A Truly Beautiful Soul in The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

3019 Words7 Pages

The Russian novelist Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky stands at the very summit of Russian literature. No 19th-century writer had greater psychological insight or philosophical depth. None speaks more immediately and passionately to the mood and tone of the present century. This essay will discuss how Dostoyevsky's intent to portray a 'truly beautiful soul' manifests itself in the novel The Idiot, and access Dostoyevsky's success or failure in achieving his intention.

Dostoyevsky confesses in his letter to Maikov dated January 12, 1868 that his 'desperate situation' compelled him to resort to the fascinating and tempting, but nonetheless difficult and premature thought of portraying 'a wholly beautiful individual.' As a result, into Part One of the novel, which he started writing on December 18 and submitted in its full form on January 11 to the January issue of 'Russian Messenger', the 'beautiful individual', Prince Myshkin, was plunged premature and 'extraordinarily weak'. Dostoyevsky believed that 'beauty will save the world'1 and hoped to create a figure who could lead the many into the experience of the same inner peace and beauty that this character has achieved through grace.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot portrays a morally blameless man, Prince Myshkin, whose innocent simple nature and epileptic seizures cause him to be taken for a cretin. He is a man who is ineffectual because of his positive goodness. His Christ-like qualities, far from influencing those about him, are shown to be utterly incongruous in a sinful world. Nastasya Filippovna, who has been cruelly treated by a former lover, is attracted both to Myshkin and to the evil Rogozhin, and is unable to commit herself to either. W...

... middle of paper ...

...ween beauty and society indicates the novel as a unit containing beauty, as an ideal, in itself.

Bibliography

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot, Middlesex, Penguin Books Ltd., 1955.

Roger B. Anderson, Dostoyevsky - Myths of Duality, Florida: University of Florida Press, 1986.

Michael Holquist, Dostoyevsky and the Novel, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.

Robert Louis Jackson, Dostoyevsky's Quest for Form - A Study of his Philosophy of Art, New Haven: Yale University, 1966.

Gary Soul Morson, The Boundaries of Genre - Dostoyevsky's Diary of a Writer and the Traditions of Literary Utopia.

Joseph Frank, Dostoyevsky - The Miraculous Years 1865 - 1871, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Robert Louis Jackson, Dostoyevsky's Quest for Form - A Study of his Philosophy of Art, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966, p. 40.

Show More
Related

  • All Quiet On The Western Front as an Anti-War Novel

    815 Words  | 2 Pages

    Life for the soldiers in the beginning is a dramatic one as they are ordered up to the frontline to wire fences. The frontline makes Paul feel immediately different as described here. "As if something is inside us, in our blood, has been switched on." The front makes Paul more aware and switched on as if his senses and reactions are sharpened. I think Paul and his friends are frightened when they are near the front line. After they wire the fences and they are heading to the barracks their group start to be fired at by the enemy. They manage to get through the shelling unscathed but they hear a horse that has been shot. The horse makes a terrible noise of anguish and is in terrible pain and it has been shot as the author describes here. "The belly of one of the horses has been ripped open and it guts are trailing out." This shows that there are not just human casualties of war; the innocent lives of animals can be affected as much as humans who fight in wars. Detering-one soldier in Pauls group-says." It is the most despicable thing of all to drag animals into a war." I agree with Detering, as animals had no choice about going to war. On the way back to the trucks that would take them back to the barracks Paul Baumers company are hit again by heavy shelling and they have to take cover in a military graveyard. The shells blow huge holes in the graveyard and create large...

    Read More

  • Reader-Response on Soldier's Home

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldier's Home." The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 6th Edition. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's. 2002. 152-57.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front and the Horrors of War

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind.  Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable.  Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone.  Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off.  Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death.  His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.”  The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.

    Read More

  • Dishonesty in The Great Gatsby

    1501 Words  | 4 Pages

    Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... that the war had on the soldiers is told in “All Quiet on the Western Front”.  Not only does Paul describe the events that he goes through, but he also describes his understanding that the war has changed him forever.  He doesn’t believe that he can ever return to normal life after having gone through what he has.  Facing death and killing has made him old beyond his years and he confirms that when he says “...Youth? That is long ago.  We are old folk” (pg. 18).  Paul describes  his acknowledgment that the war has transformed him when he describes that the soldiers have been transformed  “...into thugs, into murderers, into God only knows what devils...” ( pg.114 ).  Naturally “a beast” is incapable of returning to a civilian life.  This is the unfortunate fate of the soldiers who survived the war.

    Read More

  • Theodicy and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

    2495 Words  | 5 Pages

    Kraeger, Linda, and Joe Barnhart. 1992. Dostoevsky on Evil and Atonement. Lampeter, Dyfed, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.

    Read More

  • Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust

    2642 Words  | 6 Pages

    Light, James. "Violence, Dreams, and Dostoevsky: The Art of Nathanael West." College English 19.5 (1958): 208-213. Print.

    Read More

  • Literary Techniques Used by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment

    2235 Words  | 5 Pages

    Dostoyevsky's writing in this book is such that the characters and setting around the main subject, Raskolnikov, are used with powerful consequences. The setting is both symbolic and has a power that affects all whom reside there, most notably Raskolnikov. An effective Structure is also used to show changes to the plot's direction and Raskolnikov's character. To add to this, the author's word choice and imagery are often extremely descriptive, and enhance the impact at every stage of Raskolnikov's changing fortunes and character. All of these features aid in the portrayal of Raskolnikov's downfall and subsequent rise.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front Critical Analysis

    1407 Words  | 3 Pages

    While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque 's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing future, reducing the quality of his life.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    2133 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...e body suddenly convulses, then becomes limp, and collapses” (page 216). He feels the responsibility to be the one to tell this man’s wife how he died and why he died. Paul realizes that it was completely wrong and that the government had played with his mind making him think that the idea of killing at war was good. He also sees that if the situation was different, that all of them could be friends instead of enemies. The soldiers realize that they are all alike and that they have nothing to gain from their killing.

    Read More

  • Nature and Nurture in Crime and Punishment

    1377 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kjetsaa, Geir. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Writer's Life. New York, New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1987,

    Read More

  • A Victim of Society in A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

    558 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the short story “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner, Emily, the protagonist, is shown as someone who’s life is falling apart and brought down by society. Emily in this story could be described as a victim to society and her father. Emily Grierson’s confinement, loss of her father and Homer, and constant criticism caused her, her insanity.

    Read More

  • Faustus: Dealing in the Dark

    660 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Faustus - the main character - is educated in many fields: medicine, law, divinity, and philosophy, yet his appetite for knowledge is still insatiable. Despite his vast knowledge he is unfulfilled because he still lacks power. As the play unfolds, Faustus is overcome by a craving for power. He eliminates God from his life: "And Faustus vows never to look to heaven,/ Never to name God, or pray to him,/ To burn his Scriptures, slay his ministers,/ And make my spirits pull his churches down" (5.270-3). In western society today, people still lust for power - it is human nature to want. In Faustus' claim that he has nothing more to learn from this world his ambition turns to arrogance, and his intelligence turns into ignorance. Faustus believes that he can attain power beyond mortal ability. Why would God help Faustus, when he refuses to listen to God, and ignores the signs God gave him? Faustus makes several choices in ignorance of the final consequence. When he is having an argument (with the Good Angel and Evil Angel), and chooses to ignore the Good Angel (1.70-73).

    Read More

  • Working Together in Robert Frost's Mending Wall

    867 Words  | 2 Pages

    20th Century American Literature: A Soviet View. Translated by Ronald Vroon, p. 78. Progress Publishers. 1976. The. 241-260.

    Read More

  • Doctor Faustus Essay: The Tragic History Of Doctor Faustus

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    This soliloquy shows that Faustus is eager to learn magic, which reflects on how people during the Renaissance were interested in science and nonreligious aspects instead of God.

    Read More

More about A Truly Beautiful Soul in The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Open Document