Personal Reflection

For the classic novel study, I read The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I’m very happy I was given a medium which I could study Dostoevsky, as throughout my studies, I’ve found him to be an incredibly intelligent and interesting man. He lead an incredibly interesting and noteworthy life filled with tragedy and success, and his novels served as an excellent outlet for him to express that.

Dostoevsky was an incredibly well respected man, and after reading some of his work, it is not hard to see why. Reading The Idiot has reshaped and helped form many of my philosophies, for example the death penalty. Dostoevsky has an incredible way with reasoning which captivates the reader and brings them over to his viewpoint very quickly.

Being someone who is interested in the arts – writing included – as well as philosophy, reading Dostoevsky’s work was a very fulfilling, enjoyable, and thought-provoking experience. In future philosophical discussions and even my own thoughts, I’m certain I will be able to look back at many of the topics covered in this book to help shape my opinions. Not only this, but the characters in the novel also prove to be quite deep and interesting, which I’m sure will be able to help me in my own writing, as well as acting.

Reading The Idiot has interested me in further studying Dostoevsky for personal reading, I look forward to reading more of his classics such as Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov. If they prove to be as captivating (I’ve heard Karamazov is considered his best work by many) as The Idiot was, I’m surely in for more deep literary experiences, and presumably new philosophical concepts to be brought to my attention.

In all, I’m very pleased with my choice of book and with the opportunity to put some critical thought into such a revered writer such as Fyodor Dostoevsky. I believe it has helped form many abstract philosophical thoughts, and was an engaging, enjoyable read on its own.

Works Cited

Works Cited

Breunig, Charles. The Age of Revolution and Reaction, 1789-1850. New York: Norton, 1977. Print.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Idiot. New York: Everyman's Library, 2002. Print.

Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1976. Print.

Http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/. "Fyodor Dostoevsky (Dostoyevsky) | Quotes from Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov & More." Fyodor Dostoevsky (Dostoyevsky) | Crime and Punishment | The Brothers Karamazov. Http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/. Web. <http://www.fyodordostoevsky.com/quotes.php>.

Apologia

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.

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.

Reading Response #4

One of the most enjoyable parts of The Idiot is that it contains so much of Dostoevsky’s philosophy. His writing is filled with his reflections on life and it becomes very obvious why Nietzsche respected him so immensely. Even his smallest thoughts that embellish the narrative are extraordinarily interesting and offer many deep insights for readers to glean if they take time to reflect.

One of the more interesting thoughts that is presented in the book is expressed by the only relative of The Prince, Madame Yepanchin. She says to The Prince, “The heart is the main thing, the rest is nonsense.” Which is an interesting (despite somewhat cliché) thought. However, she explains what she means:

“A fool with a heart and no brains is as unhappy a fool as a fool with brains, but no heart. An old truth. I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we’re both unhappy, and we both suffer.”

At face value, this may seem somewhat shallow, but if you read deeper into the subtext, it's a very interesting existential thought. No matter what you have, you wish for what you don’t have (a brain, or a heart). People can never be happy with what they have, whether or not it is something that can be changed: “We are both unhappy, and we both suffer.”
Perhaps Dostoevsky’s writing can offer some solace in the knowledge that the feeling is universal, and that even a man who may seem perfect (such as The Prince), is, in himself, still unhappy. Maybe if you understand that it is human nature to want what you can’t or don’t have, then you can try to overcome your shortfalls and realize how privileged you may be. Even if that privilege is something as basic as your heart or your brain.

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.

Reading Response #2

I’ve gotten further along in The Idiot and one of the more interesting things covered in the book is the concept of the death penalty. It was an important, and dangerous, topic to cover in the time that the novel was written. In Russia, capital punishment was abolished in 1753-54 under the empress Elizaveta Petrovna, but reintroduced by Catherine II in the 1860s because of anarchist and terrorist movement and was then resorted to quite frequently. Dostoevsky had to use some tricky wording in certain conversations the Prince has throughout the book in order to bypass censors from editing the book.

The death penalty was a very important topic to cover for Dostoevsky as he himself had actually been subject to a “mock execution” (an incident which is talked about by the Prince in the novel) because he was a member of a group of progressive-minded “commoner-intellectuals” called the Petrashevsky Circle. Dostoevsky, who is referred to by the Prince telling the story as “a certain man”, was taken with many other members of the circle to be put to death, but at the last minute before their execution was let free. Dostoevsky argues (via the Prince) that, although death by the guillotine is quick and painless, the waiting and panic that preempts the ultimate execution are worse than any prison sentence a man could serve.

The Idiot is widely considered an existential piece of literature, and the subject matter of execution is covered in many other classic, existential novels. Most notable are L’etranger by Albert Camus, which follows a man being sentenced to death by the guillotine up until his last minutes of life, as well as a personal favourite to Dostoevsky: The Last Day of a Man Condemned to Death by Victor Hugo.

It is very interesting to see the death penalty be talked about by a man who not only had friends who were taken by it (21 of his contemporaries in the Petrashevsky Circle were put to death), but who had experienced the panic and fear of being in the guillotine and lived to tell the tale.

Reading Response #1

Fyodor Dostoevsky is considered by academics and readers around the world to be one of the greatest authors, with many of his books appearing on a multitude of “best-of” lists. Albert Einstein even said "Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss." To further even this praise, Friedrich Neitzsche called Dostoevsky “the only psychologist from whom [he] had anything to learn”. With praise like this from such amazing minds and important figures, I went into The Idiot expecting quite a lot, and it did not disappoint. It is truly a classic novel.

After portraying a guilty man in Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky embarked on The Idiot as a medium to write about a truly delightful and innocent character: Prince Myshkin. Early in the novel his character is quite clear. He is a very nice man who means no trouble, although he is afflicted with epilepsy (in the time of the novel’s writing and within the book, called “idiocy”), which has led the people around him to be standoffish and think quite little of him. However, time after time he proves to the people he encounters that he is smart, conversational, and very nice.

Of course, a perfect character wouldn’t be very compelling, so it is interesting to see the way he is written even when he is angry or annoyed. In one passage, The Prince is being berated by the character Ganya, who calls him an “idiot” on the street, and the Prince replies with a wonderful retort:

“I must point out to you Gavrilla Ardalionovich, that formerly I was indeed unwell, so that in fact I was almost an idiot; but I have been well for a long time now, and therefore I find it somewhat unpleasant when I’m called an idiot to my face. Though you might be excused, considering your misfortunes, in your vexation you have even abused me a couple of times. I dislike that very much, especially the way you do it, suddenly, from the start. And since we’re now standing at an intersection, it might be better if we parted: you go home to the right and I’ll go left. I have twenty-five roubles, and I’m sure I’ll find furnished rooms.”

It is a beautiful and succinct representation of The Prince’s quiet, collected power in even very harsh situations, as well as his intelligence and vocabulary. It's this calm power and depth of character, that makes The Prince such a likable and interesting character. I look forward to reading more of him.