Open AccessDeath, New Land, and New Nature in Dostoevsky’s Novel The Idiot
Author(s) -
Tatiana Kasatkina
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
dostoevskij i mirovaâ kulʹtura. filologičeskij žurnal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2712-8512
pISSN - 2619-0311
DOI - 10.22455/2619-0311-2020-3-16-39
Subject(s) - idiot , immortality , humanity , dream , plot (graphics) , disgust , dehumanization , prison , psychic , déjà vu , aesthetics , literature , philosophy , sociology , psychoanalysis , psychology , art , criminology , social psychology , cognitive psychology , anthropology , medicine , statistics , alternative medicine , theology , mathematics , anger , pathology , neuroscience
The article is dedicated to the analysis of the main concepts in the novelThe Idiot aimed at a better understanding of its most enigmatic scenes. The mainword of the novel is “new”, both on a plot level and on a deeper, ontological one. Thenovel vividly demonstrates how the manifestation of the “new” is actually connectedwith emotions that are very different from the ones we could suppose by default; infact, it is connected with fear, disgust, a sense of disruption and destruction, radicaltransition, and unknown. Dostoevsky shows how this kind of human relationshipwith the “new” is an effective way to enclose man in the narrow prison of earthly life,denying immortality and resurrection; it also encloses man in the narrow prison ofsocial prejudices, denying the possibility for free growth of his humanity. The analysisfocuses on the first scene at the Epanchyns’, the story about the soldier Kolpakov (theonly thing we know about the father of the prince), and Ippolit’s dream about thenon-scorpion and the Newfoundland dog Norma.