I

Dostoevsky’s Dark Messiah;

A Critical Exploration of the ‘Outsider’ in

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Notes from the

Underground” and “The Idiot”

By Oliver McKenzie

II

“I am poor and naked amid the vortex of human kind.”1

Most simply, an ‘outsider’ exists in literature to convey a revelation. As a polemical figure, the

‘outsider’ enables the writer to explore the personal implications of the protagonist’s beliefs,

which challenges the philosophy on the basis of both reason and application. The protagonists

of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground2 and The Idiot3 are outsiders in their

respective societies, but are also burdened by an inner, psychological turmoil. It transpires that

each character is fatally flawed, their ethics and their ideas rejected by their contemporaries.

Each novel ends in ruin for the protagonists, leading us to wonder whether this is due to their

own moral hamartia or the shortcomings of wider characters.

Notes from the Underground and The Idiot, published 1864 and 1868 respectively, are products

of Dostoevsky’s post-exile fiction when, after being tried for conspiracy, he was sentenced to

four years imprisonment in Siberia. In both these texts, is a distinctly gothic sense of wisdom,

attributable to Dostoevsky’s experiences in prison (and his subsequent contraction of epilepsy)

where it is probable that the writer felt very much like an outsider himself. Indeed the novels’

distinctly realist undercurrents suggest that Dostoevsky is contemplating the hardship and

isolation he felt in his own life. The great nineteenth century novelist explores the characters’

belief through the image of a messiah, before conveying its inefficacy through the theme of

failure, and finally consolidates the characters’ status as outsider figures by the way they

respond to this failure.

The Underground Man from Notes from the Underground and Prince Myshkin from The Idiot

are fundamentally divergent, yet comparable characters. Dostoevsky explores the theme of

ideological failure from two complimentary standpoints. The Underground Man speaks of dark

ideas of realism and “consciousness”4 whereas Prince Myshkin preaches from the light as he

is an idealist and has not experienced reality. Dostoevsky finds each standpoint to be

fundamentally flawed and his conclusion is that one should employ both reason and idealism

in their life, and an exclusive overuse of one or the other is unwise.

1 Dostoevsky, Fyodor; The Idiot; Oxford World’s Classics; 2008; Page 211 2 Notes from the Underground Published 1864. First English translation published 1918 3 The Idiot Published serially in The Russian Messenger between 1868 and 1869. First English translation

published 1887 4 Notes from the Underground; Page 15

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Dostoevsky begins this argument by exploring these two separate beliefs in his protagonists.

The Underground Man is a cynic, miserable and driven mad by his own feelings of paralysis

and impotence, as he feels at odds with “the laws of nature”5 because of his reasoning about

determinism. He asserts:

“Nature doesn’t ask your permission; she’s not concerned about your

wishes or whether or not you care for her laws. You are obliged to accept

her as she is and consequently all her end results.”6

Indeed it is his indefatigable application of reason and an absence of any faith in the human

spirit that causes him to feel useless, despairing in the world he lives in. He cannot find ‘valid’

reasons to do any sort of action at all “and sink[s] voluptuously into inertia.”7 As literary

journalist David Denby explains:

“[The Underground Man] pulls the rug out from underneath his own feet…

he’s trapped in the prison of his own character.”8

The protagonist is an outsider because he possesses “consciousness” of his own

unimportance.

Prince Myshkin on the other hand, is the product of Dostoevsky’s endeavour to create the

“positively good man,”9 intended as a social experiment to test the moral health of Russian

Society. He is passionate, innocent, and virtuous and out of his depth when faced with the evil

and corruption of the real world. He promises “to conduct [himself] honestly and firmly”10 and

is estranged for “believ[ing] passionately in the Russian soul.”11 He notices that “everybody

regards [him] as an idiot.”12 Prince Myshkin can be considered an outsider because of his

elevated sense of morality in a world where no such ethical quintessence exists.

The outsiders from Notes from the Underground and The Idiot are both isolated because of

their failure to apply idealist principles. The Prince learned an outmoded system of ethics when

5 Notes from the Underground; Page 12 6 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor; Notes from the Underground And The Double; Penguin Classics; 2009; Page 12 7 Notes from the Underground; Page 12 8 Denby, David; Can Dostoevsky Still Kick You in the Gut?; The New Yorker; June 11, 2012 9 Heller, Dana; Volkova, Elena; The Holy Fool in Russian and American Culture: A Dialogue; American

Studies International, February 2003; Online Excerpt 10 The Idiot; Page 79 11 Ibid; Page 239 12 Ibid; Page 79

IV

he was separated from civilisation as a mental patient in “Switzerland,”13 and cannot reconcile

his ideals with this new age of people. The Underground Man on the other hand, a self-

proclaimed pessimist and immoralist, lapses unconsciously into idealism and bases his ethics

on literature, this adherence to classical texts symbolising idealism. The Underground man

contradicts himself when he insists that tradition and faith are outmoded systems for moral

decision-making in the presence of reason, when he becomes compassionate. He finds himself

investing partially in this idea, but also feels drawn towards romantic literature demonstrating

mankind’s need for irrationality and thus rendering him a “purveyor of paradoxes”14

Having established characters whose nature isolates them in their respective societies,

Dostoevsky’s most significant feature of characterisation is his likening of the protagonists to

flawed messianic figures. Firstly, each protagonist possesses a significant physical ailment

which represents a fundamental flaw to their being. The Underground Man “think[s] there is

something wrong with [his] liver”15 but “refuses treatment”16 which helps us to understand the

confused logic which accompanies his decisive actions. Likewise, Prince Myshkin suffers

“attacks of epilepsy”17 and during his fits, experiences a sensual high of:

“the highest pitch of harmony and beauty, conferring a sense of some

hitherto unknown and unguessed completeness, proportion, reconciliation,

and ecstatic, prayerful fusion with the supreme synthesis of life.”18

Myshkin’s elevated sense of consciousness is clearly symbolised, but by the fact that his

condition is an illness, Dostoevsky demonstrates the dissonance of such perfection with the

modern world.

In keeping with the theme of applying idealism, the messianic figure represents the

protagonists’ steadfastness of belief. Neither outsider can be considered dynamic as, like Christ

himself, they are unwavering in their outspoken ideas. Christ could be considered an outsider,

because his values were rejected by all his peers, apart from a dedicated minority. The story of

Christ however is only similar to that of these characters so far in that Christ was persecuted.

Jesus was however successful in that he secured the vitality and continuation of the Christian

13 The Idiot; Page 4 14 Notes from the Underground; Page 118 15 Ibid; Page 1 16 Ibid; Page 1 17 The Idiot; Page 246 18 Ibid; Page 246

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faith, whereas the protagonists fail in this regard as their demise has no effect on society.

Dostoevsky compares the outsiders to Christ to make their motive clear, but their failure marks

them as even greater outsiders than He. There is also clear emphasis that each protagonist is

not necessarily wrong in their beliefs as Dostoevsky believed in the values taught by Christ.

The writer disagrees with the application of these values, and seeks to prove its failure.

Dostoevsky uses extensive religious imagery to achieve his messianic characterisation such as

in the opening section of The Idiot, where the protagonist is likened to a stereotypical portrayal

of Christ: “little beard, almost white in colour. His eyes were large and pale blue.”19 In Notes

from the Underground the Underground Man is likened to the devil preaching the absolute

non-existence of spirituality: “We are stillborn and have long since ceased to be begotten by

living fathers.”20 He has declined into a life of self-willed excommunication from society. We

can imagine his ‘fall from grace’ which has biblical connotations with the fall of man.

Dostoevsky summons the idea of isolation through setting. When both outsider figures are

alone, there seems to be an ambivalence between them and their surroundings, such as when

Prince Myshkin is left alone with his thoughts and the atmosphere is “still bright and very

warm,”21 which helps us to think of them as foreigners. However, when they mingle with

society, for example, on “a raw Russian November night… [they are] manifestly unprepared”22

suggesting, even before dialogue is introduced, that they are outsiders in essence. The setting

in Notes from the Underground enhances the Underground Man’s feelings of disconnect as his

abode “is cheap and filthy on the outskirts of town.”23 We gain an insight into the burden of

living with “conscious inertia,”24 as an “underground” bears connotations of entrapment and

withdrawal. The Underground Man’s struggle for logical thought, due to the overwhelming

feeling of logical impotence is reflected by the confined setting. Mentally, he is incapable of

making meaningful, thoughtful progress, just as he is restricted from physically moving around.

This contrasts with Myshkin whose open mind is reflected by the frequent changes in setting,

similar to Christ who moves from place to place. In the streets of Petersburg he “wanders

aimlessly”25 and allows his “morbidly sensitive imagination”26 to ruminate. The Prince’s

19 The Idiot; Page 4 20 Notes from the Underground; Page 118 21 The Idiot; Page 234 22 Ibid; Page 4 23 Notes from the Underground; Page 5 24 Ibid; Page 34 25 The Idiot; Page 234 26 Ibid; Page 318

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emotional intelligence and capacity for feeling marks him out against the Underground Man,

whose misplaced sensitivity is vain and confused, like a devil who cannot fathom goodness.

The image of a fall compares him to an original sinner; the first existentialist. This is effective

as the novel is the testament of a character who rejects faith, choosing reason as his only source

of moral decision-making. In contrast, due to his faith in ideals, Myshkin never experiences

this revelation explained by Dostoevsky through the biblical reference, “Thou hast hidden these

things from the wise and prudent and vouchsafe them to the babes.”27 The protagonist can be

thought of as a prophet who tries to bring integrity to a rotten civilisation. He is intelligent and

sentient, but it is common society that understands and tolerates the corrupt world. Later

Myshkin loses his mind, remaining an outsider.

It is interesting to think of the Underground Man as an antihero or an antimessiah. The style

of narrative is very much like a sermon, and the Underground Man speaks to an audience as if

to persuade. “It all stems from boredom gentlemen, sheer boredom; I am crushed by inertia.”28

As a devil-like antihero the character becomes a much sharper outsider. We instinctively regard

him with caution, while we are drawn more to the Prince because of his innate goodness. While

he is an outsider, he is idolised and lauded, called frequently “dear Prince”29 which makes him

more appealing as a saviour figure, and less as an outsider.

For this reason the Underground man appears more vivid- he willingly rejects the society he

lives in. His lapses into Myskinesque acts of humanity where he “[recognises] the sublime and

the beautiful”30 only enhance his status as an outsider as he scolds himself afterwards for

“hav[ing] done something vile that day.”31 He is truly a paradox and a figure that the reader

cannot reconcile. He chooses to live outside Petersburg in an “underground” and his words,

“long live the underground” resonate ironically throughout the novel as it is obvious that his

existence is something he hates. He observes the precipitative tedium: “Just now it’s snowing…

dirty snow [like] yesterday… and the day before that.”32 The Underground Man is not only

opposed to the society of mankind, but also to the system of nature by which he cannot abide.

Dostoevsky’s infrequent changes of pathetic fallacy serve to capture the perceived monotony

of contemporary Russian life, and mirrors the protagonist’s state of mind. Ultimately, while as

27 The Idiot; Page 631. This is an imprecise quotation of Christ’s words; see Matthew 11:25 and Luke 10:21. 28 Notes from the Underground; Page 16 29 The Idiot; Page 87 30 Notes from the Underground; Page 7 31 Ibid; Page 7 32 Ibid; Page 37

VII

a character he is unstable, he is consistently unstable and his hiatuses into irrationality, while

exceptional are always predictable. He is irredeemable, unrepentant and unalterable. He fails

to apply any sort of consistent moral outlook in contrast with Myshkin, whose willingness to

coexist with other characters makes him less vivid as an outsider.

Dostoevsky’s style of narrative gives the reader fundamental insight into the characterisation

of each outsider. Notes from the Underground is written largely as a first-person monologue,

which is perfectly congruous with the character. While The Idiot still strongly conveys the

sense of an outsider, its traditional style, structure and denouement mean that the protagonist

seems to share the foreground with other characters as a third-person narrative gives equal

leaning to all the characters.

Notes from the Underground begins with the paradoxical opening, “I’m a sick man [and]…

I’m refusing treatment out of spite.”33 The idea of the underground man refusing treatment as

a protestation against determinism only becomes apparent after several chapters. The writer

uses a contemptuous and unapologetic tone “whether you want to hear it or not,”34 and as the

tone is unbroken with dialogue or any other character, we sense the protagonist’s own isolation.

Indeed this, and the incoherent narrative style makes the novel appear extremely unchristian;

however upon retrospection, the state of the Underground Man actually demonstrates the

problems with refusing faith, as he is like a prisoner to reason. Because the narrative is

uninterrupted, the reader is distanced from the protagonist, and this is furthered when the

protagonist actually addresses an imaginary audience- “do you know gentlemen, what was the

main point of my malice?”35 This unconventional technique seems to involve the reader in the

novel, but actually we can be seen as an obstacle, as the underground man is trying to prove

himself, thus refusing to cooperate with the reader. The occasional parentheses in the opening

section creates the impression of madness, especially when their addition does nothing to

explain the nihilist philosophy that the underground man preaches. Instead Dostoevsky uses

these subtly as a feature of characterisation as in “(that's a rotten joke, but I don't intend striking

it out,)”36 where the underground man goes on tangential rants, as though struggling in the

turmoil of his own reasoning. He contrasts himself with “spontaneous men of action.”37

33 Notes from the Underground; Page 3 34 Ibid; Page 6 35 Ibid; Page 4 36 Ibid; Page 4 37 Ibid; Page 9

VIII

Dostoevsky uses the image of a bull “confronted with… a stone wall”38 which he “the laws of

nature.”39 Most men simply turn away from the wall, accepting of the impossibility of moving

through it. The Underground Man claims to be a man of “heightened awareness,”40 and finds

it offensive that such a wall cannot be breached. He feels like a prisoner in the world,

subservient to Mother Nature. He actually calls himself an outsider, whereas Myshkin refuses

to accept this fact.

The narrative of The Idiot, while written in the third person does exploit extended sections of

first person dialogue. A comparison can be made between these sections and the first person

narrative of Notes from the Underground because it is this individualist form of writing which

so effectively conveys the outsider. The Prince’s first great speech, to a family of women,

conveys his nature as a compassionate and emotional outsider. The writer delays the revelation

of the Prince’s story for dramatic effect, whereas in Notes from the Underground the

monologue is the opening, and societal interactions follow. Concerning his past, Myshkin

describes “[spending] all my time with children.”41 He is frequently compared with a child,

and the narrative is often hesitant and questioning. At times when he is “troubled and… tired,”42

many questions about the plots future are raised about “how can [it] be?”43 almost as if the

Prince is crying out for help because “solitude had become intolerable to him”44. Dostoevsky

distances the reader from the protagonist by making him sound quite pathetic. The phrase

“troubled and tired” uses the alliteration of plosive consonants makes the phrase sound

scoffing. The innocence of the Myshkin bears sharp contrast with the Underground Man who

has no such innocence. He is instead a character representative of innocence lost. The Prince

longs for isolation, indeed comparative literary critic Réné Wellek notes that “the impulse to

retreat is alive in him,”45 but he cannot escape company and the urge to help. In contrast, the

Underground Man has well and truly excommunicated himself. It is effective that the story of

the Prince is recalled in the third person, as if Myshkin would struggle to speak for himself,

while the first person narrative of Notes from the Underground is powerful as it sounds

assertive and individual.

38 Notes from the Underground; Page 12 39 Ibid; Page 12 40 Ibid; Page 10 41 The Idiot; Page 71 42 Ibid; Page 143 43 Ibid; Page 243 44 Ibid; 235 45 Wellek, René; Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical Essays; Kreiger, Murray; Dostoyevsky’s “Idiot”: The

Curse of Saintliness; Prentice, Hall Inc.; Page 41

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Having created the basis for the protagonists’ beliefs, Dostoevsky then begins the novels’

denouement by envisaging the failure of these protagonists’ beliefs. The failure of the Prince

is due the moral shortcomings of society, whereas the failure of the Underground Man is due

to the shortcomings of his own character- his failure to live without a burden of consciousness.

In the opening sections of these novels, Dostoevsky employs two different approaches to

introduce the theme of failure. In Notes from the Underground, the failure of the Underground

Man is an inevitability. Immediately it is revealed that he is torn and “Can’t explain exactly”46

the reasons for his beliefs. In this way, all of the Underground Man’s actions in the second

section of the novel are all symptoms of his weakness, as he claims to be a man of only reason

but is filled with passion and feeling when he meets other characters.

The presence of plot symmetries in The Idiot suggests that the Prince is periodically not

regarded as an outsider, as he is continually in the company of others and often the centre of

“a whole throng of visitors”,47 contrasted with the Underground Man who is systematically

ignored. For example characters frequently profess to “liking’ him.48 Which leads us to the

conclusion that idealism has its place in moral decision-making, if balanced with experience

and reason. The Underground Man in contrast, forces his presence on a group of former-peers,

and is openly mocked and discredited, all the while convincing himself that he is somehow

morally superior. The men “found [his] situation amusing and embarrassing”49 and he realises

“what laughing stock [he’s] made of [him]self in front of them.”50 However, the paradoxical

nature of the protagonist leads the narrative to contradict itself, and the Underground Man

maintains that “Those boobies think they’ve done me an honour, but they don’t seem to

understand that it’s me, it’s me, whose doing them the honour and not the other way round.”51

The Underground Man asserts convincing and powerful statements which are wholly

undermined by the real situation he is in: “Needless to say [he] stayed.”52 There are no

symmetries in Notes from the Underground which shows that it is in fact one big folly.

Throughout the novel, the Underground Man continually asserts recklessly, and later

undermines his arguments entirely.

46 Notes from the Underground; Page 3 47 The Idiot: Page 254 48 Ibid; Page 70 49 Notes from the Underground; Page 65 50 Ibid; Page 68 51 Ibid; Page 68 52 Ibid; Page 68

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Nevertheless, for both protagonists Dostoevsky has no other fate reserved than failure. The

Prince is victimised to reflect societal corruption. When he inherits a large sum of money from

Pavlovich, his former benefactor, many so-called relatives of tenuous relation to Myshkin

appear in the novel, appealing for money. Being the kind but foolish character that he is,

“[Myshkin] offer[s] [his] money and [his] friendship.”53 This is a classic example of the

protagonist mistaking trickery for heartfelt honesty. Hermann Hesse in his Thoughts on the

Idiot by Dostoevsky considers the moment when malevolent characters, at odds with each other

nevertheless:

“all turn against him, he has stepped on everyone's toes; for an instant the

most extreme social opposites in age and point of view are completely wiped

out, all are united and at one in turning their backs with indignation and rage

on the single one among them who is pure!”54

Dostoevsky shows that even characters who have nothing in common share one trait:

imperfection, and the Prince’s own perfection is the reason he is taken advantage of.

The Prince’s failure is in his attempt to rescue morally irredeemable characters. His idealistic

faith in redemption and forgiveness cannot be reconciled with the morally chaotic world

portrayed in the novel. Indeed, the Prince’s virtuousness isolates him as a saint among a realist

society who prioritise self-interest and economic prosperity. The writer uses the symbol of light

and darkness to associate the prince with goodness and society will malice. When Myshkin

visits Rogozhin -the novel’s antagonist and embodiment of corruption- he observes, “You’re

living in darkness.”55 The setting of Rogozhin’s home, much as we would expect, is ominous

and sinister resembling the character himself, and foreshadowing the Prince’s eventual defeat.

Notably, in the antagonist’s abode is a painting by Holbein56 depicting “the Saviour, just taken

down from the cross,”57 The image of Christ has obvious messianic implications, and the scene

of his execution and appearance in mortal form, foreshadows the Prince’s failure. The

protagonist will save, convert or pacify nobody, and while he does resemble Christ, he lives in

53 The Idiot; Page 297 54 Hesse, Hermann; My Belief: Essays in Life and Art; 1919 55 The Idiot; Page 217 56 The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb; Hans Holbein the Younger; Painted 1520 - 1522 57 The Idiot; Page 429

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a society that absolutely rejects him, a fact that he finds crushing. Myshkin’s vision is that

every flawed character he meets can be redeemed, and dreams of Rogozhin “in white waistcoat,

white tie and tails,”58 when in reality Rogozhin surrounds himself with darkness. While the

Prince wanders St Petersburg fretting about intentions of Rogozhin, Dostoevsky writes

“darkness obscured the setting sun,”59 pathetic fallacy which conveys the idea of natural

perfection being overcome. Myshkin fails to “understand”60 the presence of such sin and

despair: he cannot comprehend the masochistic will of Nastasya Filippovna “marrying

[Rogozhin], because the knife’s surely waiting for her!”61 Dostoevsky describes the novel’s

femme-fatale as a fallen lady, a victim of corruption after she was lured into love, and then

abandoned; full of shame and beyond redemption because she is convinced of her moral

inferiority to the Prince. His love for her is “out of compassion”62 and Nastassia Filippovna

does not wish to be pitied. Myshkin actually berates himself for being unable to relate to

Rogozhin: “it was ignoble and unpardonable!”63 He is an outsider both because of his

ignorance to the existence of evil and his futile attempts to remedy it. In reality however, the

failure of idealism is not due to the Prince, but because society is too far gone in evil to be

saved.

The Underground Man however, sympathises with the idea of ‘pleasure from pain’ and is thus

further isolated from the reader. In the face of nihilism, he chooses to “hit the wall harder with

[his] fists… It’s from these [actions] that pleasure finally arrives.”64 In the novel, mere

cynicism is an incomplete existence. The Underground Man struggles with the paradoxical

dilemma of how to enjoy pleasure, when no such pleasure exists in the world. Joseph Frank, in

his essay on Nihilism in Notes from the Underground explains that “[Masochism] signifies his

refusal to abdicate his conscience and submit silently to determinism, even though his reason

assures him that there is nothing he can really do to change for the better.”65

In Notes from the Underground, Dostoevsky attributes the failure of idealism to the protagonist,

but also demonstrates the Underground Man’s own paradoxical situation by the fact that he

58 The Idiot; Page 432 59 Ibid; Page 238 60 Ibid; Page 226 61 Ibid; Page 226 62 Ibid; Page 219 63 Ibid; Page 242 64 Notes from the Underground; Page 13 65 Frank, Joseph; Nihilism and “Notes from Underground”; The John Hopkins University Press; 1961; Page 10

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even sought to trust in idealism in the first place. Dostoevsky quotes a poem66 by Russian poet

N.A Nekrasov specifically on the topic of ‘redeeming’ a prostitute. The Underground Man

travels to a brothel to ‘save’ a prostitute, faithful in the verity of this romantic poetry. His failure

is not due to the imperfection of the prostitute: the cited poem actually proposes this as a

possibility. Rather it is the Underground’s Man’s sheer divergence from the idealistic and

morally strong protagonist of the poem, described as a listener: “You told me the tale,” whereas

in the novel, the Underground Man only lectures the prostitute and the dialogue is totally one-

sided. The protagonist does not act out of idealism, but rather of vanity. Similarly to Myshkin,

he is presumptuous that he can save a ‘fallen angel,’ but the Prince is different in that he is

completely idealistic and selfless. The Underground Man is wrong, not because the prostitute

could not be saved, but for the reason that he is no saviour. The prostitute notes that he

“sound[s] just like a book,”67 showing the incompatibility of his personality with romantic

idealism. He shies away from his true motives behind this act of magnanimity: in reality he

searches for a person he can “moral[ly] subjugat[e].”68 This plight ends in ruin when the

prostitute visits him, revealing that he is not the heroic figure he envisioned. The protagonist

“stood before her, crushed, disgraced and sickeningly embarrassed.”69 The prostitute proves to

be far more perceptive and feels sorry for him, which he hates as it makes him feel inferior.

This entire scene is significant as the Underground Man is rejected by a character who is

already an outsider herself, thus distancing him from the reader. The prostitute came to him out

of choice, but he tries to degrade her by paying her for the visit. We imagine a one-sided battle

where the Underground Man tries to treat the prostitute as more of an outsider than he. He is

unsuccessful and finds in his hand “a crumpled, blue five-rouble note, the very one [he] had

thrust into her hand a moment before,”70 it is clear that the prostitute would not let herself be

lowered by him, hence demeaning him entirely and, at the end of the novel completing his

characterisation as an outsider.

In both novels’ denouement, we can compare the outsiders’ responses to failure. Their refusal

to submit to their experiences is Dostoevsky’s lasting mark of characterisation. In The Idiot,

Nastassia Filippovna runs away from Myshkin to Rogozhin, knowing that she will die. She

symbolically runs to the darkness because her feelings of shame overpower her feelings of

66 Nekrasov, Nikolay; When from the darkness of delusion... 1845 67 Notes from the Underground; Page 89 68 Ibid; Page 114 69 Notes from the Underground; Page 106 70 Notes from the Underground; Page 115

XIII

affection for the Prince. She asks Rogozhin to “Save me!”71 and the antagonist kills her,

marking the end to the Prince’s struggle, and the incompatibility of idealistic values with

contemporary Russian society. At this point in the novel, Myshkin loses his mind. This is a

fitting antithetic ending, as the protagonist, who was initially a messianic hero, has deteriorated

into madness. His final departure from sanity, demonstrates the incompatibility of his idealistic

values with the modern world. Myshkin gave his life for the characters in the novel, but it was

all in vain as “the strange and horrible demon had seized upon him for good.”72 The mind being

representative of thought and, by extension higher thought, it is effective that the Prince lost

his mind, as if such a perfectionistic outlook cannot reasonably be employed. Réné Wellek

describes his need for retreat:

“Myshkin must withdraw again to his sanctuary where he can safely

commune with himself and make literal the symbolic distance between

himself and the world.”73

Just as Christ died for the sins of the people, Prince Myshkin was defeated, at the

indifference of his peers.

The protagonist of Notes from the Underground is unchanged at the end of the novel. He

reasserts the nullity of existence: “we feel a loathing for real life.”74 Arguably his madness is

ongoing because of his continued dedication to reason as his only source of understanding.

Having contradicted himself throughout the novel, Dostoevsky’s circular structure is effective

in conveying his condition of “conscious inertia.”75 Both endings are effective as the

protagonists remain outsiders to the bitter end.

The revelation that we therefore gain from both texts is not that which is preached by each

outsider. The greatest revelation to the reader is the part they play in the novel, and their fate.

Dostoevsky’s man without faith does not prove the nobility of inaction, or even his moral

superiority which is what he preaches. Instead, Dostoevsky shows that faith is necessary to the

human existence, as without it, life is devoid of meaning and descends into madness. Similarly,

Rufus Mathewson regards “Myshkin’s final madness is instructive… as a view of the destiny

71 The Idiot; Page 629 72 Ibid; Page 243 73 Wellek, René; Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical Essays; Kreiger, Murray; Dostoyevsky’s “Idiot”: The

Curse of Saintliness; Prentice, Hall Inc.; Page 41 74 Notes from the Underground; Page 117 75 Notes from the Underground; Page 34

XIV

that awaits the saintly individual… an incomplete… man.”76 The Prince’s hamartia is his

application of idealism in a civilisation wherein it was opposed. While both characters can be

considered messiahs for the revelation they help to convey, they are more akin to characters

from a parable: symbols intended to convey a greater truth, as they enable Dostoevsky to show

the flawed application of philosophical standpoints. As messiahs they fail; therefore as

messiahs, they are Dostoevsky’s success. He presents these characters as outsiders, at odds

with a society they cannot understand, by making them confront failure… and lose.

“I am alone… and they are everybody.”77

76 Mathewson, Rufus W, Jr; The Positive Hero In Russian Literature (2nd Edition); Stanford University Press;

June 1975; Page 19

77 (An alternative translation from); Dostoevsky, Fyodor; Notes from the Underground, and The Gambler;

Oxford World's Classics; 1999; Page 47

XV

Bibliography of Studied Texts

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor; Notes from the Underground And The Double; Penguin Classics;

2009;

Dostoevsky, Fyodor; The Idiot; Oxford World Classics; 2008;

Bibliography of Studied Sources

The Bruderhof; The Gospel In Dostoyevsky; Orbis Books; 2003;

Denby, David; Can Dostoevsky Still Kick You in the Gut?; The New Yorker; June 11, 2012

Dostoevsky, Fyodor; Notes from the Underground, and The Gambler; Oxford World's

Classics; 1999;

Frank, Joseph; Nihilism and “Notes from Underground”; The John Hopkins University

Press; 1961

Goldfarb David A; Kant's Aesthetics in Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground; Mid-Atlantic

Slavic Conference, Columbia University, 18 March 1995;

Heller, Dana; Volkova, Elena; The Holy Fool in Russian and American Culture: A Dialogue;

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Hesse, Hermann; My Belief: Essays in the Life and Art; 1919

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