Book Two, chapters 5-6

[Tracy]

For discussion of Book two, chapters 5-6

[Nancy]

Reading these two chapters I was struck at how curious the Epanchin women are about the underside of life. I suppose we are all attracted to stories about things forbidden to us.

However, these women's sheltered lives are so different from today that it is disturbing. I also find them intrusive and rather rude to the prince. They seem like spoiled children to me.

What I also wonder is why the prince puts up with them and even indulged their curiosity. They lack boundaries and respect for the prince in my opinion.

[Tracy]

It's my impression that the Prince has not integrated his own "lower" energies - anger, sexuality, jealousy, resentment etc. He is a higher nature who hasn't come to terms with the lower and so is drawn to it, like people drawn to (and repelled by) people who express their own shadow side or who live in close proximity to it. Much of the interactions in this book can be interpreted in Jungian terminology!

Many of Dostoevsky's characters are rude, or express undisciplined passions, unlike Tolstoy whom I think more often presents us characters who at least have the veneer of civilized behavior.

Given all the wild "primitive" energies wreaking havoc in the world today, I think Dostoyevsky is most relevant to our times --and that we have to acknowledge and come to terms with our own undisciplined wild not socially acceptable feelings and impulses in order for their to be better cooperation in the world.

To me, it seems that Dostoyevsky turns many of his characters inside out, so there seams are on the outside. But whether they have a fine veneer on the inside or are just ragged seams through and through is to be determined -- I fear that some are just ragged seams!

[Tracy]

Chapters 5-6 are dramatic chapters.
In chapter 5, Dostoevsky explains Myshkin's experience of epilepsy, which is probably his own experience. I found this particularly interesting because although I don't have epilepsy, I have seizures the vagus nerve which lead me to pass out and go unconscious for a time (massive doses of gabapentin now limits them to about once a month).

Unfortunately I don't have the ecstatic experience of clarity described here - only an increasing state of confusion and disorientation which can be embarrassing publicly, and which I'm not aware of until it's likely to be noticeable to others. Once I'm aware of it, I know I have to leave whatever situation I'm in, and it's not safe to drive and there's less than 15 minutes before I"ll lose consciousness. So I've spent countless nights unconscious in my car, twice when it was way below freezing outside, and once when a blizzard started. No fun.

Anyway, here we have Myshkin in a pre-seizure state, which Dostoevsky describes very well. He's wandering around, absentminded, following impulse, not really thinking about the promise he made not to go see Natassia - he has to see her.

We might think he's delusional about Rogozhin stalking him but Rogozhin is -- and we can only wonder if his Myshkin's epileptic fit saved him being killed or seriously injured.

[Tracy]

A few more thoughts about chapter 5:

Dostoevsky wrote, "As for the Prince, it was next to impossible to love the woman carnally." I wonder her if Dostoevsky is implying that the Prince is incapable of sexual intercourse (maybe because he lacks physical passion) or he might be incapable with Nastassya. If the latter, why? What do you all think?

We also see that he's incapable of understanding Rogozhin because he doesn't "get" Rogozhin's animal passion and projects his own compassion onto his expectation of Rog (rogue) ozhin. He believes that Rogozhin will eventually be led by compassion rather than passion toward Nastassya but there's nothing in R's behavior that would lead us to believe so.

[Nancy]

Does anyone else sense that a parallel is hinted at or actually made between a child and an idiot?

[Tracy]

In book one, Myshkin said that Lizabeta Evanchin is like a child - and someone else - I don't remember who refers to Myshkin as childlike at some point. I'm not sure what the associations they mean by child - what do you think? Innocence, naivete, saying whatever is on one's mind, lack of thinking about consequences of one's actions, playfulness?

In these chapters though focused on Rogozhin's violence, Mishkin's epileptic fit and the aftermath (the most dramatic part so far), I don't think we see the childlike side of Mishkin. He actually seems saner than most of these other characters that swarm around him. Aglaya is certainly childlike in regard to her tendency to have temper tantrums and be rude and nasty.

Rogozhin, Aglaya and Nastassia all seem unstable. I really like Lizabeta though - she and Myshkin were my favorite characters in the Russian film, and they also are as I read the book. She also genuinely cares about Myshkin - but like most of the other females in the novel, she is quick to speak rudely and critically when he doesn't behave as she wants him to behave.

[Tracy]

Dostoevsky said he created Myshkin to be a kind of Don Quixote but serious, not comical --- and Aglaya uses almost those words when referring to the "Hapless Knight" or "poor knight", a Pushkin poem apparently modelled on Don Quixote". Quite obviously, she is thinking of Myshkin - though Lizaveta doesn't get it.

Aglaya appears to be genuinely serious when she says she admires a man with conviction and vision, dedicated to his ideals but she changes the initials Ave Mater Dei (AMD) meaning Hail Mother of God (the Knight devoted to the Virgin Mother Mary) to A.N.B. which some commentaries refer to a Nastassia's initials.

But they aren't Nastassia's initials. I checked back at the beginning of the first chapter, where we learned that Nastasya's name is Nastasya Filioppovna Barashkova which is N.F. B. That's not the same as A.N.B. (what would be A. stand for?) though we might consider the N.B. to be Nastassia Barashkova. But would the average reader have figured this out?

One way or another, if Aglaya is referring to Mishkin's crush on Nastassya and maybe making fun of him, it seems odd that she would do so in the middle of a serious statement about admiring serious DQ-type characters. Or was she being serious when she referred to the kind of man she admired? I think so.