Search for Purity in Dostoevsky
"The Idiot" undoubtedly is one of Dostoevsky's best novels, as it reveals plenty of paradoxes and absurdities that are typical for human nature and human condition. Nonetheless, it does not lack passion from the part of the author, as it abounds in compassion for the entire human race and in understanding for its many vulnerable features.
The most basic storyline presents the misfortunes and adventures of Prince Myshkin starting from the moment of his return to Russia after having spent some time in a Swiss sanatorium, where he was sent to treat his epilepsy. The treatment for epilepsy he had undergone in Switzerland certainly proved to be quite efficient. Before this treatment, the prince had been unable to express himself, to communicate with other people. The fact that after his stay in the Swiss sanatorium he is able to speak, opens a whole new social perspective for him. He is indeed incredibly intelligent and cultivated, he possesses amazing language proficiency, but still he is handicapped by his own nave expectations when it comes to the reality of the unspoken cruelties and hypocrisy of society. So, all across the novel, the prince plays the part of a sort of sacred fool, whose holy thoughts and ingenuity towards other people's true nature can only point out the opposing malice, treachery, excesses and hypocrisies that are to be found in any kind of social community.
He has such an overwhelming inner purity, compassion and tolerance towards others that he seems like an alien creature in a corrupted, unhealthy environment he simply cannot fit into. This does not remain unnoticed by the others, who show themselves eager to despise this strange creature. However, he will soon be regarded by other characters in the novel as a true model of Christianity, as the very embodiment of Christ, and they become aware they could never exceed him when it comes to spiritual purity.
Dostoevsky could be regarded as a sort of alchemist of letters. What he wanted to do through his writing was to melt any kind of human suffering into a sort of ecstatic illumination, which was related mostly to the religious feeling. In the Orthodox tradition, he was completely convinced that genuine self-improvement, particularly on a spiritual level, can be attained solely by tremendous inner pain, great material poverty and human despair. This may remind us in some way of the Romantic ideal according to which true wisdom comes only after very dramatic and often highly traumatizing events in one's life. It is this hedonistic experience that ultimately enriches our spirits with "treasures from darkness, riches stored in secret places". (See Isaiah 45)
Apart from the kind-spirited Prince Myshkin, at the opposing pole is for instance the memorable female character of Nastasya Filipovna. She is one of the female characters in Dostoevsky that seem to be torn between their desire to be good and their true decadent nature. She has some sort of masochistic tendencies, so that she takes great pleasure in her tremendous suffering. She sees herself completely unworthy of anything good and pure, and because of that, although she greatly admires Prince Myshkin and his Christian virtues, he refuses his proposal to marry him and be saved both from herself and from the stigmata put on her by the perverse, hypocrite society. In fact, she feels handicapped by the sad and degrading events that hurt her in the past, and she seems unwilling to forget and forgive. She feels she could never be part of society, nor is she willing to do that. Since her innocence had been stolen by an older, rich gentleman, she is convinced that same innocence and acceptance can no longer be gained. The fact is she refuses to be restored in her own eyes and the eyes of others because she simply cannot accept the idea that all her suffering was in vain, for nothing, that it could simply be deleted from her memory or the memory of others. She feels dammed for all her life on earth, and convinced that things could never turn right for her anymore. In a way, her tragic end might be in perfect accordance with what she actually wished for.
