The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Needs must when the devil drives, and our young lady will go off to see Nastasya Filippovna.

Devil drives; passionate jealousy drives. Actually, it’s ’more than jealousy,’ as Aglaya said it herself. It’s ironic how Aglaya claimed that Nastya will kill herself if she saw Myshkin marry her [Aglaya], and although she’s right, she has probably reached a pinnacle of jealousy that is somewhat similar to Nastasya’s. I don’t think Aglaya will kill herself though. It’s just that she really is in love with Myshkin, for a multitude of reasons — he is not just a fiancé but a real friend; (according to her) the second part of his mind, the compassion part, is more superior than everyone else’s; she thinks nobody, not even herself is worthy of his little finger (in that way, she is the most similar to Nastasya); she praised him through the recitation of the ‘poor knight,’though even that was shrouded in jealousy by her replacing AMD to NFB. Aglaya can’t stand to think that Myshkin really might love Nastasya more in the end, firstly because she hates Nastasya and sees her only as a ruined woman who would ‘corrupt’ the Prince, and secondly because she doesn’t understand how the Prince could love her so much: he is obviously terrified of Nastasya, but speaks about her with so much compassion and in Aglaya’s eyes, love — these moments make her falter the most and probably drove her to arrange a meeting with Nastasya in the end. And Myshkin the best man and possibly the only one she’s been willing to marry, though she’s cruel to him very often. So that’s all why this moment is seen as such a fateful moment by the characters, and the narrator is telling us as much. It’s literally the climax of every burning passion that’s been running through the novel since the very beginning — we say Myshkin and Rogozhin on the train; since Myshkin saw Nastasya’s picture; since Myshkin first talked with the Yepanchins. The ending is the terrible crash.

… because everything’s relative, isn’t it … Ha-ha!’

Все по-кругу in a Dostoyevsky novel :). That’s why it’s important to pay attention to every chapter and maybe even every word — though I do admit I may have been extremely nit-picky and far-fetching in my analysis of this novel VERY often. It’s better than how I first read The Idiot though, then I read it carelessly and inattentively, and when intense scenes came up usually it was all just ‘???’ came up in my head. I do also have to say just how amazing of a control Dostoyevsky has on the ‘force of fate’ of his novels.

He felt giddy; the whole room was going round. He lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes.

This whole scene is wildly cinematic

No, the prince did not regard Aglaya as a young lady or a schoolgirl; he was aware now that he had long been afraid of something precisely like this;

The last words of chapter 3.7

Why did he always feel that she would appear right at the very last moment to snap his destiny in two, like a rotten thread?

She… *was* there… and she did snap his destiny in two… (Talking about Nastasya)

Well, then: did he love this woman or hate her? He had not posed himself that question once that day; here his mind was clear: he knew whom he loved …

'That woman' is Nastasya. ‘He had not posed himself that question once that day; here his mind was clear: he knew whom he loved …’ THAT IS SO FUCKED UP BY THE NARRATOR. He’s saying that Myshkin did not question himself if he loved Nastya or not, because he knew whom he loved. But who was it? The sentence does highly imply it was Nastasya, but then Myshkin is said to be incredibly afraid OF Nastasya herself, and not even the of actual meeting. That makes sense though, because I interpret Nastya to have (unintentionally) emotionally abused Myshkin in Moscow, and possibly in the days after this chapter (because he stays with her again). Still, he must’ve known that he would’ve chosen Nastasya no matter what. He was in loved with Aglaya but Nastya had ‘pierced a sword through his heart’ — he wouldn’t go after Aglaya if he had to stay to try and redeem Nastasya’s suffering when he sees her again. He knew whom he loved.

it was Nastasya Filippovna herself that he feared.

Nastasya Filippovna was waiting for them in the very first room they entered; she too was dressed very simply and all in black.

‘In all black,’ like a funeral.

At length she looked Nastasya Filippovna firmly and directly in the eyes, and at once read everything that her rival’s embittered stare conveyed. Woman understood woman; Aglaya shuddered.

They both know their fates are to be decided :). Also ‘woman understood woman’ sounds so silly at such an intense scene.

you’re self-obsessed to the point of … mania,

She miunderstands her a lot, actually. Though she is right that Nastasya can be self-obsessed and brings on her own suffering, that’s because she hates herself. And Nastasya even enjoys seeing the suffering of men around her; that’s because she’s spiteful, (heavily implied to be) a survivor of abuse, and it gives a strange sense of relief to see that she’s burning others too, while she’s burning out (she knew she was never gonna live long by marrying Rogozhin :). And she couldn’t have otherwise; as she said in Part 1, her options were to stay with her abuser, marry Ganya who obviously only wanted her dowry, marry Rogozhin, or go to the streets and work as a washerwoman or prostitute. At least Rogozhin would’ve killed her sooner— that was her philosophy, and also to say that now she suffers at her own hand when she repeatedly ran away from both him and Myshkin and did dishonourable things in Moscow).

The only thing you were capable of loving was your own shame and the constant idea of how you had been dishonoured and humiliated.

Oh come on. Even Myshkin, a MAN, understood her better than that. This is why Myshkin was very upset by everything Aglaya was saying about Nastya — he even tries to stop her a few times.

By what right do you constantly trumpet the fact both to him and to me that you love him, after you cast him aside yourself

Now that’s a good point. But Aglaya misunderstands Nastasya again: Nastasya was trying to play matchmaker because though she was in love with Myshkin, she didn’t want to ruin him. And she knew that Myshkin harboured at least some love for Aglaya — she saw him writing that letter to her — and considering that Aglaya is from a respectable family, she thought they could be a good match. Then seeing that the man she loved was married to a respectable woman, she would marry herself off to Rogozhin and die (or possibly just have committed suicide).

‘And aren’t your hands lily-white?’

Lmao love this. This is when she gets really insulted, and so understably of course. Aglaya has been really condescending and rude to her, considering the fact that they are literally in HER [Nastasya’s own] house by AGLAYA’S invitation and possibly insistence. And Aglaya thinks she understands Nastasya so well too, and presumes about her past and belittles her trauma so much here :P Aglaya insults Nastasya for being brought up by a benefactor and general, Totsky (who was btw her abuser), but Aglaya herself was brought up with lily-white hands literally doing nothing in her household, other than to make her mother worry (Lizaveta said that when we first met the girls).

this woman, whose behaviour was sometimes cynical and insolent, was in reality far more shy, gentle, and trusting than might have been assumed.

Bravo Dostoyevsky, Hurrah Dostoyevsky, splendissimo (idk if that’s a word) Dostoyevsky, belissimo Dostoyevsky, trés extraordinaire Dostoyevsky, for making such banger women-characters btw. (I always appreciate that he doesn’t simply portray his ‘ruined, deranged women’ as… you know; ruined, deranged women. They are ‘more real than reality itself,’ just as the men-characters are).

‘Stop it!’ Nastasya Filippovna said with revulsion and seeming anguish.

Nstasya is heavily implied to be a victim of sexual and emotional abuse since childhood. That, and self-hatred and being objectified by society gets her to become 'that wretched woman' - it's absolutely disgusting how Aglaya belittled her like that.

You wanted to make sure personally whether he loved me more than you or not, because you’re dreadfully jealous …’

мгм :))) they’re getting to the point now

… or-der him this minute, you hear, one or-der from me and he’ll leave you at once and stay with me for ever, and marry me, while you run home on your own!

OMG.

And I ran away from you just to set you free, but now I don’t want to!

SHE SAID IT OMG I WAS RIGHT ABOUT HER

Well curse you then, because you were the only one I trusted.

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All he saw before him was the distracted, despairing face which, as he had let slip to Aglaya once, ‘pierced his heart for ever’.

YOU SEE. HE WILL AWAYS CHOOSE NASTASYA. The sword through his heart, all that pain and compassion, will always have trumped his being in love with Aglaya. Especially after how he just saw Aglaya being unjust to Nastasya.

He could bear it no longer, and he turned to Aglaya with a look at once beseeching and reproachful, as he pointed to Nastasya Filippovna: ‘How could you! She’s really … so unhappy!’

‘Mine! Mine!’ she cried.

ACTUALLY HAUNTING.

Ten minutes later the prince was sitting beside Nastasya Filippovna, his eyes fixed on her as he stroked her head and face with both hands, like a little child.

I AM NOT FUNCTIONAL. I AM NOT FUNCTIONAL. THIS IS TOO SIMILAR TO HOW HE CARESSED ROGOZHIN’S FACE (OR WAS IT NASTASYA’S CORPSE?) IN THE ENDING.

The prince had seemingly perpetrated some such subterfuge as had this atheist.

Oh now they think he was playing the 'idiot' as a subterfuge to hide his cunning… when he was ridiculed for and targeted because of his simpleheartedness for literally months. The following concocted story by the society PERPETUALLY in the background of this novel is so ludicrous and infuriatingly realistic: just listen to whatever scandal tickles your fancy, accuse whoever was made out to be the antagonist, then go on tutting your tongue and being perfectly pleased with yourself. On Dostoyevsky's end, it's a wonderful study of society, and another reminded that society is a factor that runs this whole novel and also drives our central characters.

We know only one thing—that the wedding was definitely fixed

Nastasya Filippovna was insisting on the wedding and hurrying things along;

It was her idea and Myshkin only acquiesced 'absently.' She must’ve been in such a whirl here. She wanted to quickly, immediately get married to the Prince and make reality of her cryings of ‘Mine, mine!’ just a chapter ago —internally, she must still have that hatred against herself for ‘what she’s doing to him.’

what did he prefer to remember and what was he trying to achieve?

Aglaya, and what would Rogozhin be doing now, probably.

he began to get anxious about her if an hour passed without seeing her (which meant, to all appearances, that he genuinely loved her);

He's like how he was in Moscow, and let's not forget how he consistently called those the worst moments of his life.

it was at this point that they denied him their further acquaintance and friendship in the strongest terms,

Aglaya had burst out laughing as she listened and suddenly made him a strange proposition: would he prove his love by burning his finger in the candle there and then?

Aglaya remembered his lie to Myshkin, which she said because she was jealous of how Myshkin was talking about Nastasya.

when the prince heard about the candle and the finger, he laughed so much that he surprised Ippolit; then he suddenly began to tremble and dissolved in tears …

He must be so sad. He laughed because he really was in love Aglaya then, but then remembered what the convresation was actually about, and then cried when he realised how his situation now was almost foreshadowed by their conversation then.

‘Oh, my dear Prince’, exclaimed Yevgeni Pavlovich suddenly, with heartfelt sadness,

I really feel like sometimes Radomsky is the closest to Dostoyevsky's real voice and that's part of the reason why he appears so sporadically.

Aglaya was the only one who looked on Nastasya Filippovna in that light …

As a rival. Everyone else saw Nastasya as a deranged, ruined woman who debauchs with Rogozhin — the fiancé she earned by being ‘auctioned off’ with one-hundred-thousand rubles. To proper society, her only redeemable factor was her wealth and beauty, and even those are often insulted. Except for Myshkin, of course, who saw her as an honest woman and would’ve taken her with nothing.

only the frightened jealousy of a completely inexperienced girl could regard it as anything serious!’

Both of their ‘inherit’ inexperience took place in this, really. Myshkin truly knew nothing of the world — the reader can only imagine the isolation and wanting for his homeland and companionship that he felt as an ‘idiot’ in that Swiss clinic. And as for Aglaya, she is still a young girl with ‘lily-white’ hands, only knowing of the world through forbidden books and cruel jokes towards her loved ones.

what begins with a lie must end with a lie;

Nastasya’s deception of Myshkin in Part One is echoed in just a chapter later, and Radomsky may damn well have predicted it in saying this.

(note the word “inherent”, Prince);

Ah yes, his inherited legacy of human weakness that caused him to fall to his passions awfully.

you longed for Russia as an unknown but promised land; you read a lot of books about Russia, perhaps excellent books, but for you—pernicious; you arrived in the first flush of eagerness for action, so to speak, and flung yourself into it!

Honestly really good observation about the Prince, and correct too. The Prince is a catalyst without which the passions of all these characters possibly may never have boiled up and spilled over so terribly as it had. Though Myshkin is a positively good man, absolutely Christ-like, he does not have the power of Christ and ultimately failed — and it’s heartbreaking, because he really did mean well. Radomsky is also the one who told him that ‘heaven on earth is difficult to achievement however it may seem to your splendid heart.’

you are told the sad and heart-rending tale of a wronged woman—to you, a chaste knight-errant—and about a woman!

That's why he was smirking so suspiciously during Aglaya's recital of the poor knight. He understands this better than any of the cast and he wasn't even here for most of it. Also, Radomsky just spelled out Myshkin’s main reason for loving Nastasya so much to all the readers. The poor knight only wanted her to be redeemed.

How could you see that and let it happen? How?’

Everything he said are all valid points :). But as Myshkin says later, there is stuff Radomsky doesn’t know. Radomsky doesn’t know that Myshkin chose Nastasya not ONLY out of love (no doubt he loved her), but also an immense fear of her killing herself. Emotional blackmail? I don’t even know what it’s called, but as a victim of that flavour of emotional abuse, I can definitely sympathise.

‘Yes … yes, I should have, but she would have died! She would have killed herself, you don’t know her, and … anyway, I’d have told Aglaya everything afterwards and …

‘I’d have told Aglaya afterwards,’ my goodness fuck that is heartbreaking. He trusted in his love so much :(.

I’m most probably to blame for everything! I still don’t know what for, but I’m to blame …

He's right about all that :(. He's to blame for everything, though he never meant to and doesn't even know some of the things he's to blame for. A catalyst that never wanted to be one; a Christ that never knew he was even sent.

And what was that about loving two of them? Two different kinds of love somehow? That was interesting … poor idiot! And what would become of him now?

‘That’s why I thought I saw his eyes’, muttered the prince, perturbed.

FUCK HE'S BACK. Myshkin's opposite, or 'shadow,' even, whose presence has been following him around since Part I.

the dear prince’s choice, so far from being, as it were, evidence of any outstanding foolishness, rather testified to a shrewd and calculating worldly intelligence.

Cmon…

‘beware of Rogozhin’. ‘He’s the sort of man who will never give up what is his; we’re no match for a man like him, Prince: if he wants something he wouldn’t bat an eyelid …’,

Well! Rogozhin says that himself in the uh. Next chapter. As a kind of explanation as to why he killed Nastasya.

‘The only person I’m afraid for is Aglaya: Rogozhin knows how much you love her; a love for a love; you’ve taken Nastasya Filippovna away from him and he’ll kill Aglaya Ivanovna; she’s not yours now, of course, but it would be a heavy blow for you, wouldn’t it?’

An interesting prediction though it did turn out to be wrong; I understand he meant to scare Myshkin. Rogozhin didn’t care about ‘a love for a love’; he just wanted Nastasya and has been symbolically having a tug of war with Myshkin since literally the beginning. He bid 100k for Nastya, and has been jealous of the Prince over Nastya’s being in love with him for so long. That’s why he killed her.

He had been perfectly truthful when he had told Radomsky that he loved her genuinely and wholeheartedly, and his love for her really did contain the kind of bond one has with some pitiful, ailing child whom it is difficult, if not impossible, to leave to its own devices.

Well, that perfectly explains all his love towards Nastasya, really. Aglaya, I think, was a unique and real love of the Prince; Nastasya was a love that was more familiar to him in the form of Marie (Part One), but had never experienced anything of this degree.

In fact, all those reasons together with others might have contributed to it; but what was most obvious to him was what he had suspected for a long time, that her poor, sick mind had given way.

Also a fair reason for Nastasya to have wanting to speed up her marriage to Myshkin. She’s lost hope.

In the final days before the wedding she was beginning to brood a great deal;

He found it curious that she would never speak to him about Rogozhin.

Rogozhin is in some way to Nastasya what she is to Myshkin.