I received a fairly decent mark for this essay, within the range my conscious effort put in (an 80%). I lost most marks for MLA infractions, which there will be more of as you read because I didnt bother to put in proper indentations for quotes. Does my teacher's mark match up with YWS' critiques?
Dan Marijanovic
Ms. Rawson
ENG3U
Tues. June 12, 2007.
The Fall of the Proud and Mighty in The Idiot
The Idiot, by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 - 1881), is a story about a good-hearted young man named Myshkin who gets involved, almost unwittingly, in the financial and romantic affairs of a cast of colourful characters that eventually leads to tragedy. A prevalent theme in The Idiot is the fall of the proud and mighty, of which the three following characters are prominent examples of: Parfyon Semyonovitch Rogozhin, Nastasya Filippovna, and of course the “Idiot”, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin.
Rogozhin, though not within the circles of the higher-class or an influential person, nevertheless heads a small band of followers attracted to his considerably large fortune, inherited at the beginning of the novel. His fall is ultimately the result of his passionate love for Nastasya Filippovna, a beauty sought after by many, which drives him to madness. He succeeds in winning her over with 100, 000 roubles [Russian currency], only to find himself entangled in a complicated and precarious relationship with the woman. Unable to cope with her undecidedness in terms of who she indeed loves (himself or Myshkin), he is eventually driven into a passionate madness in which state he murders her. Rogozhin’s fall is made complete and summed up in the following passage:
For two months Rogozhin was prostrate with inflammation of the brain, and he was tried as soon as he recovered .... In view of extenuating circumstances he was sentenced to only fifteen years penal servitude in Siberia, and heard his sentence grimly, silently, and ‘dreamily’. All his vast fortune, except the comparatively small part that he had squandered in the first few months of debauchery, passed to his brother Semyon Semyonovitch, to the great satisfaction of the latter (575).
Nastasya Filippovna is the remaining daughter of a deceased officer [of the army]. She is raised and provided for by the rich and influential Afanasy Ivanovitch Totsky:
He [Totsky] gave me education, he kept me like a countess, and the money - the money he wasted on me! He looked me out a respectable husband in the country in those days, and now Ganya here (151-152).
Her fall is self-imposed, as she herself puts it:
No, I’d better be in my proper place, in the streets! I must either have a spree with Rogozhin or go out as a washerwoman tomorrow for I’ve nothing of my own. If I go away, I shall give up everything of his [Totsky’s], I shall leave every rag behind (152).
Staying true to her words, Nastasya does indeed go off with Rogozhin, abandoning the status landed her under Totsky and all her former life altogether. What social status she maintains is further diminished when she instigates a scandal with Prince Myshkin who chooses her, out of pity, over Aglaia Ivanovna Epanchin who loves him romantically. Her fall is complete when Rogozhin, unable to cope with her constant see-sawing between him and Myshkin, and driven by jealousy, passion, and madness, murders her the night after she, at the last moment, withdraws from her wedding with Myshkin. Her fall, self-fulfilled, is one of the more tragic falls in the story.
Finally there is the ‘Idiot’, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin. His fall is incontestably the most lamentable and significant falls in the whole novel, enhanced due to his Christ-like nature. The (rather pejorative) title ‘Idiot’ which the good Prince sometimes affectionately, and not quite so affectionately, receives from several characters throughout the novel is given him, not because he is a witless man, rather because he is too nice, too forgiving, too modest, and too truthful - all of which are incompatible characteristics for the self-advancing, greedy, scheming, and egotistical society which surrounds him. Despite his being an ‘Idiot’, or paradoxically as a result of it, Myshkin is well liked and received by most of the people he comes in contact with. Atop that he comes into a small fortune enough for a comfortable and modest living. However, it is ultimately his being an ‘Idiot’ (in the sense described above) coupled with his unfortunate illness that leads him to his fall.
The beginning of the Prince’s fall is his love, purely out of pity for her morally desperate situation (a testament to his nature), for Nastasya Filippovna. This love, which evolves first into an affair part of an uncertain love triangle, ends up a scandal. General Epanchin’s youngest daughter, Aglaia, fosters a love for Myshkin which she reveals to him in the presence of Nastasya. Though returning her love, his pity for Nastasya is greater and chooses to be with her over Aglaia. This disgraces him in the eyes of the Epanchins who break all relations with him, and is moreover received with indignation by most others that know him:
In presenting all these facts [of the scandal] and declining to attempt to explain them, we have no desire to justify our hero in the eyes of the reader. What is more we are quite prepared to share the indignation he excited even in his friends. Even Vera Lebedyev was indignant with him for a time; even Kolya was indignant; even Keller was indignant, till he was chosen as best man, to say nothing of Lebedyev himself, who even began intriguing against Myshkin, also from an indignation which was quite genuine .... We must observe, by the way, that not only the Epanchins, but every one directly or indirectly connected with them had thought proper to break off all relations with Myshkin. Prince S. for instance turned aside when he met Myshkin and did not respond to his greeting (541).
Furthermore, on the day he is to be wed to Nastasya Filippovna, she, in a crazed state, rushes into the arms of Rogozhin crying, “Save me! Take me away! Where you will, at once!” (557). In the end Myshkin looses both women he loves. Soon after he finds Nastasya dead, murdered by Rogozhin. The sight of her slain body and the presence of Rogozhin (who caused him to have an epileptic attack earlier in the novel) tied in with his illnes made him a babbling idiot, remembering no one and nothing. Nor does it seem there is any hope for him:
Schneider [the doctor caring for Myshkin in Switzerland] frowns and shakes his head more ominously every time; he hints at a permanent derangement of the intellect; he does not yet say positively that recovery is out of the question, but he allows himself phrases suggestive of most melancholy possibilities (576).
Thus Myshkin experiences a great fall from grace incomparable to any other fall in the novel.
An ever-present them in The Idiot, as can be deduced by the examples given above, is indeed the fall of the proud and mighty. Nor do the falls end at those examples, for a good handful of other characters in the novel experience some sort of fall, most because of their inability to understand Myshkin and that which he represents. The Idiot is an excellent read and is very insightful. It is recommended to everyone as it applies to all society in general.
