshkin's naïve, oblivious actions set into motion a number of events which culminate in the novel's tragic conclusion. Through his platonic admiration of Nastasya Filoppovna, Myshkin unwittingly makes himself a rival for her hand in marriage, sending her other suitor, Rogozhin, into a jealous rage. Rogozhin's fury leads to the attempted murder of Myshkin and, later, the murder of Filippovna herself in the climax of the novel. Myshkin's actions also affect the lives of other characters, such as Aglaya Epanchin, the general's daughter, with whom Myshkin has a budding romantic relationship, and Ivolgin, who has designs on Aglaya for himself. In the tragic conclusion, the chaos and social disintegration of the Russian society finally overwhelms Myshkin's innocent idealism.

Ippolit has died, Filippovna has been murdered, Rogozhin has been incarcerated, Aglaya runs away from Russia, and Myshkin regresses into a state of childlike idiocy. Major Themes The central theme of The Idiot revolves around the main character, Prince Myshkin. Dostoevsky represents him as a young man whose emotional and intellectual development has been arrested by the circumstances surrounding his illness. Although physically he is a man, he has the innocent personality of a child. In this regard, Myshkin represents a Christ-like figure, a character of innate goodness, who believes that humility and brotherly love can transform the earth into a kind of heaven where all humankind can live in harmony. However, Myshkin's innate goodness contends with an overpowering antithesis in the form of the morally and spiritually corrosive Russian aristocracy with whom he associates. Here, Dostoevsky carefully contrives an elaborate allegorical structure to accentuate the conflict between Myshkin and his acquaintances.

The author employs a vast array of images, proper names, geographic places, physical descriptions, and biblical references to evoke moral decay, social chaos, and a pessimistic vision of the current spiritual state of Russia. Further, this spiritual decline signals an apocalyptic omen for Dostoevsky, and he integrates this idea into the fabric of his story as well. The characters' hysterical preoccupations with amassing wealth, sexual conquest, intellectual egotism, and power all reflect the author's fatalistic belief that the Russian civilization was on the verge of a moral and spiritual collapse which could very likely herald the Apocalypse prophesied in the Book of Revelations. The fact that Myshkin ultimately succumbs to the vortex of deceit and spiritual destruction that surrounds him reflects Dostoevsky's bleak conclusion that there is no hope of reversing the encroaching moral decay in contemporary Russia. Critical Reception From the time of the publication of The Idiot, readers and commentators alike have been highly dissatisfied with what they perceive as loosely drawn characters, an incoherent narrative, and an artificial structural unity in the work. It has been suggested that these issues perhaps reflect the difficult circumstances under which Dostoevsky wrote his novel.

Literary scholars have combed Dostoevsky's letters and notebooks in an effort to determine why a novel of such promising scope and intention ended up as such an artistic failure. Indeed, in recent decades many critics have attempted to salvage the literary merits of The Idiot, arguing that while the novel might be structurally deficient, it is also rich in esoteric spiritual and philosophical insights. In fact, one critic, Robert Hollander (1974) has perceptively argued that Dostoevsky ingeniously integrated the apocalyptic vision of the Book of Revelations into the structural framework of The Idiot to unify the characters and narrative action of the novel. Other critics have analyzed the etymological significance of the characters' names as well as geographic places and iconographic images to demonstrate how Dostoevsky employed biblical allusions to underscore the major themes and symbols in the novel.

Commentators have also focused on the character of Prince Myshkin, debating the success or failure of Dostoevsky's attempt at creating a “positively good man.” While some commentators have asserted that the author set himself up for a nearly impossible task and, as a result, created an implausible and unrealistic character, others have maintained that the author endowed Myshkin with a sophisticated combination of ethereal spiritual attributes and inescapable human flaws which make him a compelling and ultimately tragic figure. Indeed, critics such as Janet G. Tucker (1997) have argued that the time has come to move beyond the simplistic view that Myshkin is merely a one-dimensional, Christ-like character. According to Tucker, “considering Myshkin solely or even primarily in these terms strips both the hero and novel of significant gradations of complexity crucial to understanding both.” More Content: The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky (hide) Text of "Thoughts on Dostoevsky's The Idiot" by Hermann Hesse By Hermann Hesse Translated from the German by Stephen Hudson Dostoevsky's Idiot, Prince Lyov Myshkin, has often been compared with Christ.

Of course such a comparison can be made. One can compare with the Saviour every man who lays bare magical truth, who no longer separates thought from life, and, who on that account lives a life of solitude among hostile neighbours. From that point of view there seems to be no great likeness between Myshkin and Jesus. Only one trait in Myshkin's character, but that an important one, appears to me as Christlike. I allude to his timid, morbid purity. The secret fear of sex and of procreation is a trait which must be reckoned with in the message of Christ for it plays a distinct part in his world mission. Even the superficial portrait of Jesus by Renan does not entirely overlook this feature. But it is curious--little as I sympathize with the constant comparison between Myshkin and Christ--that I also see the two intermingled in some strange fashion. This occurred to me only latterly and in connexion with a point of comparative insignificance. It came into my mind one day, while I was thinking of the Idiot, that my first thought of him was always an apparently secondary one.

in the first flash of my imagination, I always see him in one particular minor side-scene, in itself not specially significant. And so it is with Christ. When any association suggests to me a presentation of Jesus or when the word of Christ meets my ear or my eye, then I never see Him on the Cross or in the desert, or as a miracle-worker or as a raiser of the dead. I see Him in that moment when He drinks the cup of solitude to the dregs in the Garden of Gethsemane, when His soul is torn by the agony of death through which He must pass to His higher birth, and how He then in a last moving and childlike longing for comfort, turns to His disciples. He turns to them for a little human warmth, for a fleeting illusion of affection in the midst of His bitter loneliness. He turns to them--and the disciples are asleep. There lie excellent Peter and beautiful John; they are all asleep together, these worthy men, about whom Christ in His goodness has experienced disappointments over and over again.

He has shared His thoughts with them as though they understood His words, as though it were in actual fact possible to communicate His thoughts to such as these, to arouse in them something like a vibration of kinship, something akin to understanding, to relationship, to unity with Himself. And now in the moment of unbearable torment, He turns to these few comrades He has. He is so utterly human, so utterly alone, so utterly the Man of Suffering, that He would now approach them as never before, to find some poor solace, some poor support in any stupid word they might utter, even in a friendly gesture. But no, they are not even there--they are sleeping, snoring. This cruel moment, in what way I know not, seared itself into my mind in early youth, and. when I think of Jesus, unfailingly it springs into my memory. The parallel with Myshkin is this. When I think of The Idiot, I an apparently unimportant moment bursts upon me in the same way. In that case also the moment is one of incredible isolation, of tragic solitude.

The scene I have in mind is that evening in Paslovsk in the Lebedyevs' house, when the prince, convalescent, some days after his epileptic attack, receives the visit of the whole Epanchin family. Into this society, serene and elegant, in spite of tensions and hidden fires beneath, there suddenly bursts a band of young revolutionaries and nihilists. The wretched youth Ippolit with the pretended "Son of Pavlishtchev," with the "Boxer" and the other Individual make their appearance. Then comes that disagreeable, repellent scene, a scene which one reads with equal excitement and disgust. These shallow-minded and misled youths stand upon the stage, naked in their helpless malignity. Every single one of their words inflicts a double pain upon Myshkin, the pain of their effect upon himself and the pain caused by the revelation of their own souls through every word they utter. This strange and unforgettable scene, though not in itself particularly weighty is the one to which I referred. On the one side a company of elegant people, people of the world, rich, powerful, and conservative.

On the other the raging young anarchists, inexorable in their hostility, caring only to gratify their spite against everything that exists, with consideration for no one and, in spite of their rhetorical pretence of intellectuality, wild, foolish, trashy. Between these two parties, the prince, alone, exposed to the fire of both, regarded with equal distrust by both. And how does the situation end? Myshkin, in spite of small mistakes, due to his agitation, reveals his sweet, tender, childlike nature. He smilingly accepts affront and insult, answers the most shameless with a Christlike selflessness, is ready to accept all the fault, to take upon himself all the blame and exactly in such a way as to incur the full weight of odium, displeasure, and contempt from both sides-not from one side or the other, but from both. All turn away from him, for he has trodden on the toes of all. One moment more and the extremest social antagonisms, differences in ages and opinions are wiped out. All are completely united in a common resentment against the single clean one amongst them. Upon what turns the impracticability of a being such as the Idiot in this world?

Why does no one understand this man whom almost all somehow or other love, whose tenderness is so sympathetic to all as to lead to a sort of transfiguration? What separates this magical creature from ordinary men? Why are they right when they turn aside from him? Why must they necessarily do so? Why must he be like Christ who was deserted not only by the world, but even by His own disciples? It is because the Idiot thinks other thoughts than the rest of the world. It is not because his thinking is less logical or more childlike than theirs. His thinking is that which I call "magical." This compassionate Idiot denies the whole of Life, all thinking and feeling, all that the world and reality mean to others. For him Reality is something entirely different than for them. Their Reality is for him a shadow: For that reason, because he sees and offers a new Reality, he becomes the enemy. The difference is not that they esteem highly such values as power and wealth, family and state, and that he does not. It is not that he stands for the Spirit while they stand for the Material or what-every way one likes to put it. That is not the reason.

For the Idiot, too, material concerns matter, he invariably recognizes the significance of such things even though he does not consider them of prime importance. His gospel is not an ascetic-Indian ideal, a dying to the world of apparent reality to make the joy of the immortal soul which alone shall know Truth. No, Myshkin would readily come to an understanding with other people regarding the mutual claims of Nature and spirit and on the necessity of their working together. It is simply that while the simultaneity and equivalue of both worlds is for them an intellectual concept, for him these considerations constitute Life and Reality. This is not clear. Let us try to elucidate the matter. Myshkin is different from others because, as an Idiot and an epileptic who is at the same time an exceptionally clever man, he has much closer and less obscure relationships with the Unconscious. He has had rare instants of intuitive perception, occasional seconds of transcendent exaltation. For a lightning moment he has felt the all-being, the all-feeling, the all-suffering, the all-understanding. He has known all that is in the world. There lies the kernel of his magical being.

He has not studied and is not endowed with, mystical wisdom, he has not even aspired to it. He has simply experienced the thing itself. He has not merely had occasional significant thoughts and ideas. He has literally, once and more than once, stood on the magic borderland where everything is affirmed, where not only the remotest thought is true, but also the contrary of such thought. That is the fearful part of it, that is the part of him rightly feared. by others. He does not stand quite alone, not all the world is against him. There are a few people, very doubtful, risky, dangerous people who stand in close relationship to him. Rogozhin, Nastasya. He is understood by criminals and by hystericals; he, the innocent, the gentle child. But this child is not so soft as he seems. His innocence is not so harmless and men are rightly in awe of him. The Idiot is, as I said, from time to time near that borderland where every thought and its opposite are equally true.

That is, he has an intuitive perception that no thought, no law, no mould, no form exist which are true and right except as regarded from one pole-and every pole has its opposite. The situation of a pole, the taking up, that is to say, of a position from which to view and order the world, is the first stage in the foundation of every cultural form, of every society and morality. Whosoever considers Spirit and Nature, Spirit and Freedom, Good and Evil as interchangeable, if only for a moment, is the deadliest foe of every order of civilization. For there begins the contrary of Order; there begins Chaos. A line of thought which turns back to the Unconscious, to Chaos, disturbs every human system of order. It was once said to the Idiot that it was lamentable he no longer told only the truth. So it was. Truth is everything. It is possible to say "Yes" to everything. But, to order the world, to achieve material results, to render possible Law, Society, Organization, Culture, and Morality, No must follow Yes. The world must be polarized, it must be divided against itself into Good and Evil.

Establish every No, every prohibited thing, every wickedness upon a foundation sufficiently solid to make it accepted law and as soon as such law is enforced, as soon as it becomes the basis of a new mode of viewing things, a new order, it equally becomes absolute and sacred. Highest Reality in the sense of human culture is the division of the World into Light and Dark, Good and Evil, Allowed and Forbidden. Highest Reality for Myshkin is the magical experience of the reversibility of all institutional. forms, of the existence of a negative equivalent to all moral values. The Idiot finally considered, introduces the Mother-claim of the Unconscious, he is the blaster of Civilization. He does not break the Tables of the Law, he simply turns them round and shows that the contrary to them is written on the other side. It is the secret of this terrifying book that this enemy of Order, this fearful destroyer does not appear as a malefactor but as a charming, shy creature full of childlike grace, full of warm-hearted, unselfish goodness. Dostoevsky drew upon the depths of his imagination when he made this man a diseased epileptic.

All Dostoevsky's harbingers of a new and fearful and sinister future, all his forerunners of Chaos are enigmatic, burdened with pain and disease, Rogozhin, Nastasya, the four Karamazovs: all are represented as strange, exceptional beings, but in such a way that their eeriness and soul-sickness inspire that sort of awed veneration that the Asiatics feel for the insane. The remarkable and peculiar thing is not that an epileptic of genius between fifty and sixty years old had such fantasies and made an epic of them. The significant, the ominous consideration is that during three decades the youth of Europe has more and more been accepting these books as full of prophetic gravity. Another strange thing is that we look these criminals, hystericals, and idiots of Dostoevsky in the face in quite a different way from that in which we regard the criminals or fools in other novels, even in novels we have affection for. It is strange and uncanny to realize that in some curious way we love these bad people, to realize that there must be in us something akin to them, something that is like them.

This does not come about by chance and still less has it anything to do with the obvious and literary in Dostoevsky's work. Puzzling as are certain of his characteristics--consider only the way he bears one forward towards a solidly constructed psychology of the Unconscious--we are not surprised at his work being the finished expression of a highly developed insight nor at its artistic interpretation of a daily world with which we are thoroughly familiar. What actually impresses us is its prophetic import, its foreshadowing of a disintegration and of a Chaos into which we have during these last years seen Europe obviously descending. It is not as though this world of Dostoevsky's were a picture of the future in an ideal sense. No one will accept it as that. No, we do not feel that Myshkin and the rest afford us a prefiguration in the sense of "This is what you must become." It is something different, but fully as significant: "We must pass through this. This is our Destiny." The future is uncertain, but the road which he shows can have but one meaning. It means a new spiritual dispensation.

This takes us beyond Myshkin, it points towards magical thinking, to the acceptance of Chaos, to a return to anarchy, back into the unconscious. into formlessness, into the beast, back far beyond the beast, back to the beginnings of everything. Not to stay there, not to become beast or primeval matter, but to start in a fresh direction, to discover new springs of development and action deep down m the roots of our being in order to reach to a higher and nobler creation and valuation and division of the world. No programme can teach us to find this road, no revolution will cast down the walls that we may enter into it. Each one must approach it alone, each one for himself. Each one of us must in one hour of his life stand on the threshold of the borderland where Myshkin stood, where truths cease and new ones begin. Each one of us must once, for one moment in his life, experience something of what Myshkin experienced in his flashlight seconds, of what Dostoevsky himself experienced in that moment when he stood facing his condemnation and with prophetic vision took his way onward.

Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List Summary The details of Nastasya's melodramatic birthday evening and the whereabouts of Prince Myshkin, Nastasya, and Rogozhin are gossiped about for many months. In the Epanchin family, however, it is some time before the prince's name is mentioned; by silent consent, the family avoids the subject. Significantly, however, the family's curiosity about their strange relative remains, despite such diversions as Ganya's serious illness, his resignation from the general's staff, Varvara's marriage to Ptitsyn, and her new friendship with the Epanchin girls. At last, Mme. Epanchin receives a letter from an old friend in Moscow, "old Byelokonsky," informing her that the prince has become a favorite of hers and that he has been received in several good homes. The silence is broken; Myshkin can be spoken of without embarrassment. The news about Myshkin is alarming, but not surprising: His fortune is indeed very large but is less than a million and a half rubles. Scores of creditors have pressed their claims (many nonexistent) on the money and the prince has satisfied them all.

Such extravagant goodness, especially as concerns money, is distressing to the Epanchins. Besides the rumors surrounding Prince Myshkin, there are also vague reports that drift back to Petersburg concerning Nastasya Filippovna. It seems that after the orgy at Ekaterinhof, Nastasya vanished in Moscow, was found by Rogozhin, ran away, was found again, and just before being married to Rogozhin, vanished for a third time. Disappearing simultaneously, it is said, was Prince Myshkin. Again Myshkin's name and doings are forbidden in the Epanchin household, and again there are diversions: First, the proposed marriage of Totsky to Alexandra does not take place; second, a certain Prince S., from Moscow, arrives in Petersburg, courts Adelaida Epanchin, proposes, and the wedding is set for the middle of the summer. Also at this time a distant relative of Prince S., Yevgeny Pavlovitch Radomsky, arrives in Petersburg and, it is believed, is enamored with Aglaia.

Thus wedding details crowd the thoughts of the Epanchins, plus such other affairs as these: General Ivolgin is put into debtors' prison; Varya and Ptitsyn move to the other end of Petersburg; and Kolya Ivolgin and Varya are frequent visitors in the Epanchin household. This adolescent boy reads to the women, is extraordinarily frank with them, quarrels with them, but remains on good terms with the family. It is Kolya, in fact, who is responsible for bringing the subject of Prince Myshkin back into the Epanchin circle. Myshkin sends Aglaia a brief note, saying that he needs her and that he desires her happiness; curiously, he signs it "Your brother." Aglaia is troubled by the letter's ambiguity and questions Kolya, who acts as messenger, but remains unsatisfied. Analysis This chapter is direct narration. We learn, in summary, what is rumored to have happened during the months Myshkin, Nastasya, and Rogozhin were in Moscow, and we also learn what the Epanchin family was doing during these several months.

In a way, the narrative is disappointing because of the tight dramatic structure of previous chapters; all the chapters concerned the activities of one-day — a Wednesday in late November — Nastasya Filippovna's twenty-fifth birthday. The section began at about nine o'clock in the morning and finished late that same night. The action built slowly, dialogue being interspersed with background information; then, Myshkin's character was brought to life by the stories he told. There was a tense confrontation between the three principal characters in the Ivolgin household and we witnessed the birthday party of Nastasya Filippovna. Here, again, all three principals were together and, after tempers exploded, all three vanished into the night. After this section, therefore, our emotions are primed and we are ready for further adventure. But Dostoevsky does not satisfy us so quickly. The second part of the novel is calm, much the same way that the second movement of a symphony is slow and restful. After sixteen chapters of some of his best writing, it is regrettable that Dostoevsky does not devote an entire section to what happened in Moscow-but he does not.

We wait for it and think that perhaps, as often does happen in a Dostoevsky novel, there will be a chapter or two of flashback telling us about important events which have already occurred. We are disappointed and feel a bit cheated, for there are only hints about Myshkin's stay in Moscow with Nastasya and Rogozhin during the rest of the book. One last matter in this chapter requiring commentary is Myshkin's letter to Aglaia. The girl is bewildered by it. The prince says he needs her, yet he signs it "your brother." If he desires her, is it, we wonder, as a suitor (sexually), or is it as a brother (platonically)? She bursts out laughing when she notices the title of the book she has tucked Myshkin's letter into: it is Don Quixote. She is being wooed, in other words, by an idiot-knight! Absurd, she thinks, and finally is insulted that perhaps she might be only a symbol to Myshkin and not a woman and that Kolya knows of the ambiguous situation and may gossip.

Aglaia will not be made fun of, an attitude that recurs again and again in this novel. Like everyone else, Aglaia does not want to be made ridiculous; she will not be a part of the idiot's fantasy world. SparkNotes: The Idiot: Themes, Motifs and Symbols Themes, Motifs and Symbols Part I, Chapters 1–2 Themes The Ideal Human Being In The Idiot Dostoevsky attempts to portray the ideal man—a "positively beautiful individual." Prince Myshkin represents all the qualities Dostoevsky deems the best aspects of a human being. First, he is frank and open; unlike other members of high society such as Ganya and General Yepanchin, Myshkin does not hide his true feelings behind a veneer of friendliness in order to gain something or to merely maintain appearances. The prince always says what is on his mind, regardless of whether it is perfectly appropriate for the social setting. Prince Myshkin is also very meek.

In contrast to other characters—Ganya, who considers his self and reputation more important than anything else in life; Nastassya Filippovna, who cares more about her own shame than Myshkin's or Aglaya's happiness; Hippolite, who cannot accept death without making some sort of memorable statement—Myshkin does not think about himself at all. Unlike the other characters, many of whom constantly try to assert themselves, Myshkin is very altruistic. Not only is he humble, but he is also very giving and compassionate. These seemingly perfect traits of man come into headlong collision with a corrupt world. The Clash Between Good and the Real World What happens when the ideal human being comes into the real world? In Dostoevsky's view, the ideal man does not bring good, but rather his own goodness is inverted and manipulated, leading to the destruction of both himself and his ideal. The world that Prince Myshkin enters is one of moral corruption and decay, with money as the object of principal importance.

In this world, money not only makes one a better human being (Ganya, for example, believes it can cure his mediocrity), but it can also obtain one a beautiful bride (the various men bid for Nastassya Filippovna). No one deems Prince Myshkin a good husband for Aglaya, while nearly everyone considers Ptitsyn—an emblem of mediocrity who has enriched himself through usury—la most respectable match. Beautiful, intelligent women such as Nastassya Filippovna, are dishonored and consequently destroyed. The world of the novel is also full of drunks (Lebedev, General Ivolgin, Ferdyshchenko, Rogozhin and his company) and rogues (Lebedev, Doktorenko, Keller, Ferdyshchenko and others). Practically everyone else, such as the Ptitsyns and the Ivolgins, is ordinary. High society is full of superficial nothings along with others—such as General Yepanchin—who have behaved in an obsequious manner to these nothings in order to gain a high position.

Though Myshkin is infinitely morally superior to the world he enters, his effect on this world is ultimately zero—a mix of positive and negative. Though Myshkin attempts to help those around him, he drives several of them—General Ivolgin, Nastassya Filippovna, Aglaya—to destruction. The failure of Myshkin's compassion to save those about whom he cares most, especially Nastassya Filippovna, drives him to insanity. Russian Christianity and Redemption Prince Myshkin is a Christ figure, though Dostoevsky adds what he believes to be a Russian element to this messiah. Myshkin describes religion as an immensely strong feeling similar to the joy God feels for his creation—a feeling he recognizes when he sees a young mother joyously nursing her baby. Much like the idea that religion is a feeling rather than a set of rules that one follows, Myshkin Christ-like character can also be reduced to a feeling: his immense compassion and love for others. Dostoevsky explores the idea of redemption in a series of characters who are condemned. Myshkin, during his first meeting with the Yepanchins, tries to imagine the feelings of a condemned man prior to his execution.

Later on, the novel unravels characters who—much like the man standing near the scaffold and awaiting his execution—stand on the brink of ruin. Such characters include the Swiss woman Marie, Nastassya Filippovna, Hippolite, Rogozhin, General Ivolgin, and even Aglaya. Myshkin offers some sort of hope—if not the complete reversal of the death sentence, then at least the softening of the psychological suffering it inflicts upon the condemned. The Idiot is also full of sinners, from harmless drunkards like General Ivolgin to habitual liars and rogues like Ferdyshchenko, Lebedev, Keller, Doktorenko and even murderers like Rogozhin. Prince Myshkin spends a considerable amount of time with all of these sinners, even after many of them have committed offenses against him. They need the prince morally and spiritually; his attempts at assisting them even after their affronts represent the ultimate in selfless compassion. Motifs Beauty Beauty surfaces in various forms in the novel. Everyone marvels at Nastassya Filippovna's beauty. Aglaya is renowned for her beauty. The Yepanchin girls mention that beauty is power.

Myshkin remarks that beauty is an enigma. During the engagement party at the Yepanchins the Prince exclaims that beauty can be found in all of God's creation. Pervading the novel is a sort of spiritual beauty to the character of Prince Myshkin and to the love he displays toward all the other characters. Indeed, such beauty is an enigma because it is a feeling and, therefore, impossible to define. Significantly, by the end of The Idiot, all the examples of beauty in the novel, including Nastassya Filippovna, Aglaya, and Myshkin, are ruined. Light and Dark Dostoevsky strikes a contrast between light and dark from the outset, juxtaposing descriptions of Rogozhin's dark hair and eyes with Myshkin's light hair. Practically everything that involves Rogozhin is dark—his appearance, his house, the hall in which he tries to kill Myshkin, and the study in which he kills Nastassya Filippovna. Darkness is also frequently associated with Nastassya Filippovna: she wears a dark dress at the evening party, and thinking of her makes Myshkin think of darkness.

Myshkin, on the other hand, writes the letter to Aglaya as to his "light." Aglaya's name itself also means "light." The contrast between light and dark emphasizes the contrast between the goodness of the prince and the corruption of the world around him. This contrast also underlines the different effects Nastassya Filippovna and Aglaya have on Myshkin: while the former fills his soul with darkness, the latter fills it with light. Love Dostoevsky gives examples of many types of love: love out of vanity, passion, romantic love, and pity. Ganya's affection for Aglaya is vain love; he is not willing to sacrifice all for it, as we see in Part I when he asks Aglaya for some kind of insurance before he is willing to break off his engagement with Nastassya Filippovna. Rogozhin's feelings toward Nastassya Filippovna exemplify all-devouring passion; this kind of love approaches hate and is very destructive, both to the lover and the object of love.

Both Nastassya Filippovna and Aglaya exemplify romantic love in their feelings toward Prince Myshkin, who in return loves Aglaya with romantic love. Finally, the strongest love of all in the novel is compassionate love, or pity, embodied in Myshkin and directed particularly strongly toward Nastassya Filippovna. Symbols Money Money is one of the greatest temptations for man; in the corrupted world of The Idiot, virtually everyone aside from the Prince and Nastassya Filippovna has succumbed to greed. Ganya is willing to do almost anything in his passion for money—even marry someone he despises and of whom his family strongly disapproves. General Ivolgin desires money to support his drinking habit and also because it is the only way for him to spend time with his mistress, Madame Terentyev. Lebedev is willing to put his hands into the fireplace in order to retrieve the package with 100,000 rubles that Nastassya Filippovna discards.

No one at Nastassya Filippovna's pays any attention to Myshkin until the moment he announces his inheritance; after he does so, he is surrounded by claimants who desire his money. Those like Burdovsky and his gang even go so far as to lie to try to get some of the prince's money. In the society of The Idiot, money not only creates one's fortune—Ptitsyn's, for example—it also obtains one a bride. "Bids" for Nastassya Filippovna range from 75,000 rubles to 100,000 to over a million. Money, then, is a clear symbol of the perversion of human values in the novel. Rogozhin's House The dark and stifling dwelling of the Rogozhin family symbolizes the Rogozhin's lifestyle. Its darkness is symbolic of the man himself: both his physical appearance and his inner world are filled with jealousy, obsession, and aggression. Much like the iron bars on the windows of the house, Rogozhin's passion is stifling. His love for Nastassya Filippovna is oppressing.

The Monster in Hippolite's Dream In the course of reading his "Essential Statement," Hippolite describes a dream that features a horrific monster about to devour him. This ugly monster fills him with terrible fear. On a psychological level, the monster represents nature as Hippolite sees it—a force that is about to devour him through a death from consumption. On a broader scale, however, the monster represents the ugliness and corruption within the society Dostoevsky portrays in The Idiot. The moral decay we see everywhere threatens to devour the characters in within the novel much as the monster threatens to destroy Hippolite in his dream. More Help Fyodor Dostoevsky - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss. Fyodor Dostoevsky Biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian novelist, journalist, short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the human soul had a profound influence on the 20th century novel. Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a former army doctor. He was educated at home and at a private school.

Shortly after the death of his mother in 1837 he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Army Engineering College. In 1839 Dostoevsky's father died probably of apoplexy but there were strong rumors that he was murdered by his own serfs. Dostoevsky graduated as a military engineer, but resigned in 1844 to devote himself to writing. His first novel, Poor Folk appeared in 1846. It was followed by The Double, which depicted a man who was haunted by a look-alike who eventually usurps his position. In 1846 he joined a group of utopian socialists. He was arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment in Siberia. Dostoevsky spent four years in hard labor and four years as a soldier in Semipalatinsk. Dostoevsky returned to St.

Petersburg in 1854 as a writer with a religious mission and published three works that derive in different ways from his Siberia experiences: The House of the Dead, (1860) a fictional account of prison life, The Insulted and Injured, which reflects the author's refutation of naive Utopianism in the face of evil, and Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, his account of a trip to Western Europe. In 1857 Dostoevsky married Maria Isaev, a 29-year old widow. He resigned from the army two years later. Between the years 1861 and 1863 he served as editor of the monthly periodical Time, which was later suppressed because of an article on the Polish uprising. In 1864-65 his wife and brother died and he was burdened with debts, and his situation was made even worse by gambling. From the turmoil of the 1860s emerged Notes from the Underground, psychological study of an outsider, which marked a watershed in Dostoevsky's artistic development. The novel starts with the confessions of a mentally ill narrator and continues with the promise of spiritual rebirth.

It was followed by Crime and Punishment, (1866) an account of an individual's fall and redemption, The Idiot, (1868) depicting a Christ-like figure, Prince Myshkin, and The Possessed, (1871) an exploration of philosophical nihilism. In 1867 Dostoevsky married Anna Snitkin, his 22-year old stenographer, who seems to have understood her husband's manias and rages. They traveled abroad and returned in 1871. By the time of The Brothers Karamazov, which appeared in 1879-80, Dostoevsky was recognized in his own country as one of its great writers. An epileptic all his life, Dostoevsky died in St. Petersburg on February 9, 1881. He was buried in the Aleksandr Nevsky monastery, St. Petersburg. The above biography is copyrighted. Do not republish it without permission. Forum Discussions on Fyodor Dostoevsky Recent Forum Posts on Fyodor Dostoevsky Was Dostoevsky a poor stylist?

Was Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian author and master, a bad stylist? The thought often comes up in some circles that, while Dostoevsky was a genius when it came to creating great stories and rich characters, he was a bad stylist, and some who read Russian have claimed that Dostoevsky was a sloppy stylist and that his real genius was in storytelling and characterization rather than in style (another of the "storytelling vs style" issues). However, there are also those who argue that while his style is flawed, it's actually genius due to its handle of polyphony, its convulsive tone, its raw passion. Richard Pevear, one of the most respected translators of Russian literature, had this... Posted By ajvenigalla in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 1 Reply Translations of Dostoyevsky I am reading Crime and Punishment for the third time but this time in German translation from the old Piper Verlag edition of the 1920's. The novel is called Raskomlikov and not Crime and Punishment.

It has started me thinking about all the translations of Dostoyevsky in different languages and how different translations can affect one's view of any great writer. My initial impression (only an impression-I have made no scientific comparison of specific extracts yet) at the moment is that the characters in the German version do not seem to be not quite so mad and peremptory as they appear in the two English translations and the characters are easier to identitfy and remember! I cannot say why... Posted By Yorick Jenkins in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 0 Replies Question about a quote! Hello my friends. I would like to ask you from which book is a quotation related to the no existence of time. There is a discussion between two people and one of them asks the other why he has a watch that is broken. The other answers that time does not exist. Thank you in advance for your answer!... Posted By lio13 in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 0 Replies Dostoevsky's question... Does anyone have an answer?

=) Don't you think there are many more men in the world thieves than not thieves, and that there isn't a man in the world so honest that he has never once in his life stolen anything? That's my idea, from which I don't conclude, however, that all men are thieves; though, goodness knows, I've often been tempted to. What do you think? #The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky... Posted By Nazish in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 9 Replies Notes From Underground Translations For a while now I have been wanting to get more into Russian literature, particularly Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. All I have read before is Crime and Punishment, which I very much want to read again. I have been a little anxious, if truth be told, about finding the right translations of these works. I read all the translation threads that show up on the forums, and I recognize that there will never be a perfect solution to this problem besides learning Russian (or any other language) So, to try to compare for myself, I just read two different translations of Notes From Underground back to back.

First I read the Pevear/Volokhonsky version, then Garnett. The differences I n... Posted By KilgoreT in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 0 Replies Dostoevsky and beauty One thing i remember noticing in Dostoevsky's work is that he appears to have at the same time a pre-occupation with beauty, and also one which is not analysed at all. Some examples of beauty playing a part in his characters: Raskolnicov is described as very beautiful. I always thought that he made it that way so as to have the readers avoid some explanation of his misery by means of frustration with women. In the "pitiful tale" there is a character who is almost only described as "very good looking boy". He acts in an angelic way. The narrator of The Underground introduces himself by claiming he is repulsive (i trust physically as well as ethically). In the vast ocean of his wo... Posted By Kyriakos in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 2 Replies Non Volokhonsky/Pevear translations?

The couple have translated 9 novels * The Brothers Karamazov (1990) * Crime and Punishment (1992) * Notes from Underground (1993) * Demons (1994) * The Eternal Husband and Other Stories (1997) * The Idiot (2002) * The Adolescent (2003) * The Double (2005) * The Gambler (2005) But what about the 6 novels the pair haven't translated, can anyone assist me with recommendations for the best English translations for the following 6 Dostoevsky novels (if there is a English translation available)? 1846 Poor Folk (also called Poor People) short novel 1849 Netochka Nezvanovna medium novel 1859 The Uncle's Dream [/... Posted By DonovanTalbot in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 2 Replies The Eternal Husband What are we to make of the ending of this novella?

The Eternal Husband, a late work of Dostoevsky, alludes to an affair a decade earlier between Velchaninov and a married woman, the siren Natalia, and the subsequent relationship between the man and her husband, Pavel Pavlovich, who knowingly has brought along 'his' young daughter, Liza, almost certainly a product of the affair. Every scene starts with Velchaninov, and none ends before he and Pavel Pavlovich interact. We tend to see the action though Velchaninov's eyes, but Pavel Pavlovich viewpoint is perhaps the more fascinating. Towards the end, can we assume that Pavel Pavlovich, having returned Liza to her genetic fath... Posted By Gladys in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 4 Replies Best Book- in your opinion, of course I finished reading Crime and Punishment a few months ago, and I really liked it. Maybe because the main character was the perfect portrayal of someone who is somewhat crazy and incredibly sad(I know, he acted just like my dad). Maybe because poor people are exemplified. Maybe because I could relate a little bit to the plot.

Maybe because many of the characters(Porfiry, Raskolnikov, Sonya, Marmelodov, Svidrigailov) were very interesting to me. Maybe just because it was a good book. So anyway, I want to know what is considered Dostoyevsky's greatest work, so that I don't read it yet. I don't want to read it because I think it must be the greatest work in all of literature, and I don't want to ... Posted By Oniw17 in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 7 Replies My Island; Crime & Punishment vs. Brothers Karamazov A wee bit of a confessional here folks. I was more moved by C&P than BK. There, I've said it. Hardly the most intimate of feelings, yet I do feel as if I've been stranded on a bit of an island for the aforementioned opinion. Perhaps defining 'moved' would be apropos. C&P is hardly uplifting, yet I'd be remiss to not extol its visceral virtues. I've never felt such sheer intensely for the written word as I have than when I'd been tugged inside the tormented mind of Raskolnikov.

His narrowed world was such a dizzying, unrelenting one, and one of the least pleasurable ones to boot. While literature at its finest can be provocative and pleasurable, the frenetic tone & depth to this story... Posted By Brad Coelho in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 5 Replies How would i show that the female characters in C&P are not trodden personalities but strong characters? this refers mostly to the main charecters, like Dunya and Sonya. even nastasya might work. thanks... Posted By Gustav in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 1 Reply I know this quote is Nietzsche's, but can anyone tell me where I can find this quote in his writing? Does anyone know the source?... Posted By Dori in Dostoevsky, Fyodor || 2 Replies Prince Lyov Myshkin Prince Lyov Myshkin Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List Dostoevsky was almost successful in creating the "perfectly good man" in The idiot. Myshkin is indeed "perfectly good," but the question of whether or not he is truly a man is at the core of the book's tragedy.

Myshkin's behavior and his attitudes are as close to being ideal as were those of knights-errant — or Christ; but knights (Don Quixote, for example) and Christ are figures incompatible with the real world of basic, animal self-interest and passion. Myshkin is another of those heroes from Western literature and from the Bible whom we are taught to admire, yet whom we learn — from experience — not to emulate too closely if we are to survive. Myshkin is impulsively honest; we admire his honesty but we learn early when to be honest and how to be truthful; we learn the art of telling the truth and of being tactful. Also, we learn not to trust, as Myshkin trusts, proven liars and hypocrites. And, we also know, as Myshkin does not, to avoid neurotics and potential murderers. This practical code of behavior is our common-sense maturity; it appreciates ideal standards of behavior but it has another standard of behavior for day-to-day living. Ideal behavior belongs to the world that feeds our soul, like beautiful music and art, but it has little usefulness in practical living. Myshkin's view of reality is unlike any of the other characters in the novel.

He returns good for evil; in Dostoevsky's own words, Myshkin "does not recognize that any sin is unforgivable." He is humble and meek and has no measure of pride, and, most important to a consideration of his character, he lacks sexual instinct. Akin to his lack of self-protectiveness and of drive, Myshkin has little of the animal nature that is present in other men. Thus, can one be a perfect man if he is sexless? Myshkin, although he is twenty-six years old, has no sexuality or lust, and though he abounds in compassion, he brings tragedy to Nastasya Filippovna, to Rogozhin, and to Aglaia because of his non-sexuality.

With her background of well-subsidized eroticism, Nastasya cannot marry Myshkin and become his redeemed saint for the rest of her life; Rogozhin cannot conceive of Myshkin as not being a sexual rival for Nastasya, since Myshkin is male; and Aglaia cannot understand why, if Myshkin loves her, he broods over Nastasya Filippovna's acts of madness and why he finally decides to marry her. And, incredibly, Myshkin cannot understand the chaotic reactions of those three people to him. One obviously cannot be a saint in today's highly sexual and materialistic world without something to brand one's goodness as different — as unnatural, as it were. Myshkin's excuse for his lack of sensuality and for his unworldliness is his epilepsy, but it fails to be a sufficient explanation for Rogozhin, Nastasya, and Aglaia, although historically epilepsy has been called "the sacred disease." To the other characters, Myshkin's epilepsy is merely an unfortunate, disfiguring, and embarrassing feature.

Myshkin is strange, but he is handsome and therefore attractive to Nastasya and Aglaia — and a rival to Rogozhin and Ganya. The former admire him as women through the ages have admired handsome, gentle, and knight-like men; the latter distrust such exceptional, truly good types. In fact, a great many people distrust Myshkin's actions. All, from General Epanchin, at one end of the social scale, to his servants at the other end, themselves wear such thin masks of good-nature that they immediately assume Myshkin's character to be devious in proportion to its apparent sincerity and goodwill. They are wholly unprepared for the prince's genuine goodness; but they are quick to note his malleability. Increasingly, as the novel progresses, the other characters manipulate the prince who has come from the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland to the bustling Petersburg, They manipulate him until he gradually learns to be wary of Lebedyev's lies and Ganya's schemes — until he finds that he is impotent to halt Nastasya's rashness and Rogozhin's murderous impulses.

Finally, Myshkin's epilepsy returns as though to protect him from fully realizing the extent of greed and selfishness in his Petersburg milieu. His sickness returns to regrant him a vision of perfect harmony. When permanent insanity finally enfolds Myshkin, we realize that he will never again be frustrated by the chaos of the Ivolgins and the Epanchins, of Nastasya and Rogozhin. At last, as the prince so often yearned as the book neared its end, he is absolutely alone, utterly outside the idiocy of Petersburg.

Question: Who is Prince Myshkin in a Dostoevsky novel?
Answer: The Idiot