Composition
His original, exceptional talent places Dostoevsky among the world's greatest writers. “The genius of Dostoevsky is undeniable,” wrote Gorky, “in terms of the power of visualization, his talent is equal, perhaps, only to Shakespeare.” Works of the writer - wonderful artist words invariably touch a nerve, teach compassion, cordiality and emotional sensitivity.
In the novel “The Idiot” (1869), Dostoevsky tried to create an image of a positive hero opposing the cruel and dirty world of predators and ambitious people, the commercialism and inhumanity of the surrounding society. In one of his letters, Dostoevsky admitted that he “has long been tormented by... the idea... of portraying a completely wonderful person,” an “old and beloved” idea, and adds: “In my opinion, nothing can be more difficult than this, especially in our time... »
This difficult task was not fully resolved by the writer: after all, Dostoevsky makes the mentally ill Prince Myshkin such a “completely wonderful person” - a man who, thanks to the peculiarities of his psyche, stands outside the usual norms and ideas. The main hero of the novel is the “renewed Raskolnikov,” a man “cured” of pride, Prince Myshkin, the bearer of a “positively beautiful” ideal. Prince Myshkin is “Prince Christ”, who grew up far from society, alien to its class-mysterious passions and interests, a man of exceptional spiritual unselfishness, beauty and humanity, anticipating the joyful harmony awaiting humanity in the future. Like his gospel prototype, Myshkin dies in the struggle of unsatisfied selfish interests and passions that agitate modern society. Of course, Myshkin is not Christ, but a mortal man, but from among those chosen who, through intense spiritual effort, managed to get closer to this shining ideal, who carries it deeply in his heart.
Dostoevsky contrasted Myshkin’s naive childishness and spiritual humility with the tossing about in contradictions, suffering, “disharmonious” heroes of the novel. Myshkin's responsiveness to other people's suffering and grief, his brotherly attitude towards all people, regardless of their condition and social status, place him morally above the people around him and make him a judge and comforter. Thus, Myshkin acts not so much as a social reformer, but as a new Christ. Myshkin himself suffered a lot of suffering, mental illness, loneliness, so he perceives the suffering of others much more keenly. Myshkin's moral strength, his spiritual purity, unselfishness, kindness and sympathy for the suffering of others made him an undeniable authority not only for the exhausted Nastasya Filippovna, who had lost faith in people, but even for people like the narcissistic and empty General Epanchin or the confused and bitter merchant Rogozhin. In the name of saving Nastasya Filippovna, Myshkin sacrifices his own happiness, the happiness and honor of his beloved girl, selflessly fights against injustice, and strives to alleviate the suffering of other people.
The image of the main character turned out to be “terribly difficult” for Dostoevsky. Prince Myshkin trustingly and openly goes to people, hoping to help them in their misfortunes and make their lives easier. He sees a portrait of a woman whose face was beautiful, but at the same time reflected inner suffering. This is Nastasya Filippovna, a deep and passionate nature, a person with a “piercing” and wounded heart. She was placed in a false position by Totsky, who kept her, and is now being traded as if it were a thing. Prince Myshkin appears at the moment when Nastasya Filippovna, experiencing pain and insult from humiliating auctions, decides to challenge everyone, shocking society with her feigned cynicism.
The main problem of the society into which Prince Myshkin finds himself is general “disunity.” “There is more wealth, but less strength,” says Lebedev, “there is no connecting thought.” Prince Myshkin wants to introduce a “connecting thought,” but he fails, he achieves the opposite effect. Wanting to reconcile, he separates everyone with his mediation and creates even more quarrels. With his appearance, the hero strengthens the struggle between good and evil taking place in the souls of people. Nastasya Filippovna moves from the dream of a pure and righteous life to suffering from the inability to realize it and plunges herself into cynicism. Rogozhin is sometimes generous, sometimes gloomy, sometimes fraternizes with the prince, sometimes wants to kill him. Ganya Ivolgin either strives to marry Nastasya Filippovna for the sake of money, or finds the strength in herself to refuse them. Insignificant, pathetic and funny Lebedev suddenly realizes the baseness of his fall, his heart gains the ability to shrink from sympathy for the soul of another person who was driven “to convulsions.”
The heroes of the novel, coming into contact with Prince Myshkin, discover those high qualities that once were in them, but turned out to be ruined by life. Penetrating deeply into the soul of each of those around him and seeing there with his clairvoyant gaze the moral struggle between good and evil, familiar to him from his own experience, the prince strives to suppress the hidden egoistic passions in the souls of other characters, to promote the victory of bright feelings and motives.
Prince Myshkin fails to save Nastasya Filippovna, but manages to awaken the soul of the girl who fell in love with him. The daughter of General Epanchin, Aglaya, thanks to Prince Myshkin, understood the unconscious that filled her with anxiety, made her capricious, wayward and quarrelsome. It was a spontaneous desire for an ideal, for understanding life. She fell in love with Myshkin because he is a “serious” Don Quixote. The girl took Pushkin’s ballad “Once upon a time there lived a poor knight…” to her chosen one: “These verses directly depict a person who is capable of having an ideal, believing it, and having believed it, blindly giving it his whole life. This doesn’t always happen in our century... At first I didn’t understand and laughed, but now I love the “poor knight,” and most importantly, I respect his exploits.”
And yet Myshkin himself does not save anyone and again falls into madness. As a victim of Rogozhin’s wild jealousy, Nastasya Filippovna dies, the lives of Aglaya and all those who are most closely associated with Myshkin are humiliated and broken. Dostoevsky showed the powerlessness of Christian non-resistance to evil, the inevitability of social injustice and human suffering by preaching humility and moral self-improvement. In the whole appearance of Myshkin, with all his inner softness and moral purity, something hagiographical, far from real life, mentally painful. In the clash of good with the world of dirty and vile representatives of people, the positive hero is defeated. Rogozhin’s monstrous murder of Nastasya Filippovna and the prince’s madness complete the picture of the gloomy triumph of evil and inhuman forces over attempts to establish a beautiful, humane principle.
It is not without reason that the novel expresses the idea that “paradise is a difficult thing.” Christian goodness and the prince’s mercy really aggravate the contradictions in the souls of people captured by egoism, but the aggravation of contradictions testifies that their souls are not indifferent to such goodness. Before good triumphs, an intense and even tragic struggle between good and evil in the minds of people is inevitable. And Myshkin’s spiritual death occurs only when he, to the best of his strength and capabilities, gave himself entirely to people, planting the seeds of goodness in their hearts. Only through suffering will humanity gain Inner Light Christian ideal. Here are Dostoevsky’s favorite words from the Gospel: “Truly, truly, I say to you, when a grain of wheat falls into the ground and does not die, it remains alone; and if it dies, it will bear much fruit.” Saltykov-Shchedrin highly appreciated Dostoevsky’s desire to create the image of a beautiful person in “The Idiot,” seeing in this “an attempt to portray the type of person who has achieved complete moral and spiritual balance.” However, Dostoevsky was unable to solve the problem of a positive hero - his hero, an “idiot”, a mentally ill person, turned out to be unable to resolve and reconcile the acute and cruel contradictions of life. But as an artist and thinker, Dostoevsky created a broad social canvas in which he truthfully showed the terrible, inhuman nature of bourgeois-noble society, torn apart by self-interest, ambition and monstrous egoism.
In notes to the novel, Dostoevsky formulated its main idea: “... a thirst for beauty and ideal and at the same time disbelief in it or faith, but no love for it.” The writer's novel was highly appreciated by progressive critics. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote that in this novel Dostoevsky “entered the area of foresight and premonitions, which constitute the goal not of the immediate, but of the most distant quest of humanity.”
Other works on this work
To be strong means to help the weak (based on the novels by F. M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment”, “The Idiot”). What is the meaning of the ending of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot”? Ideal heroes of F. M. Dostoevsky What is the significance of the image of Nastasya Filippovna in revealing the image of Prince Myshkin? (Based on the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky “The Idiot”) Prince Myshkin - the new Christ (novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Idiot") Nastasya Filippovna - “proud beauty” and “offended heart” The image of Prince Myshkin The image of Prince Myshkin in the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky "Idiot" The image of Prince Myshkin and the problem of the author's ideal in F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot" Review of F. Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot" Petersburger, St. Petersburg, Leningrader: the influence of city traditions on personality (based on the novel by I. A. Goncharov “Oblomov” and F. M. Dostoevsky “The Idiot”) A positively wonderful person in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” The scene of Nastasya Filippovna’s wedding with Prince Myshkin (analysis of an episode from Chapter 10 of Part 4 of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot”) Scene of Nastasya Filippovna burning money (Analysis of an episode from Chapter 16, Part 1 of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot”). Scene of reading a Pushkin poem (Analysis of an episode from chapter 7, part 2 of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot”). F.M. Dostoevsky. "Idiot". (1868) Gospel motifs in prose by F.M. Dostoevsky. (Based on the novel "Crime and Punishment" or "The Idiot".) The tragic outcome of the life of Prince Myshkin Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya are a feature of female characters in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Idiot" What brings Prince Myshkin and Rogozhin together? (Based on the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky “The Idiot”) Scene of Nastasya Filippovna's wedding to Rogozhin What is unique about the character of the main character in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” The central character of the novel F.M. Dostoevsky's "Idiot" Description of the characters in the novel “The Idiot”Chapter VI. The prince also tells a touching story about the poor and sick Swiss girl Marie. Seduced by a passing salesman, she was rejected by all her fellow countrymen for this sin, but under the influence of the prince, the village children began to take care of the unfortunate woman, and she died surrounded by kindness and care.
The prince makes a strong impression on the general’s wife and her daughters, and they all like him very much.
Dostoevsky. Idiot. Episode 2 of the television series
Chapter VII. Seeing that the prince has gained the confidence of the Epanchin ladies, Ganya Ivolgin secretly passes through him a note to the youngest of the three sisters, Aglaya. The shame of marriage to the dishonored Nastasya Filippovna still torments Ganya, and he tries to find another rich bride. One day Aglaya showed compassionate concern for him, and Ganya now writes to her in a note that he is ready for one hope mutual love break up with Nastasya Filippovna. Aglaya immediately notes with contempt that Ganya does not want to part with 75 thousand without receiving guarantees of such hope. She shows the note to the prince, and Gana gives an arrogant answer: “I don’t enter into auctions.”
Frustrated, Ganya becomes imbued with hostility towards the prince, who has learned many of his secrets. Meanwhile, the prince, on the recommendation of the general, goes to rent a room, which Ganya rents out in his apartment.
Chapter VIII. At Ganya’s apartment, the prince sees his relatives. Ganya’s energetic sister, Varya, having learned that today the issue of her brother’s marriage to the “camellia” will be finally resolved, throws a stormy scene for Ganya. The prince at this time hears the sound of the door bell. He opens it and with amazement sees Nastasya Filippovna in front of him. Hiding obvious excitement under a mask of feigned arrogance, she goes to “meet the family” of her fiancé.
Chapter IX. The unexpected appearance of Nastasya Filippovna stuns everyone in the house. Ghani's relatives are lost. Ganya’s drunken father, the famous liar and dreamer General Ivolgin, tells Nastasya Filippovna a fictitious story about how he allegedly once threw a lap dog that belonged to two ladies out the window in a train carriage. Nastasya Filippovna, laughing, accuses the general of lying: this incident took place abroad, it was published in the Indépendance Belge newspaper. Ghani’s relatives are outraged that “camellia” is openly laughing at their father. A dramatic scene is brewing, but it is interrupted by another strong sound of the bell.
Chapter X He bursts into the door drunk company led by Parfen Rogozhin: having learned that they wanted to marry Nastasya Filippovna to Gana, he came to offer this “scoundrel and cheater” to leave her for three thousand.
An irritated Ganya tries to drive Rogozhin away, but he then offers not three thousand, but 18. Nastasya Filippovna, laughing, shouts: “Not enough!” Rogozhin raises the price to 40 thousand, then to 100.
Indignant at this humiliating bargaining, Varya asks someone to get “this shameless one” out of here. Ganya rushes at her sister. The prince grabs him by the hands, and Ganya, in a frenzy, slaps him in the face. The meek prince only says in great excitement that Ganya will be ashamed of his action, and then turns to Nastasya Filippovna: “Aren’t you ashamed? Are you who you now appear to be?”
Shocked by the insight of the prince who unraveled her, she suddenly stops laughing. The arrogant mask falls off her. Having kissed Ganya’s mother’s hand, Nastasya Filippovna hastily leaves. Rogozhin also leads his company away, discussing along the way where he can quickly get 100 thousand in cash at any interest.
Chapter XI. Ganya comes to the prince’s room to apologize for the slap in the face. The prince hugs him, but convinces him to abandon the thought of marrying Nastasya Filippovna: This not worth 75 thousand. But Ganya insists: I will definitely get married! He dreams of not just getting rich, but turning these 75 thousand into a huge fortune, becoming the “King of the Jews.”
After Ganya leaves, his younger brother Kolya brings the prince a note from General Ivolgin inviting him to a nearby cafe.
Dostoevsky. Idiot. Episode 3 of the television series
Chapter XII. Drunk Ivolgin in a cafe asks the prince for a loan. Myshkin gives him his last money, but asks the general to help him get to Nastasya Filippovna this evening. Ivolgin undertakes to take the prince to her, but brings him to the apartment of his mistress, captain Terentyeva, where he collapses on the sofa and falls asleep.
Fortunately, kind Kolya turns up right there, coming to see his friend, Terentyeva’s sick son Ippolit. Kolya knows Nastasya Filippovna's address and takes the prince to her house.
Chapter XIII. The prince himself does not really understand why he is going to Nastasya Filippovna. Totsky, General Epanchin, the gloomy Ganya and several other guests are already sitting at her birthday party. Although the prince is uninvited, Nastasya Filippovna, who became very interested in him at Ganya’s apartment, happily comes out to meet him.
One of the guests, the impudent Ferdyshchenko, suggests a “game”: “let each of us tell out loud what he himself considers to be the worst thing he has done in his life.”
Chapter XIV. Some of those present agree to this. First, Ferdyshchenko himself describes how once, without knowing why, he stole three rubles at a dacha from an acquaintance. Behind him, General Epanchin recalls the incident when, as a young warrant officer, he scolded a poor, lonely old widow because of a missing bowl, who in response only silently looked at him - and, as it later turned out, was dying at that moment. Then Totsky tells how in his youth, by accident, he broke the love of one of his friends, and because of this he left to seek death in the war.
When Totsky finishes, Nastasya Filippovna suddenly turns to the prince with a question: should she marry Gavrila Ardalionovich? “No... don’t go out!” - the prince answers quietly. “This will be my answer to you, Ganya,” Nastasya Filippovna announces. “I believed in the prince as the first truly devoted person in my entire life, because he believed in me at one glance.”
Nastasya Filippovna says that she will not take 75 thousand from Totsky and tomorrow she will move out of the apartment he rented. Her words are interrupted by the ringing sound of the door bell.
Chapter XV. The Rozhin company bursts into the apartment. He himself walks ahead with a hundred thousand, wrapped in a dirty newspaper. The low sycophant Lebedev also sneaks behind Rogozhin.
“Here you are, gentlemen,” says Nastasya Filippovna. “Rogozhin bought me for a hundred thousand, and you, Ganya, even though this trade took place in your house, with your mother and sister, still came after that to make a match!” Rather than live with you or Totsky, it’s better to go outside, with Rogozhin! I’ll give Totsky all the money, but without money, Ganya won’t take me!”
“The prince will take it!” – inserts the malicious Ferdyshchenko. "Is it true?" - Nastasya Filippovna turns to the prince. “True,” he confirms. “And I’m not taking you low, but honest, Nastasya Filippovna.” I am nothing, and you suffered... You are throwing seventy-five thousand back to Totsky... No one here will do this. But you and I, perhaps, will not be poor, but rich: I received a letter from Moscow in Switzerland that I should receive a large inheritance from a deceased relative, a rich merchant.”
Chapter XVI. The guests freeze in surprise. “Aren’t you ashamed, prince, then it will happen that your bride lived with Totsky as a kept woman?” – asks Nastasya Filippovna. “You are proud, Nastasya Filippovna,” Myshkin replies, “and that makes you feel guilty in vain. And when I saw your portrait just now, it immediately seemed to me that it was as if you were already calling me...”
“I, Prince, have long dreamed of someone like you! - she exclaims. - But can I ruin you? We're going with you, Rogozhin! You, prince, need Aglaya Epanchina, and not someone as dishonest as me!”
“Ganka! - Nastasya Filippovna shouts, snatching the pack from Rogozhin. “I took these hundred thousand overnight and now I’ll throw them into the fireplace!” If you pull a pack out of the fire with your bare hands, it’s all yours!”
She throws the pack into the fire. Ganya, looking at her with a crazy smile, faints. Nastasya Filippovna snatches the pack from the fire with tongs: “The whole pack is Gana! I didn’t go, but I held out! This means there is more self-love than thirst for money.”
She leaves in a troika with Rogozhin. The prince rushes after them in another cab.
Dostoevsky “The Idiot”, part 2 – summary
Chapter I. Six months have passed since Nastasya Filippovna’s memorable birthday. The Epanchin family learned that after an orgy with Rogozhin that night at the Ekateringofsky station, she immediately disappeared. It soon became clear: she was in Moscow, and Rogozhin and the prince immediately went there, one after another; however, the prince also had a matter of inheritance in Moscow. The morning after that orgy, Ganya brought a wad of 100 thousand to the prince who returned to his apartment. He quit his secretarial service with General Epanchin.
Rogozhin found Nastasya Filippovna in Moscow, but there she ran away from him twice more, and in last time Prince Myshkin also disappeared from the city along with her. The inheritance he received was not as large as expected, and he also distributed a considerable part of it to various dubious claimants.
General Lizaveta Prokofyevna and her daughters are very interested in the fate of the prince. The project of Totsky’s marriage with the eldest of the three Epanchin sisters, Alexandra, is meanwhile being upset. But things are heading towards Adelaide’s imminent wedding with a young handsome and rich man, Prince Shch. Shch’s friend, Yevgeny Pavlovich Radomsky, a social wit and heartthrob, begins to court Aglaya.
Varya Ivolgina, after her brother lost his job, married the moneylender Ptitsyn and moved in with him with all her relatives. Varya and her younger brother Kolya become close to the Epanchin family.
Before Easter, Kolya unexpectedly gives Aglaya a strange letter from Prince Myshkin: “I need you, I really need you. I wish you happiness with all my heart and I want to ask if you are happy?” Aglaya is very happy about this letter.
Chapter II. Exactly six months after Nastasya Filippovna’s birthday, Prince Myshkin comes to St. Petersburg again, having previously received a letter from Lebedev. He reports in it that Nastasya Filippovna returned to St. Petersburg, and here Rogozhin found her again. Having gotten off the train, the prince suddenly feels the hot and unpleasant gaze of two someone's eyes on him in the station crowd.
The prince visits Lebedev, who says that Rogozhin is again persuading Nastasya Filippovna to marry him. Already knowing Parfyon’s gloomy, jealous character, she is horrified by such a prospect, but Rogozhin is very persistent. “And from you, prince,” adds Lebedev, “she wants to hide even more than ever, and here is wisdom!”
Chapter III. From Lebedev the prince goes to the gloomy, dirty green house of Rogozhin. Parfyon greets him without much joy. The prince accidentally notices: Rogozhin has the same look that he caught on himself at the station.
The prince assures Rogozhin: “I won’t interfere with your marriage to Nastasya Filippovna, although I feel that you will definitely ruin her, and you too. But I myself love her not with love, but with pity.” The sight and voice of Prince Parfyon softens a little. He tells how Nastasya Filippovna tried to break up with him in Moscow, how he beat her, and then, asking for forgiveness, “didn’t sleep for a day and a half, didn’t eat, didn’t drink, got on his knees in front of her.” She either scolded him or wanted to kill him, and when she went to bed, she didn’t lock the room behind her: “I’m not afraid of you!” But, seeing his despair, she still promised to get married: “I’ll marry you, Parfen Semyonovich: I’ll die anyway.” However, then she ran away again, and being found here in St. Petersburg does not promise anything about the wedding. “You,” Parfen Semenych says, “have strong passions and a great mind. Without love for me, you would have sat down, like your father, to save money and, perhaps, you would have accumulated not two million, but ten, and you would have died of hunger on your bags, because you have passion in everything, you bring everything to passion.”
The prince is shocked: “Why is she going under the knife herself, marrying you?” “Yes, that’s why he’s coming for me, because the knife is waiting for me!” She doesn’t love me, but she loves you, understand! She just thinks that it is impossible for her to marry you, because by doing so she will disgrace you and ruin you. “I am, he says, known to be what I am.” That’s why she ran away from you then...”
The prince, listening in excitement, absentmindedly takes a knife lying by the book on the table. Rogozhin immediately nervously snatches it from Myshkin’s hands...
Chapter IV. Rogozhin sees off the departing prince. In the corridor they pass by a painting - a copy of Holbein's "Dead Christ", where the Savior is depicted in the tomb, beaten and blackened, like an ordinary mortal man. Stopping, Rogozhin asks the prince if he believes in God: “I like to look at this picture.” “Yes, faith can disappear from this picture!” - Myshkin exclaims. “Even that disappears,” confirms Parfyon.
Dead Christ. Artist Holbein the Younger
The prince tells him how, having recently stayed at a hotel, he learned that the night before one peasant with the prayer “Lord, forgive me!” stabbed another to death for a silver watch. Then the prince heard from a simple woman he accidentally met a comparison of God’s joy over a repentant sinner with the joy of a mother who noticed the first smile on her baby. Myshkin marveled at the depth of this thought, which “expressed at once the whole essence of Christianity.”
Parfyon suddenly invites the prince to exchange crosses - to fraternize. He is drawn to the other half of the house, to his mother, who is weak-minded due to old age. She baptizes Myshkin. But when parting, the prince sees that Rogozhin can hardly force himself to hug him. “So take her, if it’s fate! Yours! I yield!.. Remember Rogozhin!” - he says to Myshkin in a trembling voice and quickly leaves.
Chapter V The prince is about to go to his dachas in Pavlovsk, but, having already boarded the carriage, he suddenly gets out. Before boarding at the station, he again imagined Rogozhin’s eyes in the crowd. Perhaps he is watching: will the prince go to Nastasya Filippovna? For what? What does he want to do in this case?.. In the window of a station shop, the prince suddenly sees the same knife as on Rogozhin’s table...
It's stuffy outside. The mental burden that gripped the prince resembles the approach of an epileptic seizure, which happened to him before. Myshkin drives away the thought that Rogozhin is capable of encroaching on his life. But his feet themselves carry him to the house where Nastasya Filippovna settled. The prince knows this address from Lebedev and has a painful desire to check whether Rogozhin will follow him. Having reached the house and turning from the door, he sees Parfyon standing across the intersection.
None of them fit together. The prince goes to his hotel. At the gate he notices a man flashing ahead, and when he goes up the stairs, Rogozhin rushes at him from a dark corner with a knife. The prince is saved from a blow only by a sudden seizure: from it he suddenly falls with a terrible cry, and Rogozhin, confused, runs away.
The prince is found by Kolya Ivolgin, who was waiting for him at the hotel, and transported to Lebedev’s dacha in Pavlovsk: Myshkin had agreed to rent it even earlier.
Chapter VI. The prince quickly recovers from his seizure at the dacha. Friends and acquaintances come here to see him, and soon the Epanchin family also visits. In a humorous conversation, Adelaide and Kolya accidentally mention the “poor knight”, better than whom there is no one in the world. The beautiful Aglaya is at first embarrassed by these words, and then explains to her mother: she and her sisters recently remembered Pushkin’s poem about this knight. Having set himself the “image of pure beauty” as his ideal, the knight believed him and gave him his whole life. Having declared: “I love the poor knight and respect his exploits!”, Aglaya goes out to the middle of the terrace and stands right in front of the prince to read this poem.
Chapter VII. She recites it with great feeling, but replaces the letters of the inscription on the knight's shield A. M. D. (Hail the Mother of God!) with N.F.B.(Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova) . The prince wonders what Aglaya wants to express: mockery of him or true feeling delight. Evgeny Pavlovich Radomsky, who just came in with a sarcastic look, seems to be leaning towards the first explanation.
Lebedev's daughter, Vera, informs the prince that four young men are rushing to him. One of them calls himself “the son of Pavlishchev,” the deceased guardian of the prince, who treated him in Switzerland at his own expense. Myshkin had already heard about this murky affair that was tarnishing his reputation. The Epanchins also heard about him. Aglaya, with burning eyes, advises the prince to immediately and resolutely explain himself to those who came. Lebedev explains: these are extreme nihilists.
The prince asks to let them in. Enter the “son of Pavlishchev” (Antip Burdovsky), nephew of Lebedev (Doktorenko), retired lieutenant boxer Keller from the former drunken Rogozhin company and the son of captain Terentyeva Ippolit, a young man in the last stage of consumption.
Chapter VIII. Nihilists try to behave cheekily and brazenly. Lebedev brings a “progressive” newspaper with an article about the prince that they published. Kolya reads the article aloud.
The prince is ridiculed there as an idiot who, by a trick of fate, received a large inheritance. Then it is said that the “voluptuous serf owner” Pavlishchev allegedly seduced in his youth a peasant girl - Burdovsky’s mother, and now the prince “not by law, but by justice” should have given Burdovsky (“Pavlishchev’s son”) “tens of thousands” that Pavlishchev spent on his treatment in Switzerland. The article ends with a vile, illiterate poem-epigram about the prince.
The prince's friends are stunned by the disgusting tone of the article: “As if fifty lackeys wrote it together.” But Myshkin himself announces that he has decided to give Burdovsky 10 thousand rubles. He explains: the whole case, apparently, was started by the fraudulent lawyer Chebarov, and Burdovsky, most likely, is sincerely convinced that he is “Pavlishchev’s son.” The prince asks that Ganya Ivolgin, who is present here, who has already dealt with it at his request, talk in more detail about the matter.
Chapter IX. Ganya says: Pavlishchev once fed pure feeling to the sister of Burdovsky's mother, a peasant girl. When she died young, he set aside a large dowry for her sister, and helped her a lot even after her marriage and the birth of her son. This is where the rumors about his relationship with this sister really arose, but it is easy to prove that they are lies. Burdovsky's mother is now in great need, and the prince recently supported her with money.
Having heard all this, Burdovsky shouts that he renounces his claims. Lizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina scolds the nihilists in indignation. “Crazy! Yes, out of vanity and pride, and then you will overeat each other.” She is also indignant at the prince: “Are you still asking them for forgiveness?” However, the general’s wife softens when Ippolit Terentyev begins to cough violently, with blood, and explains that he only has two weeks to live.
ChapterX. The prince and Lizaveta Prokofyevna treat Ippolit to tea. Evgeny Pavlovich looks at this scene with mockery. “But from your theories it’s easy to jump straight to the right of force and even murder,” he remarks to Hippolyta. "So what?" - he casually throws out. “It’s just that, according to my observations, our liberal is never able to allow someone to have his own special conviction and not immediately respond to his opponent with a curse or something worse,” answers Evgeniy Pavlovich.
Hippolyte says goodbye, saying that he is going home to die: “Nature is very mocking... She creates the best creatures in order to then laugh at them.” He begins to sob, however, immediately embarrassed by his weakness, he attacks the prince: “I hate you, Jesuitical, treacly little soul, idiot, millionaire benefactor!”
The nihilists are leaving. Dissatisfied excessive kindness Prince Epanchina leaves the terrace - and then suddenly a shiny carriage with two ladies appears.
One of them turns out to be Nastasya Filippovna. She shouts to Evgeny Pavlovich about some of his debts and bills, which, at her request, Rogozhin bought and will now wait to collect. Radomsky is shocked by the publicity of information that is unpleasant for him. The stroller is leaving. Prince Myshkin, having heard the voice of the woman fatal to him, is close to fainting.
ChapterXI. The prince and the Epanchins are puzzling over the purpose of Nastasya Filippovna’s mysterious act. Ganya confirms the rumor that Radomsky has large debts. It gradually becomes clear that Nastasya Filippovna apparently tried to upset Radomsky’s engagement to Aglaya by exposing him in unseemly deeds.
After Nastasya Filippovna appears, the prince is overcome by a heavy feeling: fate is irresistibly drawing him into something terrible.
ChapterXII. Three days after a quarrel with the prince over Ippolit, Lizaveta Prokofyevna runs up to him and demands a frank explanation: does he love Aglaya and is he married to Nastasya Filippovna, as rumors have it?
The prince replies that he is not married to Nastasya Filippovna, and only shows Lizaveta Prokofyevna the note he received from Aglaya, where she in a daring tone forbids him to visit their family. Lizaveta Prokofyevna grabs the prince by the hand and drags him to her dacha. “Innocent simpleton! She's the one with the fever. It was annoying that you weren’t going, but I didn’t realize that you couldn’t write to an idiot like that, because he’d take it literally...”
Dostoevsky “The Idiot”, part 3 – summary
Chapter I. The prince at the Epanchins' dacha listens to Yevgeny Pavlovich's speech: Russian liberals until now have only come from two layers: the landowners and the seminarians. But both of these classes separated from the rest of the nation long ago. That’s why our liberals have completely non-national views, they attack not the order of things, but Russia itself, being, without noticing it, stupid conservatives.
The prince agrees with this. He also agrees that the current theories of nihilists that a poor person has naturally You may have the idea of resorting to even murder to improve your situation - a very dangerous phenomenon. “How come you didn’t notice exactly the same distortion of ideas in the Burdovsky case?” – asks Radomsky. Lizaveta Prokofyevna in response says that the prince received a letter from Burdovsky with repentance - “but we did not receive such a letter, and it is not for us to turn up our noses in front of him.” Hippolyte also repented before the prince.
Lizaveta Prokofyevna invites the whole family to the music at the station.
Chapter II. Out of the kindness of his soul, the prince not only does not hold a grudge against Radomsky, who ridiculed him, but also apologizes to him. Aglaya, hearing this, exclaims: “You are more honest, noble, kinder and smarter than everyone else! Why do you place yourself below them? Then he screams in hysterics: “Everyone is teasing me that I will marry you!” This too frank scene of Aglaya expressing her feelings for the prince can be smoothed over only by general laughter.
Everyone goes to the music. Along the way, Aglaya quietly points the prince to a green bench in the park: “I like to sit here in the morning.” At the orchestra, the prince sits next to Aglaya, absentmindedly. Suddenly Nastasya Filippovna appears, accompanied by a company of dubious-looking people. Passing by the Epanchins, she suddenly speaks loudly to Radomsky, reporting the suicide of his uncle, who turned out to be a major embezzler. “And you retired well in advance, you cunning fellow!”
Lizaveta Prokofyevna immediately leads her family away from the scandal. “This thing needs a whip!” - Meanwhile, one officer, a friend of Yevgeny Pavlovich, exclaims about Nastasya Filippovna. She, hearing these words, whips him in the face with a thin cane. The officer rushes at her, but the prince holds him by the arms. Nastasya Filippovna is taken away from nowhere by Rogozhin.
Chapter III. The prince follows the Epanchins and, thoughtfully, sits alone on the terrace of their dacha. As if by chance, Aglaya comes out to him. She first starts an extraneous conversation with him, and then puts a note in his hands.
The prince leaves the dacha with General Epanchin. On the way, he says: Aglaya has just told everyone: Nastasya Filippovna “has taken it into her head to marry me off to the prince at all costs, and for this, Evgeniy Pavlych will survive from us.”
Having parted with the general, the prince unfolds Aglaya’s note and reads in it an invitation to a meeting in the morning at the green bench. His head is spinning with happiness. Suddenly Rogozhin appears. He tells the prince that Nastasya Filippovna really wants to marry him to Aglaya and even writes letters to her. She promised Rogozhin to marry him immediately after the wedding of Aglaya and Myshkin.
The prince is happy with Rogozhin. He doesn’t blame him at all for the attempted murder: “I know that you were in such a position that you were only thinking about her.” Although Rogozhin does not repent too much of his action, the prince takes him to Lebedev’s dacha to celebrate his birthday.
Chapter IV. There are already quite a lot of people there. Drunk Lebedev makes a thoughtful speech about how the entire scientific and practical direction of recent centuries is cursed. Its advocates hope to ensure universal prosperity through material growth, but “carts that bring bread to humanity, without a moral basis, can coolly exclude a significant part of humanity from enjoying what they bring, which has already happened. A friend of humanity with shaky moral foundations is a cannibal of humanity.” In the impoverished Middle Ages, people were united by a strong moral and religious thought, but now - where is it? Everyone relies on humanity’s desire for self-preservation, but people are no less characterized by the desire for self-destruction.
Chapter V Ippolit, sitting right there, excited, suddenly announces that he will now read the article he wrote. He begins with the fact that he will soon die of consumption. The article then tells how he had a nightmare: a disgusting reptile, like a scorpion, tried to bite him in the room, but, fortunately, was chewed up by the family dog.
Hippolyte announces that he has decided: since there are only a few weeks left to live, then it is not worth living. But he admits that when he passionately argued on the prince’s terrace, insisting on Burdovsky’s right, he secretly dreamed “how they would all suddenly spread their arms, and take me into their arms, and ask me for forgiveness for something, and I would ask them for forgiveness.” "
Chapter VI. The nervous Ippolit further talks about his contradictory emotional impulses: before, he either began to deliberately torment those around him, or succumbed to attacks of generosity and once managed to help one poor provincial doctor who had lost his job.
Being familiar with Rogozhin, Ippolit once visited his house and saw that very picture of Holbein’s Christ. She shocked him too. At the sight of the disfigured body of Christ, Hippolytus had the idea that Nature was simply a huge, insensitive machine, a dark, arrogant and senseless force that had captured and crushed a priceless being, for whose sake the world was created.
In Hippolytus's new dreams, someone shows him Nature in the form of a disgusting tarantula. “I can’t stay in a life that takes such forms that offend me,” he decides.
Chapter VII.“I decided to shoot myself in Pavlovsk, at sunrise,” announces Ippolit. “What is all the beauty of the world to me if I’m an outcast in it?” Having finished reading the article, he expects his listeners to be greatly impressed by it, but he sees only disappointment around him. Then he grabs a pistol from his pocket and shoots himself in the temple - but it misfires! Immediately, amid general laughter, it turns out that there was no primer in the pistol.
Crying from shame, Hippolytus is put to bed, and the prince goes for a walk in the park. He is sad: Hippolytus’ confession reminded him of his own thoughts during his illness in Switzerland. The prince falls asleep on a green bench - and in the morning Aglaya wakes him up there.
Chapter VIII. At first, Aglaya childishly invites the prince to flee abroad with her and do useful work there. But he immediately begins to wonder if he loves Nastasya Filippovna. “No,” the prince answers, “she brought me too much grief. But she herself is deeply unhappy. This unfortunate woman is convinced that she is the most fallen, most vicious creature and torments herself with the consciousness of her shame! In the continuous consciousness of shame there lies for her some kind of terrible, unnatural pleasure.”
Aglaya says that Nastasya Filippovna writes letters to her. In them she convinces that only Aglaya can make the prince happy. “This is madness,” says the prince. “No, it's jealousy! - exclaims Aglaya. “She won’t marry Rogozhin and will kill herself the next day, as soon as we get married!” The prince is amazed by such insight and understands: Aglaya, who just looked so childish, is in fact far from a child.
Chapter IX. Lebedev loses 400 rubles. The evidence points to General Ivolgin. He stole so that he could again go to his beloved captain Terentyeva, who did not want to accept him without money.
Chapter X The prince reads with anguish the letters from Nastasya Filippovna, full of self-flagellation, given to him by Aglaya. N.F. glorifies Aglaya in them as innocent perfection, and calls himself a fallen and finished woman. “I hardly live anymore. Next to me are two terrible eyes of Rogozhin. I'm sure he has a razor hidden in his drawer. He loves me so much that he could no longer help but hate me. And he will kill me before our wedding.”
In the evening, the prince wanders around the park in melancholy. He accidentally wanders into the Epanchins' dacha, but realizing that it is very late, he leaves from there. In the park, Nastasya Filippovna suddenly comes out from behind the trees to meet him: “Have you been to see her? Are you happy?" She throws herself on her knees in front of him.
Nastasya Filippovna is taken away by Rogozhin who approaches. Then he returns and explains: he and she came to the park specially in the evening. Nastasya Filippovna wanted to see the prince leaving Aglaya. “Have you read the letters? - asks Rogozhin. “Do you remember about the razor?” The prince is shocked that Nastasya Filippovna let Parfyon read such words about him. “So, are you happy?” – Rogozhin asks with a grin. "No no no!" - exclaims the prince.
Dostoevsky “The Idiot”, part 4 – summary
Chapter I. Ganya Ivolgin leaves no plans for Aglaya. In his favor, the Epanchins have been intrigued by his sister, Varya, for a long time. However, now she tells Gana: all hopes have collapsed, Aglaya is going to marry the prince. Tomorrow the Epanchins are hosting important guests, apparently to announce their engagement.
Ganya is also annoyed by the news about his father’s theft of 400 rubles. Hippolyte already knows about the theft from his mother, gloating about it.
Chapter II. A quarrel between General Ivolgin and Ippolit, who mockingly ridicules the new fairy tales of the general (a big fan of lying). Annoyed that his relatives do not want to support him against Ippolit, Ivolgin leaves home.
Skirmish between Hippolytus and Ganya. Hippolyte ridicules Ganya, who tried in vain to make him his instrument in the fight against the prince for the hand of Aglaya. Ganya responds by mocking Hippolytus’s failed “suicide.”
Chapter III. Even before all these events, Lebedev tells the prince: after one of his joint drinking sessions with General Ivolgin, the missing wallet with money was suddenly found under a chair, where it had not been placed before. Lebedev, however, pretended not to notice the wallet. Then, after a new visit from General Ivolgin, he found himself in the field of his coat, where he fell through someone neatly cut pocket. In recent days, the general has begun to treat Lebedev rather rudely out of frustration, and he, in retaliation, displays the ruffled hem of his coat in front of him, still seemingly not noticing the wallet lying there.
Chapter IV. General Ivolgin comes to the prince and complains about Lebedev. He does not want to believe that Ivolgin, as a child in 1812, was Napoleon’s page in Moscow. In mockery of the general, Lebedev composed his own story: supposedly French soldiers shot off his leg as a child, and he buried it in the cemetery, and then his wife did not notice throughout the marriage that her husband had an artificial leg.
Soon after his visit to the prince, the general leaves home (see Chapter 2), but on the street he falls into the arms of his son Kolya, struck by a blow.
Chapter V With these few comic chapters, Dostoevsky only highlights the deep tragedy of the novel’s approaching denouement.
The Epanchins have not yet firmly decided whether to give Aglaya in marriage to the prince. Ippolit warns Myshkin that Ganya is “undermining” him. Then he again reminds him that he will soon die, and asks the prince’s opinion: how to do this in the most worthy way. “Pass us and forgive us our happiness!” - the prince answers.
Chapter VI. Before the dinner party, which should finally decide the issue of the wedding, Aglaya asks the prince not to talk about serious topics during it, and to beware of breaking an expensive Chinese vase in the living room with some careless movement.
In the evening the prince comes for dinner. Very high-ranking officials gather at the Epanchins', but the tone of their conversation seems friendly and benevolent to the prince. An enthusiastic mood grows in his soul.
Chapter VII. The prince eagerly gets involved in the general conversation, which touches on the topic of Catholicism. Myshkin insists: this is a non-Christian faith and even worse than atheism. Catholicism preaches not just zero, but a slandered, opposite Christ, for it is based on the Western Church’s craving for state power, “for the sword.” It was out of disgust at the spiritual impotence of Catholicism that atheism and socialism emerged. And Russian emigrants tend to passionately indulge in European teachings, since our educated stratum has long been torn away from its native soil and also has no spiritual homeland. We must return to national origins - and the whole world, perhaps, will be saved by the Russian Christ.
Hotly waving his hands during his speech, the prince breaks that same Chinese vase. He's shocked fulfilled prophecy. Inspired even more, he begins to praise Russian high society, which he now sees in front of him. It turned out to be better than the rumors about him, and he needs to support his primacy in society with selfless service to the people. “Let’s become servants so that we can be elders,” the prince enthusiastically calls, and, overwhelmed with feelings, falls in a fit.
Chapter VIII. The next day after the seizure, the Epanchins visit the prince - friendly, but making it clear that due to the severity of his illness, the idea of marriage with Aglaya has been abandoned. However, Aglaya takes the opportunity to secretly tell the prince: let him wait for her to come to him this evening. Ippolit, who arrived soon, reveals amazing news to the prince: at Aglaya’s request, he helped arrange a date for her with Nastasya Filippovna, and it is scheduled for this evening.
The prince is horrified. Aglaya, who arrived in the evening, takes him with her to a dacha, where Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin are already waiting for them.
Aglaya begins to tell her rival about her love for the prince, accusing that Nastasya Filippovna herself tortured and abandoned him out of selfishness. “You can only love your shame and the constant thought that you have been insulted. You make faces. Why didn't you just leave here instead of writing me letters? If you wanted to be an honest woman, then why didn’t you then leave your seducer, Totsky, simply... without theatrical performances, and didn’t go to the laundress?”
Nastasya Filippovna enragedly declares that Aglaya is unable to understand her and that she came to her out of cowardice: to personally make sure “whether he loves me more than you, or not, because you are terribly jealous.” In hysterics, she shouts to Aglaya: “Do you want me to tell him now, and he will immediately leave you and stay with me forever? If he doesn’t come to me now and doesn’t leave you, then take him, I give in!..”
Both women look at the prince. Pointing pleadingly at Nastasya Filippovna, he says to Aglaya: “Is this possible! She’s so unhappy!” Aglaya runs out of the house, covering her face. The prince rushes after her, but Nastasya Filippovna frantically grabs him from behind: “After her? For her?". She kicks Rogozhin out and then laughs and cries for a long time in the chair, and the prince sits next to her and strokes her head.
Chapter IX. All of Pavlovsk learns that the prince’s wedding with Nastasya Filippovna has been scheduled. After the fatal date, Aglaya, ashamed to go home, rushes to the Ptitsins, where Ganya, taking advantage of her condition, tries to make her a love confession, but she rejects him. An hour later, the prince comes to the Epanchins’ dacha. However, they, having learned from Myshkin about what happened, immediately refuse him the house. The prince then goes to the Epanchins every day, asking to see Aglaya. Every day they show him the door, but the next day, as if not remembering it, he comes again, although he does not part with Nastasya Filippovna.
Chapter X In the last days before the wedding, Nastasya Filippovna was very excited. She tries to look cheerful, but at times she gets desperate. Once she imagines that Rogozhin is hiding at their house with a knife.
On the wedding day, Nastasya Filippovna proudly goes out to go to church in front of a huge crowd of hostile onlookers. But suddenly seeing Rogozhin in the crowd, she rushes to him: “Save me! Take me away! He quickly takes her in a carriage to the train.
The prince, having learned about this, only quietly says: “In her condition, this is completely in the order of things.” In the evening, Vera Lebedeva finds him in terrible despair. He asks her to wake him up for the first morning train tomorrow.
Chapter XI. In the morning the prince arrives in St. Petersburg. At Rogozhin’s house they tell him that Parfyon is not there. The prince looks for him and Nastasya Filippovna in other places, then thoughtfully walks down the street.
Rogozhin tugs his sleeve from behind: “Come to me, she I have". They walk in silence, without speaking. Parfyon is in some kind of half-oblivion.
He secretly takes the prince into his house, into the very room where they had already sat together once before. In the twilight, the motionless body of Nastasya Filippovna, stabbed to death by Parfyon, can be seen on the bed. Rogozhin offers to spend the night together on the floor next to her until the police come.
The prince is initially stunned, but then suddenly clearly understands the irreparability of what happened. Rogozhin, who is nearby, seems to forget about his presence and mutters something to himself, remembering her. The prince, crying bitterly, begins to hug and calm him down.
This is how the people who enter find them. The prince, in complete madness, does not recognize anyone.
Chapter XII. Rogozhin was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. At the trial, he does not try to mitigate his guilt.
Through the efforts of Evgeniy Pavlovich Radomsky and Kolya Ivolgin, the prince is transported to the former Swiss clinic of Schneider, who announces that now this patient is unlikely to be cured. Radomsky, who remained abroad, visits the mad prince. One day he meets at the clinic with the Epanchin family, who have come to take pity on the unfortunate man. Aglaya, however, is not among them: in Europe, this girl, prone to idealism, is passionately carried away by one rogue who pretended to be a Polish patriotic count, a fighter for the liberation of his homeland...
Description of the book "Idiot"
“For a long time I have been tormented by one thought that is too difficult. This idea is to portray a positively beautiful person. In my opinion, nothing can be more difficult than this...”, wrote Dostoevsky to A. Maikov. The type of such a character was embodied in Prince Myshkin, the main character of the novel "The Idiot", greatest work world literature and - generally accepted - the most mysterious novel of Dostoevsky. Who is he, Prince Myshkin? A person who imagines himself to be Christ, intending to heal the souls of people with his boundless kindness? Or an idiot who does not realize that such a mission is impossible in our world? The prince's confused relationships with those around him, a difficult internal split, painful and different love for two women close to his heart, intensified by vivid passions, painful experiences and unusual complex characters both heroines become the main driving force of the plot and lead it to a fatal tragic ending...
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Artem Olegovich
"Idiot" - plot
Part one
26-year-old Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin returns from a sanatorium in Switzerland, where he spent several years. The prince has not completely recovered from mental illness, but appears before the reader as a sincere and innocent person, although decently versed in relationships between people. He goes to Russia to visit his only remaining relatives - the Epanchin family. On the train, he meets the young merchant Parfyon Rogozhin and the retired official Lebedev, to whom he ingenuously tells his story. In response, he learns the details of the life of Rogozhin, who is in love with the former kept woman of the wealthy nobleman Afanasy Ivanovich Totsky, Nastasya Filippovna. In the Epanchins’ house it turns out that Nastasya Filippovna is also known in this house. There is a plan to marry her off to General Epanchin’s protégé, Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin, an ambitious but mediocre man. Prince Myshkin meets all the main characters of the story in the first part of the novel. These are the Epanchins' daughters Alexandra, Adelaide and Aglaya, on whom he makes a favorable impression, remaining the object of their slightly mocking attention. Next, there is General Lizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina, who is in constant agitation due to the fact that her husband is in some communication with Nastasya Filippovna, who has a reputation for being fallen. Then, this is Ganya Ivolgin, who suffers greatly because of his upcoming role as Nastasya Filippovna’s husband, and cannot decide to develop his still very weak relationship with Aglaya. Prince Myshkin rather innocently tells the general’s wife and the Epanchin sisters about what he learned about Nastasya Filippovna from Rogozhin, and also amazes the audience with his story about the death penalty he observed abroad. General Epanchin offers the prince, for lack of a place to stay, to rent a room in Ivolgin’s house. There the prince meets Ganya’s family, and also meets Nastasya Filippovna for the first time, who unexpectedly arrives at this house. After an ugly scene with Ivolgin’s alcoholic father, retired general Ardalion Aleksandrovich, of whom his son is endlessly ashamed, Nastasya Filippovna and Rogozhin come to the Ivolgins’ house for Nastasya Filippovna. He arrives with a noisy company that has gathered around him completely by chance, as around any person who knows how to waste money. As a result of the scandalous explanation, Rogozhin swears to Nastasya Filippovna that in the evening he will offer her one hundred thousand rubles in cash.
This evening, Myshkin, anticipating something bad, really wants to get to Nastasya Filippovna’s house, and at first hopes for the elder Ivolgin, who promises to take Myshkin to this house, but, in fact, does not know at all where she lives. The desperate prince does not know what to do, but he is unexpectedly helped by Ganya Ivolgin's younger teenage brother, Kolya, who shows him the way to Nastasya Filippovna's house. That evening is her name day, there are few invited guests. Allegedly, today everything should be decided and Nastasya Filippovna should agree to marry Ganya Ivolgin. The prince's unexpected appearance leaves everyone in amazement. One of the guests, Ferdyshchenko, a positively type of petty scoundrel, offers to play a strange game for entertainment - everyone talks about their lowest deed. The following are the stories of Ferdyshchenko and Totsky himself. In the form of such a story, Nastasya Filippovna refuses to marry Gana. Rogozhin suddenly bursts into the room with a company that brought the promised hundred thousand. He trades Nastasya Filippovna, offering her money in exchange for agreeing to become “his.”
The prince gives cause for amazement by seriously inviting Nastasya Filippovna to marry him, while she, in despair, plays with this proposal and almost agrees. It immediately turns out that the prince receives a large inheritance. Nastasya Filippovna invites Gana Ivolgin to take one hundred thousand and throws them into the fire of the fireplace. “But only without gloves, with bare hands. If you pull it out, it’s yours, all one hundred thousand is yours! And I will admire your soul as you climb into the fire for my money.”
Lebedev, Ferdyshchenko and the like are confused and beg Nastasya Filippovna to let them snatch this wad of money from the fire, but she is adamant and invites Ivolgin to do it. Ivolgin restrains himself and does not rush for money. Loses consciousness. Nastasya Filippovna takes out almost all the money with tongs, puts it on Ivolgin and leaves with Rogozhin. This ends the first part of the novel.
Part two
In the second part, the prince appears before us after six months, and now he does not seem at all like a completely naive person, while maintaining all his simplicity in communication. All these six months he has been living in Moscow. During this time, he managed to receive his inheritance, which is rumored to be almost colossal. It is also rumored that in Moscow the prince enters into close communication with Nastasya Filippovna, but she soon leaves him. At this time, Kolya Ivolgin, who began to be in a relationship with the Epanchin sisters and even with the general’s wife herself, gives Aglaya a note from the prince, in which he asks her in confused terms to remember him.
Meanwhile, summer is already coming, and the Epanchins go to their dacha in Pavlovsk. Soon after this, Myshkin arrives in St. Petersburg and pays a visit to Lebedev, from whom, by the way, he learns about Pavlovsk and rents his dacha in the same place. Next, the prince goes to visit Rogozhin, with whom he has a difficult conversation, ending with fraternization and the exchange of crosses. At the same time, it becomes obvious that Rogozhin is on the verge when he is ready to kill the prince or Nastasya Filippovna, and even bought a knife thinking about this. Also in Rogozhin’s house, Myshkin notices a copy of Hans Holbein the Younger’s painting “Dead Christ”, which becomes one of the most important artistic images in the novel, often mentioned later.
Returning from Rogozhin and being in a darkened consciousness, and seemingly anticipating the time of an epileptic seizure, the prince notices that “eyes” are watching him - and this, apparently, is Rogozhin. The image of Rogozhin’s watching “eyes” becomes one of the leitmotifs of the narrative. Myshkin, having reached the hotel where he was staying, runs into Rogozhin, who seems to be raising a knife over him, but at that second the prince has an epileptic seizure and this stops the crime.
Myshkin moves to Pavlovsk, where General Epanchina, having heard that he is unwell, immediately pays him a visit along with her daughters and Prince Shch., Adelaide’s fiancé. Also present in the house and participating in the subsequent important scene are the Lebedevs and the Ivolgins. Later they are joined by General Epanchin and Evgeny Pavlovich Radomsky, Aglaya's intended fiancé, who came up later. At this time, Kolya reminds her of a certain joke about the “poor knight,” and the misunderstanding Lizaveta Prokofyevna forces Aglaya to read famous poem Pushkin, which she does with great feeling, replacing, among other things, the initials written by the knight in the poem with the initials of Nastasya Filippovna.
Myshkin reveals himself in this entire scene as an amazingly kind and gentle person, which evokes a partly sarcastic assessment from the Epanchins. At the end of the scene, all attention is drawn to the consumptive Hippolyte, whose speech addressed to all those present is full of unexpected moral paradoxes.
That same evening, leaving Myshkin, Epanchina and Evgeny Pavlovich Radomsky meet Nastasya Filippovna passing in a carriage. As she walks, she shouts to Radomsky about some bills, thereby compromising him in front of the Epanchins and his future bride.
On the third day, General Epanchina pays an unexpected visit to the prince, although she was angry with him all this time. During their conversation, it turns out that Aglaya somehow entered into communication with Nastasya Filippovna through the medium of Ganya Ivolgin and his sister, who is close to the Epanchins. The prince also lets slip that he received a note from Aglaya, in which she asks him not to show himself to her in the future. The surprised Lizaveta Prokofyevna, realizing that the feelings that Aglaya has for the prince play a role here, immediately orders him and her to visit them “intentionally.” This ends the second part of the novel.
Part three
At the beginning of the third part, the anxieties of Lizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina are described, who complains (to herself) about the prince that it is his fault that everything in their life has “gone upside down!” She learns that her daughter Aglaya has entered into correspondence with Nastasya Filippovna.
At a meeting with the Epanchins, the prince talks about himself, about his illness, and about how “you can’t help but laugh at me.” Aglaya interjects: “Everyone here, everyone is not worth your little finger, nor your mind, nor your heart! You are more honest than everyone, nobler than everyone, better than everyone, kinder than everyone, smarter than everyone!” Everyone is shocked. Aglaya continues: “I will never marry you! Know that never, ever! Know this! The prince justifies himself that he did not even think about it: “I never wanted, and it was never in my mind, I will never want, you will see for yourself; rest assured!” he says. In response, Aglaya begins to laugh uncontrollably. At the end everyone laughs.
Later, Myshkin, Evgeny Pavlovich and the Epanchin family meet Nastasya Filippovna at the station. She loudly and defiantly informs Yevgeny Pavlovich that his uncle, Kapiton Alekseich Radomsky, shot himself because of embezzlement of government money. Lieutenant Molovtsov, a great friend of Yevgeny Pavlovich, who was right there, loudly calls her a creature. She hits him in the face with her cane. The officer rushes at her, but Myshkin intervenes. Rogozhin arrived in time and takes Nastasya Filippovna away.
Aglaya writes a note to Myshkin, in which she arranges a meeting on a park bench. Myshkin is excited. He can't believe that he can be loved. “He would consider the possibility of love for him, “for a person like him,” to be a monstrous thing.”
Then it’s the prince’s birthday. Here he utters his famous phrase “Beauty will save the world!”
Part four
At the beginning of this part, Dostoevsky writes about ordinary people. Ganya serves as an example. The news is now known in the Ivolgins' house that Aglaya is marrying the prince, and therefore the Epanchins have good company in the evening to get to know the prince. Ganya and Varya are talking about the theft of money, for which it turns out their father is to blame. Varya says about Aglaya that she “will turn her back on her first suitor, but would gladly run to some student to die of hunger in the attic.”
Ganya then argues with his father, General Ivolgin, to the point that he shouts “a curse on this house” and leaves. Disputes continue, but now with Hippolytus, who, in anticipation of his own death, no longer knows any measures. He is called a "gossip and a brat." After this, Ganya and Varvara Ardalionovna receive a letter from Aglaya, in which she asks them both to come to the green bench known to Varya. This step is incomprehensible to the brother and sister, because this is after the engagement to the prince.
After a heated showdown between Lebedev and the general, the next morning, General Ivolgin visits the prince and announces to him that he wishes to “respect himself.” When he leaves, Lebedev comes to the prince and tells him that no one stole his money, which seems, of course, quite suspicious. This matter, although resolved, still worries the prince.
The next scene is again a meeting between the prince and the general, during which the latter tells from the time of Napoleon in Moscow that he then served the great leader even as a page-chamber. The whole story, of course, is again dubious. After leaving the prince with Kolya, talking with him about his family and himself and reading many quotes from Russian literature, he suffers apoplexy.
Then Dostoevsky gives in to reflections about everything life situation in Pavlovsk, which is inappropriate to convey. The only important moment can be when Aglaya gives the prince a hedgehog as “a sign of her deepest respect.” This expression of hers, however, is also found in the conversation about the “poor knight.” When he is with the Epanchins, Aglaya immediately wants to know his opinion about the hedgehog, which makes the prince somewhat embarrassed. The answer does not satisfy Aglaya and for no apparent reason she asks him: “Are you marrying me or not?” and “Are you asking for my hand or not?” The prince convinces her that he is asking and that he loves her very much. She also asks him a question about his financial status, which others consider completely inappropriate. Then she bursts out laughing and runs away, her sisters and parents following her. In her room she cries and completely makes peace with her family and says that she doesn’t love the prince at all and that she will “die laughing” when she sees him again.
She asks him for forgiveness and makes him happy, to the point that he does not even listen to her words: “Forgive me for insisting on absurdity, which, of course, cannot have the slightest consequences...” The whole evening the prince was cheerful and a lot and spoke animatedly, although he had a plan not to say too much, because, as he said just now to Prince Shch., “he needs to restrain himself and remain silent, because he has no right to humiliate a thought by expressing it himself.”
In the park, the prince then meets Hippolytus, who, as usual, mocks the prince in a sarcastic and mocking tone and calls him a “naive child.”
Preparing for the evening meeting, for the “high society circle,” Aglaya warns the prince about some inappropriate prank, and the prince notices that all the Epanchins are afraid for him, although Aglaya herself really wants to hide it, and they think that he may “ will be cut off" in society. The prince concludes that it is better if he does not come. But he immediately changes his mind again when Aglaya makes it clear that everything has been arranged separately for him. Moreover, she does not allow him to talk about anything, such as the fact that “beauty will save the world.” To this the prince replies that “now he will certainly break the vase.” At night he fantasizes and imagines himself having a seizure in such a society.
Lebedev appears on stage and admits “intoxicatedly” that he had recently reported to Lizaveta Prokofyevna about the contents of Aglaya Ivanovna’s letters. And now he assures the prince that he is “all yours” again.
An evening in high society begins with pleasant conversations and nothing should be expected. But suddenly the prince flares up too much and starts talking. Adelaide's expression the next morning explains everything better. mental condition Prince: “He was choking on his beautiful heart.” The prince exaggerates in everything, curses Catholicism as a non-Christian faith, gets more and more excited and finally breaks the vase, as he himself prophesied. Last fact amazes him most of all and after everyone forgives him for the incident, he feels great and continues to talk animatedly. Without even noticing, he gets up during a speech and suddenly, just as according to prophecy, he has a seizure.
When “old woman Belokonskaya” (as Lizaveta Prokofyevna calls her) leaves, she expresses herself this way about the prince: “Well, he’s both good and bad, and if you want to know my opinion, then he’s more bad. You see for yourself what a sick person he is!” Aglaya then announces that she “never considered him her fiancé.”
The Epanchins still inquire about the prince’s health. Through Vera Lebedeva, Aglaya orders the prince not to leave the courtyard, the reason for which is of course incomprehensible to the prince. Ippolit comes to Prince and announces to him that he spoke with Aglaya today in order to agree on a meeting with Nastasya Fillipovna, which should take place on the same day at Daria Alekseevna. Consequently, the prince realizes, Aglaya wanted him to stay at home so that she could come for him. And so it turns out that the main characters of the novel meet.
Aglaya reveals to Nastasya Fillipovna her opinion of her, that she is proud “to the point of madness, as evidenced by your letters to me.” Moreover, she says that she fell in love with the prince for his noble innocence and boundless gullibility. Having asked Nastasya Fillipovna by what right does she interfere in his feelings for her and constantly declares to both her and the prince himself that she loves him, and having received an unsatisfactory answer that she declared “neither to him nor to you”, she angrily replies that she thinks that she wanted to do a great feat, persuading her to “go for him,” but in fact with the sole purpose of satisfying her pride. And Nastasya Fillipovna objects that she only came to this house because she was afraid of her and wanted to make sure who the prince loved more. Inviting her to take it, she demands that she step away “this very minute.” And suddenly Nastasya Fillipovna, like a madwoman, orders the prince to decide whether he will go with her or with Aglaya. The prince does not understand anything and turns to Aglaya, pointing at Nastasya Fillipovna: “Is this possible! After all, she’s... crazy!” After this, Aglaya can no longer stand it and runs away, the prince follows her, but on the threshold Nastasya Fillipovna wraps her arms around him and faints. He stays with her - this is a fatal decision.
Preparations begin for the wedding of the prince and Nastasya Fillipovna. The Epachins leave Pavlovsk and a doctor arrives to examine Ippolit, as well as the prince. Evgeny Pavlovich comes to the prince with the intention of “analyzing” everything that happened and the prince’s motives for other actions and feelings. The result is a subtle and very excellent analysis: he convinces the prince that it was indecent to refuse Aglaya, who behaved much more nobly and appropriately, although Nastasya Fillipovna was worthy of compassion, but there was too much sympathy, because Aglaya needed support. The prince is now completely convinced that he is guilty. Evgeniy Pavlovich also adds that perhaps he didn’t even love any of them, that he only loved them as an “abstract spirit.”
General Ivolgin dies from a second apoplexy and the prince shows his sympathy. Lebedev begins to intrigue against the prince and admits this on the very day of the wedding. At this time, Hippolyte often sends for the prince, which entertains him a lot. He even tells him that Rogozhin will now kill Aglaya because he took Nastasya Fillipovna away from him.
The latter one day becomes overly worried, imagining that Rogozhin is hiding her in the garden and wants to “stab her to death.” The bride's mood is constantly changing, sometimes she is happy, sometimes she is desperate.
Just before the wedding, when the prince is waiting in the church, she sees Rogozhin and shouts “Save me!” and leaves with him. Keller considers the prince’s reaction to this to be “unparalleled philosophy”: “... in her condition... this is completely in the order of things.”
The prince leaves Pavlovsk, hires a room in St. Petersburg and looks for Rogozhin. When he knocks own home him, the maid tells him that he is not at home. And the janitor, on the contrary, replies that he is at home, but, having listened to the prince’s objection, based on the maid’s statement, he believes that “maybe he went out.” Then, however, they announce to him that the sir slept at home at night, but went to Pavlovsk. All this seems more and more unpleasant and suspicious to the prince. Returning to the hotel, Rogozhin suddenly touches him on the elbow in the crowd and tells him to follow him to his home. Nastasya Fillipovna is at his house. They quietly go up to the apartment together, because the janitor does not know that he has returned.
Nastasya Fillipovna lies on the bed and sleeps in a “completely motionless sleep.” Rogozhin killed her with a knife and covered her with a sheet. The prince begins to tremble and lies down with Rogozhin. They talk for a long time about everything, including how Rogozhin planned everything so that no one would know that Nastasya Fillipovna was spending the night with him.
Suddenly Rogozhin begins to shout, forgetting that he should speak in a whisper, and suddenly becomes silent. The prince examines him for a long time and even strokes him. When they are looking for them, Rogozhin is found “completely unconscious and in a fever,” and the prince no longer understands anything and does not recognize anyone - he is an “idiot,” as he was then in Switzerland.
"Crimes and Punishments"). Using the example of the crime of a person of the new generation, the author shows the crisis of Russian consciousness of the 19th century. Raskolnikov is a completely Russian person, “a type of the St. Petersburg period,” but what happens in his soul is not a personal or national phenomenon: it reflects the state of the whole world. The tragedy of modern humanity is revealed in full force in Russia, a country of the greatest extremes and contradictions. The Russian spirit, unfettered by tradition and infinitely free, experiences the world drama most intensely. That is why Dostoevsky's tragic novels, despite all their national originality, have worldwide significance. But in Crime and Punishment the crisis of consciousness is concentrated in one soul that has fallen out of the old world order. In The Idiot, all the characters are drawn into this crisis, everyone belongs to a dying world. "Positively wonderful person“, Prince Myshkin alone resists the “dark forces” and dies in the fight against them. In Crime and Punishment, only Raskolnikov and his double, Svidrigailov, are amazed terrible illness; the rest are apparently still healthy. In “The Idiot,” a pestilent plague has gripped everyone, all souls are ulcerated, all foundations are shaken, all sources of water are poisoned. The world of the novel “The Idiot” is more terrible and tragic than the world of “Crime and Punishment”: people rush about in a fever, speak in delirium, groan and grind their teeth. Two novels are two stages of the same disease: in the first the disease is in its infancy, in the second it is in full development. We know with what excitement Dostoevsky followed everything that was happening in Russia from abroad, how gloomily he looked at reality, how he tried to read the menacing signs of the approaching end in the criminal chronicles. Newspapers complained about the decline in morality, about the increasing frequency of crimes, robberies and murders. But at the same time, he never believed so much in the coming renewal of the dying world, in the salvation of humanity in the image of the Russian Christ. The contradiction between despair and hope, unbelief and faith is embodied in The Idiot. The novel is built on a stunning contrast of darkness and light, death and resurrection.
Dostoevsky. Idiot. 1st episode of the television series
In the sixties, the writer’s pessimism and optimism seemed painfully exaggerated, the novel was misunderstood and almost unnoticed; old world stood, apparently, firmly and unshakably; the process of destruction that Dostoevsky spoke of took place in the dark depths of consciousness. Only now, in our catastrophic era, are we beginning to understand his prophecies.
The novel "The Idiot" shows the fatal power of money over human soul. All the heroes are obsessed with the passion of profit, all of them are either moneylenders (like Ptitsyn, Lebedev, captain Terentyeva), or thieves, or adventurers. Ghani's idea varies with his surroundings. Ptitsyn repays his money at interest and knows his limit: to buy two or three apartment buildings; General Ivolgin asks everyone for a loan and ends up stealing; the tenant Ferdyshchenko, having met the prince, unexpectedly asks him: “Do you have money?” And, having received a twenty-five-ruble ticket from him, he examines it from all sides for a long time and finally returns it. “I came to warn you,” he declares, “firstly, “not to lend me money, because I will certainly ask.” This comic episode emphasizes the universal, terrible fascination with money. The theme of money is reinforced by the thoughts of the characters themselves. Ganya says to the prince: “There are terribly few honest people here; there is no one more honest than Ptitsyn.” His thirteen-year-old brother Kolya philosophizes about the same thing: having made friends with the prince, he shares his thoughts with him. His child's soul is already wounded by the indecency of his parents and the immorality of society. “There are terribly few honest people here,” he notes, “so there’s even no one to respect at all... And you noticed, prince, in our age everyone is an adventurer! And it is here in Russia, in our dear fatherland. And I don’t understand how it all worked out like this. It seems that it stood so firmly, but what now... The parents are the first to back down and are themselves ashamed of their former morality. Over there, in Moscow, a parent persuaded his son before anything not to retreat to get money: it is known in print... All usurers, all of them, right down to the last one.” Kolya remembers the murder of Danilov and connects greed for profit with crime. His words already reveal the main idea of the novel.
The first part ends with a reception with Nastasya Filippovna. The motive of money is introduced by Ferdyshchenko’s story about the worst deed: he stole three rubles from friends; The maid was accused of theft and kicked out. He did not feel any particular remorse either then or later. And the narrator concludes: “It still seems to me that there are many more thieves in the world than non-thieves, and that there is not even such a honest man who would not steal something at least once in his life.” This basely clownish confession prepares the effect of a catastrophe. Rogozhin comes to buy Nastasya Filippovna: in his hands is “a large bundle of paper, tightly and tightly wrapped in Birzhevye Vedomosti and tied tightly on all sides and twice crosswise with twine, like those that are used to tie sugar loaves.” He first offers 18 thousand, then increases it to forty and finally reaches a hundred. In a tragic auction, a bundle of one hundred thousand plays a major role.
Nastasya Filippovna returns the floor to Gana and shames him. The motive of greed is associated with the motive of crime. Serving mammon leads to murder. “No, now I believe,” she says, “that this guy will kill for money! After all, now they are all overcome with such a thirst, they are so distracted by money that they seem to have gone crazy. He’s a child himself, and he’s already getting involved with moneylenders. Otherwise he will wrap silk around the razor, fasten it and quietly from behind and slaughter his friend like a ram, as I read recently.” Nastasya Filippovna refers to the case of the merchant Mazurin, who killed the jeweler Kalmykov. The criminal chronicle again intrudes into the novel. The author builds his apocalyptic vision of the world on the facts of the “current moment.” The heroine throws a wad of hundred thousand into the fire and challenges Ghana: pull the money out of the fire, and it’s yours. The effect of this scene is the contrast between the hostess's selflessness and the greed of her guests. She summons not only Ganya, but the entire “damned” world that worships the golden calf. Confusion ensues: Lebedev “screams and crawls into the fireplace,” Ferdyshchenko suggests “snatching just one thousand with his teeth”; Ganya faints. The prince also enters into this orgy of gold: he offers his hand to the heroine, declaring that he has received an inheritance, that he is also a millionaire.
In the second part, a company of blackmailers appears. Burdovsky pretends to be the illegitimate son of Pavlishchev, the benefactor of Prince Myshkin, and starts a case against him in order to hit a decent jackpot. His friend Keller publishes an “accusatory” and vilely slanderous article about the prince in the newspaper. Lebedev says about these young people that they “have gone further than the nihilists.” The apocalyptic theme develops in the indignant monologue of Lizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina: the kingdom of the golden calf is the threshold of the kingdom of death. “Really last times come,” she shouts. – Now everything is explained to me! Isn’t this tongue-tied guy going to kill you (she pointed at Burdovsky), but I bet he’ll kill you! He probably won’t take your ten thousand money, but at night he will come and stab you and take it out of the box. In all honesty, he'll take it out!.. Ugh, everything is topsy-turvy, everyone's gone upside down... Crazy! Vain ones! They don’t believe in God, they don’t believe in Christ! But you have been so consumed by vanity and pride that you will end up eating each other, I predict that. And this is not confusion, and this is not chaos, and this is not disgrace?”
The words of General Epanchina express the writer’s cherished idea: the moral crisis experienced by humanity in the 19th century is religious crisis . Faith in Christ fades, night falls on the world; he will die in the bloody chaos of the war of all against all. Elizaveta Prokofyevna’s passionate prophecy is “scientifically” summarized by the reasoner Evgeniy Pavlovich. But his cold-blooded diagnosis of the disease of the century is, perhaps, even more terrible than the passionate indignation of the general’s wife. “Everything that I listened to,” he says, “reduces, in my opinion, to the theory of the triumph of law, first of all and bypassing everything and even to the exclusion of everything else, and even, perhaps, before research into what right consists of.” ? From this, the matter can directly jump to the right of force, that is, to the right of the individual fist and personal desire, as, indeed, it has very often ended in the world. Proudhon settled on the right of force. During the American War, many of the most advanced liberals declared themselves in favor of the planters, in the sense that Negroes are Negroes, lower than the white tribe, and, therefore, the right of might belongs to the whites... I just wanted to note that from the right of force to the right of tigers and crocodiles and even to Danilov and Gorsky not far " This prophecy was fulfilled literally: people of the twentieth century know from experience what the right of might and the right of tigers and crocodiles are...
This is the picture of the world revealed in The Idiot. The idea: disbelief inevitably leads to murder, is embodied in the action of the novel: all the heroes are murderers, either in reality or in possibility. Godless humanity stands under the sign of death.
What is Dostoevsky's Apocalypse based on? Is it not based on a morbid fantasy? He was passionately indignant when critics called his novel fantastic, and argued that he was more of a realist than they were. The menacing signs of the “time of troubles” approaching the world are already inscribed in the “current reality”; you just need to be able to read them. The writer peered into small facts, newspaper news, chronicles of incidents, reports of criminal trials and was proud that he was guessing the most elusive “trends of the moment.” When “Crime and Punishment” was published, newspaper articles appeared about the case of student Danilov. On January 14, 1866, Danilov killed and robbed the moneylender Popov and his maid. The poor student lived off his lessons, was smart and well-educated, and had a strong and calm character; he had “beautiful appearance, large black expressive eyes and long, thick, swept back hair.” During the trial, the prisoner Glazkov suddenly filed a statement that it was not Danilov who killed the moneylender, but he; but soon took it back, “admitting that Danilov had talked him into it.” Dostoevsky was amazed: reality imitated fiction with amazing accuracy. The Danilov case reproduced the plot of Crime and Punishment: even Glazkov’s false confession corresponded to Nikolka’s false self-accusation in the novel. “Realism” triumphed for him. “Ah, my friend,” he wrote to Maikov, “I have completely different concepts about reality and realism than our realists and critics. My idealism is more real than theirs. Their realism cannot explain a hundredth part of real, really happened facts. And we with our idealism even the facts were prophesied . It happened."
In Dostoevsky's art, the greatest flights of fantasy are combined with a painstaking study of facts. He always begins his ascent from the lowlands of everyday reality. His novels are full of chronicles of incidents.
The plot of “The Idiot” is closely related to the criminal trials of the 60s. The very idea of the novel arose under the influence of the Umetsky case. Not a single detail of this family drama survived in the final edition. Mignon’s “embarrassed proud woman” - Umetskaya - is only a distant prototype of Nastasya Filippovna. The Umetskikh process was a ferment that set in motion the author’s creative thought, but dissolved almost without a trace in the process of work. Two other criminal cases - Mazurin and Gorsky - determined the composition of the novel. Dostoevsky admitted to S. Ivanova that “ for decoupling the whole novel was almost written and conceived.” The denouement is the murder of Nastasya Filippovna by Rogozhin: this means that this is the meaning of the novel. The idea of the “murder” of the fallen world is realized in the “killing” of the hero. The figure of the millionaire's killer appears under the impression of the trial of the merchant Mazurin.
"Idiot", analysis of the novel
The novel “The Idiot” became the realization of the long-standing creative ideas of F.M. Dostoevsky, his main character, Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin, according to the author’s judgment is “a truly wonderful person,” he is the embodiment of goodness and Christian morality. And it is precisely because of his selflessness, kindness and honesty, his extraordinary love of humanity in the world of money and hypocrisy that those around him call Myshkin an “idiot.” Prince Myshkin most He spent his life in seclusion; when he went out into the world, he did not know what horrors of inhumanity and cruelty he would have to face. Lev Nikolaevich symbolically fulfills the mission of Jesus Christ and, just like him, perishes loving and forgiving humanity. Just like Christ, the prince, tries to help all the people who surround him, he allegedly tries to cure their souls with his kindness and incredible insight.
The image of Prince Myshkin is the center of the composition of the novel; everyone is connected with him. storylines and heroes: the family of General Epanchin, the merchant Rogozhin, Nastasya Filippovna, Ganya Ivolgin, etc. And also the center of the novel is the bright contrast between the virtue of Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin and the usual way of life secular society. Dostoevsky was able to show that even for the heroes themselves this contrast looks terrifying; they did not understand this boundless kindness and therefore were afraid of it.
The novel is filled with symbols, here Prince Myshkin symbolizes Christian love, Nastasya Filippovna - beauty. The painting “Dead Christ” has a symbolic character, from the contemplation of which, according to Prince Myshkin, one can lose faith.
Lack of faith and spirituality become the reasons for the tragedy that happened at the end of the novel, the meaning of which is assessed differently. The author focuses on the fact that physical and mental beauty will perish in a world that places only self-interest and profit in the absolute.
The writer astutely noticed the growth of individualism and the ideology of “Napoleonism.” Adhering to the ideas of individual freedom, he at the same time believed that unlimited self-will leads to inhumane acts. Dostoevsky viewed crime as the most typical manifestation of individualistic self-affirmation. He saw the revolutionary movement of his time as an anarchist rebellion. In his novel, he created not only an image of impeccable goodness equal to the biblical one, but also showed the development of the characters of all the heroes of the novel who interacted with Myshkin for the better.
See also:
- “The Idiot,” a summary of Dostoevsky’s novel in parts
- “Crime and Punishment”, analysis of the novel
- Analysis of the images of the main characters in the novel “Crime and Punishment”
- "The Brothers Karamazov", a summary of the chapters of Dostoevsky's novel
- “White Nights”, a summary of the chapters of Dostoevsky’s story
- “White Nights”, analysis of Dostoevsky’s story