However, Plautus gets around this problem by setting the play in Athens. Critical Essay #2. Together, Shatov and Kirillov dramatize the tension in nineteenth century Russia between Slavophiles and Westerners. This paper is a theological approach to the religious world of Dostoevsky. Small village where Stepan Verkhovensky spends time with a woman who distributes the New Testament. While the fate of the revolutionaries is working itself out, Stavrogin, the man who rejects God, behaves more and more enigmatically. He was living in Europe at the time, and he read in a newspaper of the murder of a young revolutionary by his "comrades." When Nikolai Stavrogin pays a visit to each of these individuals one night, he symbolically revisits his past, for they each reflect one aspect of Nikolai’s futile search for meaning in life. For example, does Fedka's behavior ring true to what one knows of him? Summer estate of Mrs. Stavrogin that is the scene of several dramatic incidents, including a tryst between the married Nikolai Stavrogin and Lisa Tushin, the headstrong woman who loves him desperately. Download Save. Story Analysis . There is even a touch of humor now and then, as when he notes that Varvara was "a tall, yellow, bony woman with an extremely long face, suggestive of a horse.". Another important revolutionary is Shatov, a devout Russian nationalist crippled by his lack of genuine religious faith. There were, however, a select few that accepted death – embraced it, even. Charles Dickens is well known for his great works, including A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations, but did you know he knew his way around a portmanteau as well? Just as there are two main characters in the novel, so there are two stories. Last Updated on May 6, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967. By Sara García Sanz and Chinwe Nzewi. Examines the ways in which The Possessed emerged from two different preliminary projects and describes the central ideological and spiritual themes of the work. Dr. Stacey Balkan. In addition to his key role in this novel, Stavrogin is a foreshadowing of characters to appear in Dostoevski’s last novel, The Brothers Karamazov. There was also an Italian stage version called The Demons, written by D. Fabri. Olha Shchekotikhina. Concludes that the secondary figures serve to highlight the tragic situation of the central protagonist. It might be helpful to review the history of the Bolshevik movement and the events of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 (and the events that followed), in order to determine whether Dostoevsky's Nihilists and their doings are as predictive as many scholars claim. Stavrogin and the revolutionaries disrupt a provincial town with a series of spectacular scandals, but, in the end, Stavrogin finds that he is beyond caring about even the most wildly destructive of the radicals’ plans. Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, meaning “nothing”) was concerned more with destroying societal forms and traditions than with establishing something positive. Shatov’s opposite is the engineer Kirillov, who rejects his Russian heritage for Western values. Dostoevski got the idea for a novel about political radicals from the murder in 1869 of a young Moscow student named Ivanov by a group of revolutionaries. A New Perspective on Salem Word Count: 824. Verified Purchase. Does the treatment of them by the men appear appropriate for the time and place? In 1869, Dostoevsky was working on notes and an outline for a projected novel entitled The Life of the Great Sinner. 7. Dostoyevsky: An Examination of the Major Novels. Nihilism cannot believe in anything, especially itself. Important Quotes. Themes. In using the disintegration of Verkhovensky’s active participation in his home town to show how the political ideals of the Russian left are bankrupt, Dostoevski indicates that the real problem lies in the spiritual emptiness of the revolutionaries themselves. The other is the past action of all the characters who people the present moment in that provincial town. Last Updated on May 6, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. An examination of Dostoevsky’s works as studies in the problem of self-identification. There is a constant interplay of these stories, and events from one expand the meaning of the other. Formalist critics do not discuss any elements outside of the text itself such as politics or history. One of the most important themes for theology in the twentieth century – and indeed at all times – is the connection between anthropology and theology. The Possessed is the most topical of Dostoevski’s novels and stories. She builds anxiety and anticipation in the reader with … Salem Possessed essays are academic essays for citation. Across the river is a working-class district into which the Lebyadkins move shortly before they are murdered. Demons is a social and political satire, a psychological drama, and large-scale tragedy. Perhaps you think I am afraid of you"? The body was dumped in a pond in front of the Agricultural College, in Moscow. In his comedy, The Haunted House, Plautus created characters which both glorified and flouted traditional Roman values. World literature is rife with examples of narratives about pre-Revolutionary activity (in English, many of the novels of Sir Walter Scott fit into this category) and about crime (here, the reader may go as far back as Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, 1722, for an early study of criminal behavior). Is the violence in the novel emphasized too much? Word Count: 500. Get started. Frank, Joseph. There he renounces atheism and accepts religion before his death. The narrator's relatively "flat" discourse, keeping the tone under control and tying the plot together is exemplary. The tone soon deepens shortly toward the close of the introductory chapter as the narrator speaks of the character of the town: after the early comment about the bad reputation of "our little circle," the narrator comments on the "godlessness" of the town, according to the rumor; but he adds "And yet we did nothing but indulge in the most harmless, agreeable, typically Russian light-hearted liberal chatter." These lines loosely conform to a rhyme scheme of ababcdcd, changing from stanza to stanza. A New Perspective on Salem Dostoevski had worked for several years on a novel to be called “The Life of a Great Sinner.” This became THE POSSESSED, the story of Nikolai Stavrogin, a spiritual nihilist. Such persons begin in a vague moral drift, progress to a reliance on individual goals, develop from this a self-centeredness, and eventually come to a cosmic self-indulgence that forever separates the individual from moorings of universal truth, the only kind of truth that would bring meaning and significance to life. Mochul’skii, Konstantin. Racism existed throughout the history of mankind. Probably the closest fictional piece to this novel, insofar as any works by Dostoevsky can be viewed as really similar, is the early story, The Double (1846), which, to a degree, prefigures the dual image that many readers find in Stavrogin and Verkhovensky two kinds of evil and two ways of dealing with it, yet two very different men (Jekyll and Hyde may leap to mind, but Hyde and Hyde would be more suitable). eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. With a foreign language novel, style is usually a difficult matter to analyze, since the reader is at the mercy of the translator. Who are the four young women in The Possessed that are romantically involved with Stavrogin that are important to the plot as well? Ivanov argues that The Possessed depicts in symbolic forms the relationship between the powers of evil and the daring human spirit. 54 pages of summaries and analysis on The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Nikolai Stavrogin hangs himself in the attic of the house. Skvoreshniki. Where is the true climax of the novel, at the end of the fete, when news of the fire and the murders is learned, when Stavrogin commits suicide, or some other place? It tries to explore what changes have taken place in the characteristics and form of this genre as it passes on from precursors to proceeding ones. Prologue-Chapter 2. Of the many conflicts in the novel, which one is the most important? Essay Topics. Dostoevsky and the Novel. This was quite brave as the Roman theatre was still in its infancy and Plautus could have easily have offended those in power and lost his status or his life. The report turns out to be true. [circular reference] Erika Bourguignon found in a study of 488 societies worldwide that seventy-four … ©2021 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. It is a very unique, complex, and artistically satisfying structural device and, along with the two-main-character strategy, makes The Possessed one of Dostoevski’s greatest creations. “The Haunted House in the Rocky Mountains” “The Haunted house in the Rocky Mountains” It was October 8 since my boyfriend’s grandpa passed away. Is it political, social, personal, or "philosophical"? Their mean-spiritedness results in ugly incidents, such as the desecration of an icon and the setting of fires. Do the passages of antecedent information, for example, confuse the reader, or are they helpful in clearing up matters at those points in the text? Dostoevski’s most important innovation to the antinihilist novel is the structural device of having two chief characters. Published as part of the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher," the poem "The Haunted Palace" is a ballad telling of a palace's fall from beauty into a terrible, haunted place. The Possessed Study Guide consists of approx. Poe tries to give a descriptive view to show how one can slowly begin to have ones own human sanity decaying away as he alludes to the decaying state of the palace. LIT 218-601H. Perhaps the closest preparatory work is Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons (also published as Fathers and Children in 1862), which offers an insightful vision of Nihilism in the well-developed character Eugene Bazarov. Site of the cell of Bishop Tikhon, a monk who is visited by Nikolai with a confession of his crimes in St. Petersburg. This last location is the residence of several of the novel’s secondary characters: Shatov, Kirillov, and Captain Lebyadkin and his sister Marya. This poem had already achieved a level of familiarity and recognition among the people, but it received special attention when Frost recited it at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. But it’s also equally a lot of fun to scare people off their seats. Log in here. Pyotr Verkhovensky might be seen as the sadistic complement to Stavrogin’s masochism. Chapters 3-4. Possessed Soldiers are enemies encountered in The Foothills. Holquist, Michael. Does it seem realistic, given the persons and situations involved? Joyce Carol Oateshas described it as "Dostoevsky's most confused and violent novel, and his most satisfactor… In the chapter appropriately entitled "The Subtle Serpent," for example, Verkhovensky rattles on to his audience, all the while insinuating disturbing rumors into the conversation (which he dominates) and prepares the way for his strange relationship with Stavrogin. Word Count: 94. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1971. Early in the introductory chapter, the Narrator speaks of the situation in the unnamed provincial town that is the setting for the book: "At one time it was reported about the town that our little circle was a hotbed of Nihilism, profligacy, and godlessness, and the rumour gained more and more strength." Who are the four young women in The Possessed that are romantically involved with Stavrogin that are important to the plot as well? Last Updated on May 6, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Provincial capital. If you don't know what that means, relax. 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