Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Idiot, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Innocence v. Foolishness
Money, Greed, and Corruption
Social Hierarchy, Authority, and Rebellion
Absurdity and Nihilism
Passion, Violence, and Christianity
Summary
Analysis
The young man accompanying General Epanchin is 28 and handsome, with dark, witty eyes. Aglaya ignores both of them and recites the poem anyway. Myshkin correctly guesses that the young man is Evgeny. Aglaya, meanwhile, gives a grave and dramatic performance of the poem, even descending into a “rapture.” The poem ends with the poor knight dying alone as a “recluse.” During her recital, Aglaya changes the initials of the knight’s love from A.M.D. to N.F.B., and this horrifies the prince. Most of those present do not notice the change, but Myshkin is convinced that Evgeny Pavlovich has.
Aglaya evidently shares her mother’s flair for drama. At times, her flamboyant nature emerges at the expense of others, for example when she here changes the initials of the knight’s lady to be those of Nastasya. Not only is Myshkin frightened of Nastasya, but he becomes embarrassed of any mention of his feelings about her. Yet Aglaya seems particularly interested in these feelings, and willing to exploit them for the purpose of entertainment here.
Themes
After the conversation about the poem ends and the new guest is introduced, Evgeny announces that he is temporarily resigning from the military. Myshkin feels uneasy. Evgeny brings up Pushkin again, and Vera soon appears holding the Lebedev family’s copy of Pushkin’s poetry, which she presents to Mrs. Epanchin. Vera then turns to Myshkin and tells him that four men came by to see him earlier, adding that they are angry. Ganya and Ptitsyn are currently “trying to talk sense into them,” but they demand to see the prince. Lebedev mentions that it’s Pavlishchev’s son and some others, and Myshkin immediately becomes alarmed.
The arrival of these four angry men would perhaps, in another context, suggest that there is something Myshkin has been hiding from everyone—after all, why else would the men be there? However, it is difficult to imagine that the morally upright Myshkin has any kind of dark secret that has caused people to be angry with him.
Themes
Everyone is caught up in the conversation now, and Aglaya warns Myshkin that he should speak to the men now, because they are trying to “besmirch” him. Someone asks if the young men are nihilists, and Lebedev comments that “they’ve gone further than the nihilists” because they actually act on their beliefs. The one claiming to be Pavlishchev’s son is actually named is Antip Burdovsky, and he is about 22 years old, with a speech defect. The next of the four is Ippolit, whose illness has made him skeletal, and who probably has only a few weeks to live. The other two are Lebedev’s nephew Vladimir Doktorenko and Keller. It appears that in introducing themselves, they have deliberately mixed up their names.
Although there have been a couple of passing references to nihilism in the book thus far, this is the first time that the reader actually encounters characters with nihilist beliefs. It is clear from the way that the other characters react to their presence that they are afraid of nihilism. This fear perhaps less lies in nihilism as an ideology and more in how it makes people act—as revealed when Lebedev argues that these young nihilists have gone further than most, by putting their beliefs into practice.
Themes
