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 teacher’s widow went straight to Darya in Pavlovsk, and the two women then called Lebedev, who arranged for the St. Petersburg police to enter Rogozhin’s apartment. Rogozhin suffers from “brain fever” for two months, after which he is tried for Nastasya’s murder. He is sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor in Siberia, and his fortune goes to his brother. Lebedev, Keller, Ganya, Ptitsyn, and several other characters in the novel largely go on living as before. The narrator notes, “We have almost nothing to tell about them.” Ippolit dies two weeks after Nastasya is killed. Traumatized by everything, Kolya becomes extremely close to Nina.
As the beginning of the conclusion shows, the end to the novel can hardly be considered a happy one. In most cases, whatever positive transformations the characters underwent through their friendship with Myshkin unravel, either because they were unable to sustain the wisdom they learned from him or because they were so traumatized by the cruel absurdity of life that they are reduced to a state of helplessness.
Themes
Myshkin, meanwhile, seeks help from Evgeny, who gladly agrees to financially support him for more treatment at Professor Schneider’s institution. Evgeny regularly visits Myshkin there, but the prognosis doesn’t look good—the illness may be incurable. Evgeny has developed a close friendship with Vera and writes her letters to update her on Myshkin’s health every time he goes to Switzerland. After a whirlwind romance with an exiled Polish count in Paris, Aglaya marries him, against the wishes of her parents. The next time Evgeny goes to Switzerland, Prince Shch. And all the Epanchins (except the general) visit too.
Myshkin’s return to Switzerland is bittersweet. Although we know that Myshkin was happy there, in a way all the progress he made in Russia was undone, as he falls back into a state of incapacitated “idiocy” that is now permanent (as indicated by Schneider’s admission that the condition might be incurable).
Themes
The Epanchins all express their sincere gratitude to Evgeny for taking care of Myshkin. They then explain that Aglaya’s marriage turned out to be a disaster. The “count” was not actually a count at all, but had so enchanted Aglaya that she ended up converting to Catholicism. The enormous wealth he claimed to have also did not exist. Six years after the marriage, the “count” and his friend, a Catholic priest, have managed to estrange Aglaya from her family. Mrs. Epanchin is miserable abroad, and longs to return to Russia. She calls Europe “one big fantasy.”
Aglaya’s fate reiterates some of the novel’s main points, one of which is the dangers of Catholicism. More importantly, her disaster of a marriage emphasizes that rebelling against social norms often leads to catastrophe—particularly when such rebellions are embodied by young women.
Themes
