Givens - Dostoevsky's Narratives of (Un)Belief (original) (raw)

A Narrow Escape into Faith? Dostoevsky's Idiot and the Christology of Comedy

The Russian Review, 2011

The Idiot (1869) is often singled out as one of Dostoevsky's most tragic novels. It is his "bleakest work," according to one critic, "a claustrophobic tale of unmitigated tragedy for all its protagonists." 1 In this respect it rivals Demons (1871-72), which, with five murders, two suicides, and two untimely deaths, stands as the "darkest of Dostoevsky's novels." 2 What makes The Idiot so grim is not the number of murders or suicides it contains, for there is only one: the murder-suicide of Nastasia Filippovna at the end of the novel. The source of the novel's pall of gloom is, as Sarah Young argues, that "The Idiot ends with fewer hints of spiritual regeneration or the possibility of new life than Dostoevsky's other novels," with "no truly redemptive figure to offset its many ambivalences"-this despite the fact that its hero, the sickly Prince Myshkin, is identified three times by Dostoevsky as a Christ figure in his notebooks for the novel. 3 At the same time, Demons and The Idiot contain some of the most humorous scenes and outsized characters Dostoevsky would ever compose. Joseph Frank speaks of scenes in Demons of "irresistibly funny broad comedy," while Gary Rosenshield claims that "there are more comic episodes in The Idiot than in any of the other major novels." 4 I would like to thank Kathleen Parthé, Carol Apollonio, Olga Meerson, and the anonymous readers for all of their insightful comments. A special note of gratitude goes to Calvin Schwenk, "a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek," to whom this article is dedicated. 1 Diane Oenning Thompson, "Problems of the Biblical Word in Dostoevsky's Poetics," in Dostoevsky and the Christian Tradition, ed.

Dostoevsky in the Context of the Novel ‘ the Brothers Karamazov ’

2015

In this article the dichotomy of perception of the novel „Idiot‟ in the context of the last novel „Brothers Karamazov‟ by F. M. Dostoyevsky is discussed. The researchers define its nature and origins of the ambiguous reception. The alternative perception of the novel „Idiot‟ and its main hero are determined by the author. According to the perceptive point of view the writer‟s text is the „space of freedom‟ for a reader. This fact is also defined by the strategy of the author. Dostoyevsky uses the device of a reader‟s „failed expectations‟ associated with the miracle of Christ‟s resurrection.

The conflicting perceptions of Dostoyevsky in the Novel "Idiot"

The objective of my article is to analyze the psychoanalytic perspective intuitive perceptions of Dostoyevsky on the conflict between good and evil. According to my hypothesis in search of these psychic perceptions, aggravated by epileptic seizures, Dostoyevsky has created the double characters in the novel 'The Idiot' (beneficent - the incarnation of love; demonic - the incarnation of death), to starting from the single entity. Dostoyevsky here denouncing the perversion of philosophical ideas and criminal acts which cause the discomfort of the Russian society of the time and defends the human moral values. Keywords: conflicts, splitting of the personality, doubles, epilepsy, masochism, perversion, femininity