Reading Response #3

A little while into The Idiot, Dostoevsky tells what feels a bit like a story inside of a story. It offers some background to the character of The Prince, but I believe it was more of a vehicle for Dostoevsky to share some of his own personal philosophy and thoughts. He tells a story of The Prince’s time spent teaching in a small Swiss village.

The Prince tells about how the other teacher he worked with envied how well he got along with the children, while most of the town disliked him because they believed he was “corrupting” the children. The Prince explains he “didn’t hide anything from them.” “What were they so afraid of?” he asked. The Prince goes on to comment on how poorly adults understand children, because they say that it is proper to hide things from them on the pretext that they aren’t ready to learn about it or that they wont understand the concept. “What a sad and unfortunate idea!” The Prince muses. Dostoevsky boils down his manifesto for this little story into one line The Prince spouts: “Grown-ups don’t know that a child can give extremely important advice even in the most difficult matters. Oh God! when this pretty little bird looks at you trustingly and happily, its a shame to deceive it!”

This offers a lot of insight into Dostoevsky’s philosophy on the matter of children, he made it very obvious that one shouldn’t try to conceal parts of life from a children because you believe it will better them somehow. I agree with the sentiment and have for a very long time, so it was interesting to see an author articulate it into such a concise anecdotal form. It also offers a nice view of The Prince’s child-like innocence, when he says that he prefers the company of children to adults, because he doesn’t know how to act around adults. If many other characters were to say this, it may seem peculiar, but given how perfectly kind and gentle The Prince is, it makes perfect sense, and sums him up quite nicely.