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| The Rest of the Chapters; Synopsis of each chapter | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 25 2011, 02:05 PM (203 Views) | |
| Psychopav | Jun 6 2011, 05:12 PM Post #11 |
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Part III, Chapter 5, The Globe Trotter and Chapter 6, A Very Busy Night Summary In this chapter, Shatov's wife Mary returns to home after having been gone for more than 3 years and having an affair with Stavrogin. Shatov is overjoyed to see his wife, despite their long absence and her infidelity. After Shatov settles his wife in his room, Erkel, the second lieutenant that attacked his superior officer and a member of Peter's group show up to talk to Shatov. Erkel tells Shatov that if he shows the group where his printing press is buried, they will let him leave the group peacefully. He is only to meet them later in the park near Stavrogin's house and show them where it is buried. Shatov agrees and hurries back to his wife. She faints and Shatov discovers that she is pregnant. He rushes to Kirilov and borrows money from him to hire a mid-wife. He rushes to the best mid-wife in town, Virginsky's wife. Shatov then rushes off to Lyamshin house to sell him his pistol for money. Mrs. Virginsky delivers the baby safely and Shatov revels in the miracle of new life. Shatov has a renewed faith in God and in the goodness of man. The next day, Virginsky spends the morning running to each member of the group to tell them that Shatov will certainly not inform now that his wife is back with a child. The group meets in the appointed place and Virginsky raises his concerns. Shigalyov put the point more strongly claiming that all the murders are counterproductive to their mission and he will not take part in them, he says he will not stop them but that he also wants nothing to do with the murders and leaves. Shatov finally arrives and Liputin and Peter attack him and Peter shoots him in the head. Virginsky becomes very excited and attacks Peter after the murder. Liputin and Erkel fight him off and calm him down. The rest of the group ties rocks to Shatov's body and throws him in the pond before going their separate ways. Peter goes to Kirilov to have him commit suicide and write a note that he killed Shatov. Kirilov is upset that Peter has killed Shatov and argues with him for a while. Kirilov discusses the necessity of suicide and the implication of atheism. He is disgusted with Peter and it seems as though he will not commit suicide. He runs into the next room with his gun and Peter goes into the room to kill Kirilov, believing that he will not commit suicide. Peter attacks Kirilov who then shoots himself in his head. Peter them rushes to the train station with Erkel, who sees him off. Part III, Chapter 5, The Globe Trotter and Chapter 6, A Very Busy Night Analysis Aside from the murders, this chapter is interesting because of the involved philosophical discussion contained here. Everyone is discussing philosophy in these two chapters; even Shatov and his wife discuss the ridiculous nature of the Russia radicals and liberals. It is as if Dostoevsky, not content with all of the murder, feels the need to say everything he thinks in these two chapters about the Russia situation that he is portraying in the story. Although there are many interesting discussions in this chapter, by far the most interesting is the discussion between Peter and Kirilov. Kirilov is a deeply philosophical character. We have already seen that he is prepared to commit suicide on principle and here we learn more about his strange philosophy of life. The thrust of Kirilov's philosophy is that, since as he believes (though reluctantly) that there is no God, there can be no other God than the individual man, in this case Kirilov. It is a man's will, his free will, that makes him a god and this will can only be expressed in a free and thoughtful suicide. Kirilov maintains that mankind invented God to give them a reason not to kill themselves and that he, Kirilov, is the first man to express his self-will by killing himself because there is no God. He will be an example to those after him that can, after his suicide, have the courage to express their will. Kirilov says that he does not understand how an atheist can believe that there is no God and not kill himself at once. Fear is the curse of humans who refuse to express their self-will. By killing himself, Kirilov hopes to liberate mankind from the curse of fear by showing the reality of the will. Although his philosophy sounds insane, it is not totally without precedent. In the early 19th century, Schopenhauer expressed a similar philosophy, claiming that the ultimate end of human life was suicide and he even supposedly slept with a revolver under his pillow. Schopenhauer's philosophy did not have the religious element that Kirilov's does, however. Dostoevsky is using Kirilov, as he will use Ivan Karamazov in his next novel, to show the logical implications of serious atheism. Dostoevsky takes this kind of atheism seriously, though he rejects it in favor of a redeeming Russian Christianity similar to the view that Shatov holds. |
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| Psychopav | Jun 7 2011, 11:20 AM Post #12 |
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Part III, Chapter 7, Stepan Verkhovensky's Last Pilgrimage and Chapter 8, Conclusion Summary After the momentous events of the last two chapters we are left to follow the wanderings of Stepan Verkhovensky. Having made up his mind to leave Mrs. Stavrogin's care and discover the "real Russia." Instead of taking a carriage to begin this great journey, however, he sets off on foot. He has no clear destination in mind and after walking for a while, he sits under a tree to rest and dozes off. A carriage of peasants drives up and a woman inside asks him who he is. Stepan replies in a way that confuses the peasants and then asks if he can join them in their carriage. They are traveling to a nearby town and Stepan offers to pay them if they will take him along. They continue to question him along the way and eventually they arrive an inn. Stepan, sitting at a table in the inn buys some Vodka and is approached by a woman selling Bibles. He buys one of the Bibles and asks the woman to sit next to him. Also at the inn is a servant of one of his friends named Anisim. Anisim talks to Stepan and then leaves. The peasants are confused and suspicious of Stepan and the Bible saleswoman, Sophia, decides they should leave. In the carriage, Stepan talks to Sophia about the Bible and then doses off with a fever. They arrive at another inn and go inside. Stepan pays the innkeeper to find a chicken for dinner. While she is gone, Stepan sits with Sophia and tells her the story if his life. He is very feverish now and his story is confused and impressionistic. During this tale, Stepan falls violently ill and is confined to a bed in the inn while Sophia nurses him somewhat reluctantly. In his illness, he asks her to read the Bible to him. He is interested in hearing the story from Luke about the devils that posses the swine before drowning in the sea, the same passage that the narrator uses to open the novel. In the story, Jesus casts several devils that are possessing men into nearby pigs that then rush into the ocean and drown. Stepan believes that this story expresses the current plight of Russia. The next day, Mrs. Stavrogin arrives angry with Stepan for leaving and concerned for his health. She chastises him and sends for a doctor. The doctor proclaims his condition terminal and Stepan, the radical intellectual, finally takes the sacrament and converts to Christianity before he eventually dies. Mrs. Stavrogin takes Dasha and Sophia back to her home with her. In the conclusion we find that despite Peter's planning, it does not take very long for the authorities to discover what he and his group have done. Mrs. Shatov, wondering where her husband is, goes to ask Kirilov and finds him dead. She panics and rushes out of the house into the cold to find out what happened. In her panic, she ends up catching a cold and dying and neglecting her child in the process, who also dies. The police find the body and get a confession from Lyamshin. Virginsky and his family are also arrested, as are the other members of the group. Only Erkel refuses to talk. Stavrogin has been in Petersburg, but has sent a note to Dasha asking her to come to his new home in a valley to live with him. Dasha shows Mrs. Stavrogin the note and they all decide to go live with Nicholas far from their town. After making this decision, however, one of the servants informs them that Nicholas has just arrived at the house. Rushing into his room to find him, they do not see him at all until someone notices an open doorway into the attic. As they rush into the attic they find Stavrogin hanging from a silk rope from the rafters. Another suicide, clearly intentional and clearly done of a sound mind. Part III, Chapter 7, Stepan Verkhovensky's Last Pilgrimage and Chapter 8, Conclusion Analysis In these final two chapters we see the opposite trajectories of two of the novels main characters, Stepan and Nicholas. Stepan wanders into the "real Russia" where he does not belong until he eventually finds God through the redeeming help of a decent woman. This is a theme in many of Dostoevsky's novels. Nicholas, on the other hand and despite some attempts, is not able to find a woman that will redeem him for his sins and, lacking faith in God's saving redemption, he commits suicide. We will find out more about Stavrogin in the Appendix. Stepan, in his desire to hear the story of the devils form Luke, sheds some light on what Dostoevsky is trying to say with this novel. The novel is extremely melodramatic, almost over the top, in the number of murders and suicides and it is clear that Dostoevsky has a message over and above the dramatic action. The clue from this biblical story and from the title is that, as Stepan claims, Russia is a nation possessed with demons. She is a nation both attracted to and repulsed by the modernization and liberalism of the west. She is also a terribly backward and traditional nation that still has a tyrannical monarchy and an Orthodox church. The convulsions of the early to mid 19th century let loose these demons into the heart of the Russian soul that are not easily expelled. In the story, Jesus casts the devils into swine, which then drown. Dostoevsky seems to be suggesting here that only the Church can truly save Russia and that the demons need to be cast into swine, in this case Peter's revolutionaries, who can then be dealt with. Dostoevsky was right to think that his nation was possessed. If only the swine who became possessed with devils were as, ultimately, ineffectual as Peter and his group. In reality the devils that took up residence in Russia were much more formidable and after Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin were done with her, Russia was left with many scars and many graveyards. Dostoevsky then, despite the melodrama, was more right in this novel than he would ever know. |
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| Psychopav | Jun 7 2011, 01:26 PM Post #13 |
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Themes Men of the '40's vs. Men of the '60's Much of the novel is a playing out of one of the central cultural and political themes of the 19th century, the dispute between the older men of the '40s and the younger men of the '60s. Both of these groups are stereotypes, though salient types of the time. Men of the '40s were superfluous men, aristocratic, highly educated Russians who desired change in their homeland, though were unable to influence change directly. They tended to live outside of Russia, particularly in Germany or France and pursued literary pursuits. Stepan is meant to embody, somewhat comically, this type. Men of the '60s on the other hand had tired of their elders' talking and desired direct revolutionary action for political change. They tended to eschew the arts and culture and to be taken in by materialism and socialism. Peter is an embodiment of this type. They lack education and are filled with bile. We see this theme played out in the disputes between Peter and Stepan as well as Karmazinov and his audience at the fete. Dostoyevsky himself fills a strange place in this dispute. Himself basically a man of the '40s, he spends large portions of the novel lampooning and satirizing Stepan and Karmazinov. He also, however, viciously attacks Peter and his ilk and was solidly reactionary in his political views. We should see the novel as showing the error of both of these stances. He clearly sees the younger generation as having been possessed by devils and made extreme errors in their spiritual and religious views, while also lamenting the dissolution and waste of the older generation. Atheism and Religion Although this novel ostensibly deals with political issues, it is a deeply religious novel. Dostoyevsky believes and tries to show in this novel that many of the political pathologies of his time were really the result of spiritual and religious errors. His own views would seem crazy to the non-Russian modern reader and are best articulated by Shatov in the novel He believed that only in communion with the Russian national church could Russia and indeed the world be rejuvenated and saved from the madness of atheism and political violence. He sees atheism as not merely being a logical or philosophical error, but also as a kind of psychological disease, a kind of madness. All of the main characters of the younger generation are obsessed with god in some way. Most are atheists, though only Kirilov takes the, according to Dostoyevsky, logical atheist stand. Kirilov realizes that if there is no god then man must become god. Not in some supernatural sense, but in the sense that there is nothing higher than man. Peter realizes this and believes he can build a new Eden on earth in the form of authoritarian socialism. Stavrogin, denies the existence of god, but is lost in a world without the moral anchor that god provides. Shatov is the only believer in god, though even he seems to lack complete faith. The birth of Shatov's child is the first signs of the possibility of the regeneration of the Russian people through love and communion with the Russian church. The Russian nihilists, however, murder Shatov, the symbol of this view, and the child (the symbol of this regeneration) also dies. Dostoyevsky believed that the madness of atheism would sink his country into violence and despair. The main theme of this novel is the connection between faith in god and political and cultural regeneration. Radical Politics This novel is, among other things, a sustained satire of many of the prevalent political views of the time. We see Fourierists, Nihilists, Atheists, and Socialists, among others. The author is trying to satirize these views by making them appear silly and dangerous. He associates these views with the lowest and most base characters in the novel making the reader think that these views could only attract degenerates because they are based on despicable ideas. It is clear that Peter's socialism flows, at least in part, from his desire to rule over others. It is also clear that many of the youth of the fete are disdainful of the higher classes out of envy and hatred. The radical political views of the group then seem to be convenient principles that can be used to justify extreme actions. Furthermore, the more moderate, liberal views of Stepan and Julia are lampooned as incoherent and merely fronts for more radical views. Dostoyevsky was a notorious reactionary in his own time and his characterization of these views may not entirely be fair. Still, although he does attack many of the radical political views of his time, he clearly recognizes the need for political and cultural change in Russia. He is, however, appalled by the atheism and radicalism of the popular views. Given the results of socialist experimentation in Russia throughout the 20th century, his concerns seem justified and prescient. |
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7:03 PM Jul 10