Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot was a seminal piece of literature, considered one of Dostoevsky’s finest works and one of the finest pieces of Russian literature in general. This is because of its insight into the concepts of good and evil, life and death, and many of Dostoevsky’s own philosophies and psychological musings.
Dostoevsky was once called “The only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn” (http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/) by Friedrich Nietzsche, which makes sense given Dostoevsky’s incredible insight into the human mind. When writing The Idiot, Dostoevsky set out to write about a perfectly good and pleasant man, Prince Myshkin. What makes this tale compelling; however, is seeing a man so pure and good as the Prince being sucked into the pit of insanity by the evil of another man: Rogozhin. As the book comes to its famous and stunning climax, the murder of the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna causes the Prince to regress back to what he once was: “An idiot.” This tragic close to the novel not only comes as a shock, but also stands to offer some acumen into Dostoevky’s almost unrivalled handle on tragedy. In The Idiot the “good guy” fails and is sent into a psychological breakdown, similar to the ending of another of Dostoevsky’s masterworks, Crime and Punishment, in which the protagonist is found guilty and is sentenced to prison time. This bleak sense of justice which much of Dostoevsky’s writing is infused with has earned many of his works the title of “existentialist literature”, and allows the reader to garner a fairly comprehensive understanding of his general philosophy. Dostoevsky doesn’t show a very strong faith in the goodness of humanity, or at the very least in “happy endings”; but who could blame a man who suffered a mock execution, and witnessed the deaths of dozens of friends and contemporaries? The Idiot serves to instill an unsettling view of the human condition, in which even the nicest man can be destroyed by petty evil. This incredible understanding of the human mind serves to solidify Fyodor Dostoevsky as one of the great writers in history.
As a man, Dostoevsky was no stranger to real-life tragedy. Being a member of the liberal group, the Petrashevsky Circle, a group of like-minded writers and artists interested in reading and discussing literature banned from Russia at the time, he was put to a mock execution with the other members of the circle (many of whom went on to be legitimately executed). The Russian autocracy, fearful of seeing another uprising similar to the Revolutions of 1848 (Breunig, C. 77), feared any group of people they thought could possibly harm them. As such, Dostoevsky was forced, along with his colleagues, contemporaries, and friends, to stand outside in the freezing cold waiting to be killed by firing squad, only to be let free hours later. However, they did not come out unscathed, the members of the circle were sentenced to exile in Siberia where they would spend four years of their lives doing hard labour under terrible conditions. Dostoevsky himself described the conditions: “In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Filth on the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall... We were packed like herrings in a barrel... There was no room to turn around. From dusk to dawn it was impossible not to behave like pigs... Fleas, lice, and black beetles by the bushel...” (Frank, J. 76). Being an artist, though, Dostoevsky used this experience in his writing, speaking of his own experiences in the third person (from The Prince’s perspective), he wrote “Maybe there is a man who has had the sentence read to him, has been allowed to suffer, and has then been told ‘Go, you’re forgiven.’ That man might be able to tell us something.” (Dostoevsky, F. p. 23), and indeed he did. Dostoevsky explains with incredible simplicity how the death penalty is a much crueler way of extinguishing a life than cold-blooded murder, even when the method is painless (eg. the guillotine).
“The strongest pain my not be in the wounds,” The Prince explains in one striking passage, “but in knowing for certain that in an hour, then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now, this second – your soul will fly out of your body and you’ll no longer be a man, and it’s for certain. The main thing is that it’s for certain.” (Dostoevsky, F. p. 23) This type of anecdotal evidence proves a much stronger argument against capitol punishment and the death penalty than perhaps any other in the history of literature. “A man killed by robbers,” The Prince continues “stabbed at night, in the forest or however, certainly still hopes he’ll be saved till the very last minute. [...] But [when killed by legal sentence] all this hope, which makes it ten times easier to die, is taken away for certain.” (Dostoevsky, F. p. 23). This incredibly powerful telling of Dostoevsky’s own brush with death (through word of the Prince) also proves to cement The Idiot as an indispensable piece of classic writing.
In the end, The Idiot earns its spot as a classic and cardinal piece of literature more so because of its author’s incredible genius and life than it’s plot, but the characters and the events are the instrument by which Dostoevsky can express his thoughts and personal stories in a way he was comfortable with, and a way that he knew would life long past his own mortal years.
Dostoevsky was once called “The only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn” (http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/) by Friedrich Nietzsche, which makes sense given Dostoevsky’s incredible insight into the human mind. When writing The Idiot, Dostoevsky set out to write about a perfectly good and pleasant man, Prince Myshkin. What makes this tale compelling; however, is seeing a man so pure and good as the Prince being sucked into the pit of insanity by the evil of another man: Rogozhin. As the book comes to its famous and stunning climax, the murder of the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna causes the Prince to regress back to what he once was: “An idiot.” This tragic close to the novel not only comes as a shock, but also stands to offer some acumen into Dostoevky’s almost unrivalled handle on tragedy. In The Idiot the “good guy” fails and is sent into a psychological breakdown, similar to the ending of another of Dostoevsky’s masterworks, Crime and Punishment, in which the protagonist is found guilty and is sentenced to prison time. This bleak sense of justice which much of Dostoevsky’s writing is infused with has earned many of his works the title of “existentialist literature”, and allows the reader to garner a fairly comprehensive understanding of his general philosophy. Dostoevsky doesn’t show a very strong faith in the goodness of humanity, or at the very least in “happy endings”; but who could blame a man who suffered a mock execution, and witnessed the deaths of dozens of friends and contemporaries? The Idiot serves to instill an unsettling view of the human condition, in which even the nicest man can be destroyed by petty evil. This incredible understanding of the human mind serves to solidify Fyodor Dostoevsky as one of the great writers in history.
As a man, Dostoevsky was no stranger to real-life tragedy. Being a member of the liberal group, the Petrashevsky Circle, a group of like-minded writers and artists interested in reading and discussing literature banned from Russia at the time, he was put to a mock execution with the other members of the circle (many of whom went on to be legitimately executed). The Russian autocracy, fearful of seeing another uprising similar to the Revolutions of 1848 (Breunig, C. 77), feared any group of people they thought could possibly harm them. As such, Dostoevsky was forced, along with his colleagues, contemporaries, and friends, to stand outside in the freezing cold waiting to be killed by firing squad, only to be let free hours later. However, they did not come out unscathed, the members of the circle were sentenced to exile in Siberia where they would spend four years of their lives doing hard labour under terrible conditions. Dostoevsky himself described the conditions: “In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Filth on the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall... We were packed like herrings in a barrel... There was no room to turn around. From dusk to dawn it was impossible not to behave like pigs... Fleas, lice, and black beetles by the bushel...” (Frank, J. 76). Being an artist, though, Dostoevsky used this experience in his writing, speaking of his own experiences in the third person (from The Prince’s perspective), he wrote “Maybe there is a man who has had the sentence read to him, has been allowed to suffer, and has then been told ‘Go, you’re forgiven.’ That man might be able to tell us something.” (Dostoevsky, F. p. 23), and indeed he did. Dostoevsky explains with incredible simplicity how the death penalty is a much crueler way of extinguishing a life than cold-blooded murder, even when the method is painless (eg. the guillotine).
“The strongest pain my not be in the wounds,” The Prince explains in one striking passage, “but in knowing for certain that in an hour, then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now, this second – your soul will fly out of your body and you’ll no longer be a man, and it’s for certain. The main thing is that it’s for certain.” (Dostoevsky, F. p. 23) This type of anecdotal evidence proves a much stronger argument against capitol punishment and the death penalty than perhaps any other in the history of literature. “A man killed by robbers,” The Prince continues “stabbed at night, in the forest or however, certainly still hopes he’ll be saved till the very last minute. [...] But [when killed by legal sentence] all this hope, which makes it ten times easier to die, is taken away for certain.” (Dostoevsky, F. p. 23). This incredibly powerful telling of Dostoevsky’s own brush with death (through word of the Prince) also proves to cement The Idiot as an indispensable piece of classic writing.
Dostoevsky uses The Idiot mainly as a vehicle for his own philosophical beliefs and musings, be it his belief that “Grown-ups don’t know that a child can give extremely important advice even in the most difficult matters.” (Dostoevsky, F. p. 67), or the tale of a poor girl named Marie who after she lost everything and was exiled from her town, the Prince helped save (despite her ultimate death: another tragedy within the novel). The stories that are told within the story, like that of Marie and the children, exemplify Dostoevsky’s uncanny ability to convince the reader of almost anything using anecdotal evidence. This lucidity in his philosophy as well as his ability to insert it into the story without seeming juxtaposed will convert most readers and keep them interested in what Dostoevsky (or the Prince) has to say.
In the end, The Idiot earns its spot as a classic and cardinal piece of literature more so because of its author’s incredible genius and life than it’s plot, but the characters and the events are the instrument by which Dostoevsky can express his thoughts and personal stories in a way he was comfortable with, and a way that he knew would life long past his own mortal years.
Interesting blog, it reminds me of Fyodor Dostoyevsky : "Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary."
ReplyDeleteI tried to write a blog about it, hope you also like it in https://stenote.blogspot.com/2021/04/an-interview-with-fyodor.html.