Week 11: Part III, chapters 7 and 8

[Roger]

Chapter 7, "Stepan Trofimovich's Last Wandering": After the encounter with Lizaveta Nikolayevna, Stepan continues on his aimless pilgrimage. He is scared, distracted, not thinking clearly, not in his right mind. He buys a ride on a passing peasant cart and stays for a while in a peasant hut, dining on bliny and vodka. He attracts a lot of curious attention from the local peasants. He meets the traveling Gospel peddler SOFYA MATVEYEVNA ULITINA and buys one of her wares. He offers to take her to the next town with him in a hired cart. In fact he wants to travel with her and preach. On the way, she realizes that he is delirious. At the town he rents a private room so they can talk--he wants to tell her the whole story of his life. He includes an embroidered account of his imaginary romances with Varvara Petrovna and Darya Pavlovna. Poor Sofya is trapped and must listen to this nonsense for hours, but she also feels some pity and some sympathy. At 3 AM Stepan collapses and confesses that it was all lies. He asks Sofya to read him the story of the Gadarene swine. The demons are the unclean ideas that have accumulated in Russia over the centuries, and they enter him and his son and others. He raves for three days. Varvara shows up with Darya in tow; they have been looking for Stepan. She sees how sick he is and sends for a doctor. "Je vous aimais," she says to him, and "Twenty years have passed, there's no bringing them back; I'm a fool as well." The doctor arrives; he concludes there is little hope for him. A priest is sent for; Stepan makes confession and receives communion. He talks about God and love and life, the eternal and the immeasurable. He loses consciousness and dies three days later, Varvara tending him till the end. Varvara takes Sofya home to live with her.

[Roger]

Chapter 8, "Conclusion": Looking for news of her husband, Marya Shatova discovers the dead Kirillov and runs hysterically into the cold with her baby. Both take sick and are dead within days. Lyamshin is tortured by guilt and finally goes to the police and confesses everything. But he exonerates Nikolay Vsevolodovich, hoping that he will help him avoid harsh punishment in return. Virginsky is arrested and confesses. Erkel is arrested and stays mum. Liputin and Tolkashenko flee but are tracked down and arrested. In society, Pyotr Stepanovich is admired for his abilities but condemned for impracticality as well as immorality. Nikolay writes to Darya Pavlovna asking her to go to Switzerland with him, though he advises against it. "I am . . . capable of wanting to do a good deal . . . at the same time I want evil as well." He is conflicted. "Never, never shall I shoot myself!" Darya will go. Varvara Petrovna will go to Switzerland with them. Just then, their butler tells them that Nikolay has shown up at the Stavrogin country house. There they discover him in an upper room. True to his word, he has hanged himself.

[Roger]

Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the story ends with the stage littered with corpses.

[Roger]

Opening question: We finally get an explicit account of what the titular demons are. I was surprised to learn that they are not new ideas, but have accumulated in Russia over centuries. When Stepan Trofimovich dies in the arms of the Russian Orthodox Church, presumably he is cleansed of demons. How can we tell which Russian traditions are demonic, and which save from demons?

[[deleted user]]

I'm not sure I can take "centuries" at face value. Stepan is feverish. Moreover, I not sure how firm a grasp he has of Russian history. I'm wondering if he means beginning with Peter the Great's efforts to westernize Russia???

[[deleted user]]

From Wikipedia: "He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernised and based on the Enlightenment.[1] Peter's reforms had a lasting impact on Russia, and many institutions of the Russian government trace their origins to his reign. He is also known for founding and developing the city of Saint Petersburg, which remained the capital of Russia until 1917."

[Mike]

I would say anything from the West can be viewed as demonic while traditional Russian folklore would be viewed as anti demonic. Wikipedia gives a quote from the translator Richard Pevear about this "that legion [, the demons] of isms that came to Russia from the West: idealism, rationalism, empiricism, materialism, utilitarianism, positivism, socialism, anarchism, nihilism, and, underlying them all, atheism."

[Thomas]

Roger wrote: "Opening question: We finally get an explicit account of what the titular demons are. I was surprised to learn that they are not new ideas, but have accumulated in Russia over centuries. When Stepan..."

I am more than a little mistrustful of Stepan Trofimovich's deathbed conversion, and consequently of his statement about the demons of Russia. Immediately after this statement he says "Oui, cette Russie que j'amais toujours." Surely this is a little joke, that he says this in French. Stepan is sentimental to the end, and this doesn't lend much weight to his interpretation of Scripture, or Russian history for that matter.

[[deleted user]]

Thinking about Varvara Petrovna's remarks at the close of chapter 7.

I have no one in the world now!"
"You do have a son, however," Salzfisch attempted to observe.
"I have no son!" Varvara Petrovna snapped out--as if prophetically.

I think it was unlikely that it was the scandal of Nikolai and Lize...because Varvara has weathered so many Nikolai-related scandals already.

I don't think she is actually having a premonition... because she snapped it out.

I think it's because of the emotional upheaval of Stepan's death. I thought at the end in chapter 7 that she attributed some of the blame on Nikolai.... but in chapter 8, as she's going to go to Switzerland to be near him...it seems she's greatly upset and wants to reject any comfort from others. I can understand that.

Or, she did blame Nikolai...but then took to heart Stepan's words about love.

[Roger]

I can't believe that Dostoyevsky wants us to take Stepan Trofimovich's final repentance and reconciliation with the Church as insincere. That would turn the final chapters into a grotesque farce.

Here's my idea: weaknesses in Russian society (authoritarianism, maybe?) make the country vulnerable to demonic ideas from the West like nihilism.

[[deleted user]]

Roger wrote: "I can't believe that Dostoyevsky wants us to take Stepan Trofimovich's final repentance and reconciliation with the Church as insincere. That would turn the final chapters into a grotesque farce.
..."

I don't believe that either. I found it a difficult chapter to get a grip on. But I'll give Stepan's repentance and reconciliation a go. No spoilers.

(view spoiler)[We are told that Stepan sees himself on a “pilgrimage.” He says he’s raising ‘the banner of a great idea.” Stepan has always known that there must be a great idea. He attempted to find it thru western values… but he never completed his great works. Maybe his heart wasn't in it; only his reasoning.

“One must at least know where one is going.” Stepan hadn’t known where he was going. Lots of these characters don’t know where they are going or where they should be going. Stepan played the role of Varvara’s resident intellectual---so many in this book are playing roles. And he played cards. And he played with peoples’ lives and he didn’t contribute positively to the lives of any that surrounded him. Petrusha, Varvara, Nikolai, Liza, Shatov… Fedka…

Stepan had early said, “…in fact, I have always considered myself a Russian” (215). But he had lived more as a westerner than as a Russian. So he wasn’t living true. One or the other was a lie.

Now, Stepan walks, along “the old, black, and deeply rutted road,” I think this symbolizes long-held traditions. Old Russia. “Sound reasoning…was unbearable to him” (632). He’s leaving behind western “reason.”

Stepan begins to have flashes of regrets… “Did I ever lose people at cards?” “something stabbed at his heart” (Varvara?) “a painful and hateful recollection echoed tormentingly in his heart” “Petrusha.”

He’s very confused… but he speaks of guilt. “Yes, because we are guilty one and all before each other.” “I—I am a blackguard! Oh, I have been dishonest all my life… I thought only of myself!”

Shatov had earlier quoted Nikolai: “An atheist cannot be a Russian, an atheist immediately ceases to be Russian” (249).

And Stepan asks Sofya to read him the Gospel. “Now read me one more passage…about the swine.” He’s feverish…but he remembers this passage from his childhood..

The villagers had noticed how childlike he seemed.

[Matthew 18:3 3And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.]

Stepan has called his journey a “pilgrimage.” He has admitted his sins and guilt. He has asked for the word of God to be read to him. He has become childlike [in spirit?]. He has opened his heart to love. “Je vous aimais.” He has said God is necessary to himself. “God is necessary for me if only because he is the one being who can be loved eternally…. And what is more precious than Love?” [1 John 4:8 - But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.]

“The one constant thought that there exists something immeasurably more just and happy than I, fills the whole of me with immeasurable tenderness and—glory—“

And he has ceased to speak French, he has found his great idea, and he has died not as an atheist but as a Russian .
(hide spoiler)]

[Thomas]

Roger wrote: "I can't believe that Dostoyevsky wants us to take Stepan Trofimovich's final repentance and reconciliation with the Church as insincere. That would turn the final chapters into a grotesque farce.

..."

It doesn't seems insincere to me, it seems sentimental. It's shallow and weak, which is at least consistent with Stepan's character. His conversion is utterly unconvincing as an apologetic, if that's how Dostoevsky intended it. But I have trouble feeling much empathy for Stepan, even at his lowest point, so maybe that's why it appears that way to me.

Is Stepan supposed to be the man from whom the demons have fled, sitting at the feet of Jesus in the Luke parable? We certainly see a lot of dead swine at the conclusion, but I'm not sure who the healed man is. Who is healed in this story?

[Roger]

Why doesn't Nikolay wait to hear Darya Pavlovna's reply to his letter before hanging himself?

[Tamara]

Roger wrote: "Why doesn't Nikolay wait to hear Darya Pavlovna's reply to his letter before hanging himself?"

Good question. I wish I knew the answer.

But I have so many unanswered questions about this novel. For example, other than the cryptic references, did we ever find out what actually happened in Switzerland? So many references to it, but I'm not sure we were ever told what happened there. And what happened in America? Again, cryptic references, but nothing clear.

Did Varvara love Stepan? Is that why she was so frustrated with him? It certainly looks like she cares for him deeply based on how she behaves at his deathbed. Is this a case of two people who love each other but never declare their love for whatever reason?

In reply to Thomas' question, "Who is healed in this story?" No one, as far as I can tell. The stage is littered with corpses at the end, and those who survive are pretty miserable.

I guess I have more questions than answers about this novel. I keep thinking I'm missing a lot--that I'm fumbling about in the dark, trying to find a key to make sense of it. Maybe it's clear to the rest of you and I'm just a bit brain dead lately. Always a possibility :)

[[deleted user]]

Thomas wrote: "We certainly see a lot of dead swine at the conclusion, but I'm not sure who the healed man is. Who is healed in this story?.."

I'm not sure, but suspect that may be Dostoevsky's point.

It's not a particularly "All will be well" ending. It was more, I think, Dostoevsky sending a warning.

No spoilers.

(view spoiler)[
If Stepan was saved at the end---and I do think he was, he wasn't saved like the once-possessed man in Luke 8. That man was cleansed of demons and lived. Stepan doesn't remain alive... He has no opportunity to reform his life.

And given his entrenched character ["What will habit not do to a man?" (8)], and given the debased and weakened state of the Russian society at the time, Stepan, had he lived, may well have slipped back into his former ways.

It's the current state of society and the current "liberalism without any aim" that is sick and that needs to be healed.

Look at all the cripples --- emotional and physical --in this book. And the numerous references to “brain fever,” and “weakened minds,” and those who “lost their minds,” etc.

They’ve lost their way.

“Upon my life, the tracks have vanished,
We’ve lost our way, what shall we do?
It must be a demon’s leading us
This way and that around the fields.” A.S. Pushkin, “Demons”

“…we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us” Hebrews 12:9

There have been no strong fathers here correcting their children. Nikolai and effectively Pyotr don’t even have fathers. N has been ever indulged by his mother; Pyotr, may well have been indulged by his aunts in that “remote corner” of Russia. Yulia/as pseudo/government-linked/authority/parent, indulges the young people---I forget her wording. Shatov, who has left his liberal ways and has been trying to find his Russian core and trying to will himself into belief in God… he “might” have turned out to have been an effective father, raising his son to be Russian… But he’s been murdered. And the child died as well.

Lize remembers the delightful stories she was taught as a child by Stepan. (Those would be the same stories Nikolai heard.) But, she laughs, they were all lies.

Nikolai feels pleasure from doing either good or bad. How immoral is that?

So much “pretense,” and “role-playing” by these people. If they could get past their surface roles and stop being imitators … Shatov did. (He was crude on the outside, but sensitive inside. We saw that thru his actions with Marya and the baby.)

" Knowing" that the western ways are the true ideas … Denying who they are at their core even in embracing French over Russian in their language. sacré bleu! Nikolai can’t even write his own language properly! (Although I do appreciate that he wrote his final letter in Russian rather than in French. I find that of immense significance.) “Here is the letter, [uncorrected regarding] the least mistake in style of a young Russian squire who never fully learned Russian grammar” (674). How can he be Russsian without a firm grasp on his own language? And remember, Shatov or Kirillov had said that one couldn't be Russian without a belief in God. (I'm still mulling that over in regards to Nikolai.)

Sigh. That’s why I was so taken by the high road Stepan was traveling with the “real Russians.” Back in “A Fatal Romance,” Stepan said that he was “bidding farewell…to the whole of my past” (537)… nonetheless, in was still wondering somewhat randomly through the fields. But now… “Ahead of him the old, black, and deeply rutted road stretched in an endless thread…” (632). At least those people aren’t going to be easily lost.
(hide spoiler)]

[Thomas]

Roger wrote: "Why doesn't Nikolay wait to hear Darya Pavlovna's reply to his letter before hanging himself?"

At the beginning of his letter he recalls that he suggested Darya become his sick-nurse. This goes back to the last section in Part 2 chapter 3 (The Duel) where she recognizes his "dark spirit" and he misinterprets her to mean Fedya. Nikolai frightens her but he still believes that she will come when called. And she does, but I can't recall anything that would suggest he actually loves Dasha. He's certain that Dasha loves him.

He seems to have loved Liza, though.. Liza refuses to be his sick-nurse, incidentally, and tells him: "I do not want to be your tenderhearted nurse... Address yourself to Dashenka; she'll go with you wherever you like... Does she know you intend her for your old age in Switzerland?" (Part 3 Ch. 3 §1)

It is harsh and unpleasant, but killing himself was a gift to Dasha. He says he is afraid of suicide because he is afraid of showing magnanimity, but his suicide was exactly that, a magnanimous act. Nikolai recognizes that he has no bonds to anyone or anything, and he knows that both he and Dasha will be unhappy. By the end of his letter he is giving her all of the reasons not to come.

[[deleted user]]

I really, really like your view of his suicide as an act of magnanimity.

I went round and round on that paragraph on magnanimity.

But do you think it was, as Stavrogin had suggested it would be, "one more deceit--the last deceit in an endless series of deceits"?

But he knows it would be "good" for Dasha, so, he thinks, What the hell? What difference does it make?

[[deleted user]]

I wonder about this, too. Kirillov had said, “Those who kill themselves from great sorrow, or anger, or the crazy ones… they do it suddenly. But the ones who do it judiciously—they think a lot."

Nikolai had seemingly prepared in advance.
Yet he seemingly killed himself suddenly...AFTER having sent the letter.

[Thomas]

Adelle wrote: "I really, really like your view of his suicide as an act of magnanimity.

I went round and round on that paragraph on magnanimity.

But do you think it was, as Stavrogin had suggested it would be..."

His suicide doesn't seem well thought out to me. He is prepared to do it, but it's not something he has thought out the way Kirillov has. He's running away, just like he ran away from Liza.

Liza tells him, "I came home and guessed at once that you were running away from me because you were mairried, and not at all out of contempt for me -- which is what I, being a young lady of fashion, was most afraid of. I understood that it was me, a reckless girl, that you were protecting by running away. You see how I value your magnanimity."

Nikolai's only commitment comes at the end, when he commits to his own death. I think he considers this magnanimity a "deceit" because he does it for himself, not for Dasha, though running away like this does save her from him.

[Thomas]

Of course it isn't just Dasha that he's running away from. He's running away from himself. His despair seems to come from this inability to commit, which results in his inusbstantial and pointless life. Running away from commitments seems to be a major theme of this book. Commitments to God, to country, to family or friends, and running away from them with rationalizations and big "ideas" that never amount to anything but destruction.

[Roger]

I wonder if Nikolay is tormented by guilt. His conscious inaction led to the death of Marya Timofeyevna, as well as Lebyadkin and their house servant. His suggestion to Pyotr Stepanovich led to the murder of Shatov, and indirectly to Kirillov's suicide. He played a role in the debasement and then death of Lizaveta Nikolayevna. Now perhaps he kills himself before he destroys Darya Pavlovna too. He devoted his life to debauchery and nihilism on the theory that nothing matters, but it turns out that things do matter.

[Roger]

It's unusual to introduce a new character (Sofya Matveyevna) so late in a novel, isn't it?

[Tamara]

Roger wrote: "It's unusual to introduce a new character (Sofya Matveyevna) so late in a novel, isn't it?"

She seems genuine, sincere, innocent. Maybe she is there to act as a foil to Stepan to better highlight the failings in his character. She reminds me a little of Sonya in Crime and Punishment.

[[deleted user]]

Thomas wrote @19 : "His suicide doesn't seem well thought out to me. He is prepared to do it, but it's not something he has thought out the way Kirillov has..."

I suppose it's interpretation. We haven't actually heard N speak much regarding suicide. And frankly, it wasn't something i had expected him to do.

Yet he WAS prepared---it would seem that he had thought about the mechanics of the suicide... an area with a steep drop-off, the soaped rope... I could be mistaken... but as I read that section, I concluded that the rope was already ready and waiting for him there....

And then, too, I had read several times that scene in "Night" (235). N is cautiously discussing K's state of mind regarding suicide. "You're still of the same mind?" Interesting way to phrase it. Not, Do you still feel that way? But suicide on intellectual grounds---maybe with errors in thinking...but on an intellectual basis nonetheless.

And after a few questions and several short silences, "'I, of course, understand shooting oneself,' N began again, frowning somewhat, after a long, three-minute long thoughtful silence. "I myself have sometimes imagined, ... after villainy or, worse, some shame, that is, disgrace, only very mean and ludicrous...'One blow in the temple, and there will be nothing.'"

The silences in the book always strike me as so very revealing. It's when a person might truly be in touch with themselves honestly---and they don't want to reveal this inwardness with anyone else.

It seemed to me that N had given considerable thought to suicide. But I never thought he would do it.

[[deleted user]]

Thomas wrote @19: "He's running away, just like he ran away from Liza.

Liza tells him, "I came home and guessed at once that you were running away from me because you were mairried, and not at all out of contempt for me -- which is what I, being a young lady of fashion, was most afraid of. I understood that it was me, a reckless girl, that you were protecting by running away. You see how I value your magnanimity."..."

And there I read that not as the truth---not that N WAS running away... I read it Liza's interpretation. Especially in view of her heart "in the opera" and all (523). It just struck me as a hugely romantic fantasy on Liza's part. As in, "Oh, he DOES love me! He is trying to PROTECT me." Then, of course, Pyotr gives a N has a great idea speech to her, etc.

And yet... And yet you may be right about N running away. So many conversations in this book N has in effect ended simply by walking away. I had interpreted that action as N not caring, of being impervious to criticism. He had seemed too strong to let ANYTHING bother him. That, I suspect, was part of his appeal. And yet...Kirillov had told N to "Bear the burden" (290). What burden? His wife? It would seem that N does care to some degree what people think. Because it sure seems as though he has been paying blackmail money to Captain Leb. And ... i do keep coming back to Kirillov telling N, "you're not a strong man" (290). I had thought K was mistaken...because I really couldn't imagine N killing himself. But he dd. So maybe K read him rightly.

[[deleted user]]

Roger wrote: "It's unusual to introduce a new character (Sofya Matveyevna) so late in a novel, isn't it?"

Yet she did appear earlier in the book, albeit not named. Back in "Before the Fete" (321).

Pyotr: "These are local ways...Anyhow it's characteristic and...bold; and, look, everyone's laughing, you alone are indignant."

Another "amusing prank"---revealing the character of this group---
"An itinerant book-hawker appeared in town selling Gospels, respectable woman, though of trademan's rank. She was talked about..."

"Lyamshin, with the help of some seminarian who was loafing about waiting for a teaching post in the school, while pretending to buy books from her, quietly slipped into her bag a whole bundle of enticing, nasty photographs from abroad, specially donated for the occasion, as was found out later, by a quite venerable old man whose name I shall omit, who had an important decoration around his neck, and who loved, as he put it, 'healthy laughter and a merry joke.;"

So what does that tell us about this society? This was a seminarian...and he's going to be teaching the children...and the established "honored" citizens laugh at sincerity.

And yet...it is Sofya M who cares for Stepan and his end.

[Gary]

Adelle wrote: "We haven't actually heard N speak much regarding suicide. And frankly, it wasn't something i had expected him to do. "

Ditto ... and N's suicide isn't the only thing in Demons that comes out of nowhere.

I've had a running problem through much of this novel in that there seem to be crucial missing pieces, missing accounts of determinative events in the past, missing character connections, missing clues about character motivation. Tamara has already commented on this a couple of times, as have I.

When characters behave in perplexing ways, and they do, we either have to speculate or just move on. Part of this unevenness in the novel can be charged to the first person limited narrator format, but it's more than that. I can speculate as well as most, but with Demons I find myself speculating without textual basis, and this bothers me. If the novel is, as Dostoevsky says, all about Stavrogin, why are we surprised by his suicide at the end? Is his suicide in accord with the character we think we know?

I know Dostoevsky is a better novelist than this. It's too soon for a closing opinion because we're not quite done; the excised chapter, "At Tikhon's," is next.

[[deleted user]]

Nikolai. His father was gone from his life before N was eight. He grew up in the care of his mother. We know Varvara becomes very angry at times. But she never communicates why. Indeed, she spoke very little to him. He always somehow morbidly felt her eyes fixed upon him, watching him. (40).

Was this only imagined by Nicolai, or did his mother morbidly watch him?

Stepan calls forth in N a love of anguish. “Lovers of this anguish … cherish it more than the most radical satisfaction”) --- “he had gone to seed, gone ragged, and that he apparently liked it” --- “bold and confident like no one else among us” --- “Varvara P looked at him with pride, but also with constant uneasiness --- “she was obviously afraid of him” --- “she studied N unobtrusively and attentively, pondering and puzzling over something… “

“She [Varvara P] confessed later to Stepan T that she had long been foreseeing it all, during that entire half year, every day, and even precisely ‘of that very sort’…”

And then this sentence which I keep returning to: “It’s begun!” she thought with a shudder (47). With a SHUDDER. What kind of person does she think N is?

Has Varvara P ALWAYS sensed that there was something wrong with N? All that staring at him morbidly even when he was just a little boy. She’s asked a lot of people if they think N might be crazy. Did he tear the wings off of flies or something as a little boy and not care? Was it that he had just the “right” emotional soil for Stepan’s teachings to fully take root? What about Alexei Yegorych’s admonition to him, “God bless you, sir, but only setting out upon good deeds” (231). “Nikolai V paused with one foot already in the lane.” And Alexei REPEATS his words. In looking back, I love that N paused. He could do good or evil…one foot only is in the lane. He could do good or evil. Sigh…but he heads out “sinking several inches into the mud at every step.” He made his choice.

Still trying to figure Nikolai out.

[[deleted user]]

Gary wrote: "Ditto ... and N's suicide isn't the only thing in Demons that comes out of nowhere.

I've had a running problem through much of this novel in that there seem to be crucial missing pieces, missing accounts of determinative events in the past, missing character connections, missing clues about character motivation. ..."

Yes! Gary. Crucail information is missing. Or it's so buried and nuanced that we don't see it. As some character had said of another character somewhere in this book, [from memory??] "Of course, I only saw him from the outside." And, of course, that's how it is in life. We only see the outside. We never know other's true motivations.

I do hope to re-read this in a few years...because even now when i go back to find some quote, I find that what I know now influences how I see events that transpired in earlier chapters.

And, "no" Gary. The suicide is NOT in line with who I thought Stavrogin was. But maybe I read him wrong. Maybe I projected him, in part, to be the character I wanted him to be. He could be charming. I was able to attribute mysterious more honorable motives to him. And he had character witnesses. K had cared about him. Shatov, "Remember what you've meant to me." What was up with that? mmm Maybe like Pyotr, I had that flaw, that flaw that once he thought he knew someone he didn't continue to question himself on that. Well, I have wondered a-plenty regarding characters in this book...but if I'm honest, I get giving N some benefit of the doubt.

Like you...sure hope that last reading sheds more light.

[Roger]

Like the rest of us, Nikolay Vsevolodovich has impulses to do good and to do evil. His trouble is that he doesn't know how to choose between them,

[[deleted user]]

Do you think he has no moral compass? He seems to be able to distinguish proper behavior from improper behavior.
Why can't he choose? And if he can't choose, is that inability innate or as a result of his upbringing/education? Something else?

[[deleted user]]

HAVE we seen him do good? No example of such comes to mind.

[Roger]

Adelle wrote: "HAVE we seen him do good? No example of such comes to mind."

He supported his wife, and tried to get her safely into a nunnery.

[Lily]

I had to take it back to the library today ( or take the fines after maximum renewals), so I read the Prevar introduction before doing so. Do I make sense of this pile of words yet? No, but maybe Prevar does help me comprehend why Berlin calls Dostoyevsky "the hedgehog" (and, in contrast, Tolstoy "the fox.") (view spoiler)[Redemption is always available, whether chosen or no? (hide spoiler)]

[Thomas]

Roger wrote: "I wonder if Nikolay is tormented by guilt. His conscious inaction led to the death of Marya Timofeyevna, as well as Lebyadkin and their house servant. His suggestion to Pyotr Stepanovich led to the..."

Shatov suggested that Nikolai married "out of a passion for torture, out of a passion for remorse, out of moral sensuality. It was from nervous strain... The challenge to common sense was too enticing!"

Nikolai isn't a sociopath, and he isn't insane, as the last sentence in the book emphasizes. It seems to me he chooses to do the wrong thing because he likes suffering. Nikolai enjoys moral outrage, but he's not overt about it the way that Pyotr is. Biting Gaganov's nose, putting up with Shatov's slap, firing in the air during a duel, marrying Marya Timofeevna -- they're all affronts to custom and convention. They don't make sense, or "common sense", as Shatov says, but they do fit a pattern of behavior. His actions appear absurd from a conventional point of view, and I think that he must feel guilty from that point of view, but that's the point of his actions. It's just bizarre that someone would bring these things upon himself. I suspect that this is what Dostoevsky believes happens to someone who loses their moral true north.

[[deleted user]]

Roger wrote: "Adelle wrote: "HAVE we seen him do good? No example of such comes to mind."

He supported his wife, and tried to get her safely into a nunnery."

Yeah, I initially gave him credit there. But his motivations were
all wrong---I think. He didn't do it for her; *He did it for himself.--I think.

1) He basically concedes to Shatov that he married her as a 'punishment" for himself (245). Doesn't this punish her, too? She's left believing a lie.

2) He initially--for years, actually, wanted the marriage to remain a secret. (Like only to torment himself that he had taken such a step without having the actual world know about it.) And what better way to keep the marriage secret than to lock the nominal bride in a convent.?

3) She didn't want to live in the convent.. "Well, I could just feel they were going to offer me the convent again! As if I haven't seen your convent! And why should I go there, what will i bring with me? I'm as alone as alone can be now" (274).

4) She lives abdominally. Certainly not like the wife of Nikolai V. Stavrogin. Yes, she has some nice items in her room...but she's subject to beatings by her brother. N doesn't protect her there.


* It seems to be all about Stavrogin. Like Lebyadkin had said regarding himself: "But me, what about me, I'm the main thing here!" (267)

Sigh. If Stavrogin had married her 'for real," I could credit him with a good. But the marriage --- though technically performed ---is a fake marriage. it's a deceit. If Stavrogin is to be believed, it's not even technically a real marriage. It's never been consummated.

There's a outside chance that without Stavrorgin she 'might" have found someone who actually cared about her. But believing she's married, she's never even going to consider anyone else. And Stavrogin, sadly, doesn't care for her as a wife.

Sigh. I'm feeling very down about Stavrogin today.

[[deleted user]]

I'm just very disappointed in Nikolai today.

[Tamara]

Gary wrote: "I can speculate as well as most, but with Demons I find myself speculating without textual basis, and this bothers me...

My feelings exactly, Gary. Thank you for articulating it so well.

[Thomas]

Adelle wrote: "Roger wrote: "Adelle wrote: "HAVE we seen him do good? No example of such comes to mind."

He supported his wife, and tried to get her safely into a nunnery."

Yeah, I initially gave him credit the..."

Nikolai is not a good man, obviously, but the fascinating thing about him is that he doesn't lie. He is silent when he shouldn't be, but he's basically honest about who he is and all the ugliness that entails. How we are supposed to interpret that ugliness is another matter. Nikolai calls Shatov a psychologist. That seems to be what the character demands.

[Aiden]

I’m coming to this week’s discussion late and I suspect that reading the Appendix section has changed the view a bit, but I was surprised at the people saying that Stavrogin didn’t give any suicidal indications. He fights a duel in Part II against a man who has a blood feud with him, fires purposely into the air three times, but also refuses to end the duel after the first and second shot are fired at him.

There are definitely other indicators of Stavrogin’s sullen, listless nature throughout, but I would think providing your body as a stable target for an armed man who hates you (and actually being hit!) would qualify as suicidal behavior.

[[deleted user]]

Aiden wrote: "I was surprised at the people saying that Stavrogin didn’t give any suicidal indications. ..."

In retrospect, it DOES seem like he may well have been suicidal...see...I still haven't quite come to that conclusion...

I had thought mostly, that he didn't care... I didn't see him as actively seeking death... simply that if he died, he died.

Then in his discussion with Kirillov, he did seem to have given thought to suicide.... but I thought he had a strong character and that he would never do it. He would bear his burden.

Every time I look bac now, scenes seem as though they could be differently interpreted from how i first read them.

[Aiden]

Adelle wrote: "Every time I look bac now, scenes seem as though they could be differently interpreted from how i first read them."

I’ve loved that aspect of the novel. It brings some interesting ideas to mind every time I read it because it seems so open to interpretations.

Incidentally, my opinion is that Nikolai was attempting suicide through recklessness on numerous occasions because he couldn’t bear existence. All those attempts having failed and knowing both that Darya would come and that he couldn’t bear doing that to her gave him the final push for a long-contemplated possibility of death by hanging.