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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Demons, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Politics and Self-Interest
Ideology and Extremism
Morality and Nihilism
Herd Mentality
Atheism vs. Belief in God
Summary
Analysis
Stepan arrives in a provincial town outside of Petersburg in the 1840s. He is initially a university lecturer but ends up only giving a few presentations. Those presentations are devoted to challenging the Slavophiles of the time. Stepan believes his enemies prevent him from delivering more lectures, and he considers himself a political dissident who has been exiled from Moscow. Because of that, Stepan is also convinced that the town’s governors keep a watchful eye on him. In reality, Stepan’s vision of himself as a censored and surveilled political ideologue stems more from his ego than anything else. Almost no one knows who he is, and the ones who do aren’t concerned with what he does, politically or otherwise.
Stepan is portrayed as vain and self-important to the point that it clouds his perception of reality. It’s worth noting that Stepan considers it appealing to be at odds with the established political order, as it burnishes his reputation as a renegade. In reality, though, he doesn’t seem to actually do or say anything that might earn governmental scrutiny, suggesting that whatever critiques of the government Stepan makes are limited to intellectual exercises that won’t lead to action.
Themes
Before Stepan came to the provincial town, he wrote a long, allegorical poem while living in Berlin. That poem was later seized by the government in Moscow around the same time that an anti-government organization was raided in Petersburg. Anton (the novel’s narrator) has a copy of the poem at hand with a personal inscription from Stepan. Anton has a hard time understanding the allegory of the poem, but he thinks the poetry has merit. He encourages Stepan to publish it and says that surely it won’t be censored, as the poem is clearly innocuous and wouldn’t be perceived as threatening to the government.
Stepan’s poem suggests that he still sees himself as intellectually engaged and that, on some level, he wants recognition for his work. Stepan apparently considers that work important and noteworthy enough that he gives it as a gift to his friend Anton. Anton’s reaction to the work and his inability to grasp its themes suggests that Stepan, despite his ego, may simply not be an especially talented writer—he seemingly isn’t skilled at getting his point across.
Themes
Stepan is taken aback by the idea that the poem is unthreatening and acts with bitterness toward Anton for a month. Around the same time, the poem is published abroad in a revolutionary anthology. Stepan hadn’t known it would be published, and he is now frightened. He goes to see the governor and assures him that he (Stepan) means no offense to the government. Stepan also writes a letter to Petersburg, reiterating that he means no harm, but he never sends the letter because he’s not sure to whom to address it. Every day, Stepan awaits some censure of himself or his work via telegram, but the telegram never arrives. Secretly, Anton knows that Stepan is proud to have been included in the revolutionary anthology. He thinks that Stepan virtually sleeps with the book in hand.
This passage further portrays Stepan’s personality. He desperately wants to be seen as someone at the political vanguard who is respected by revolutionaries. At the same time, though, he is deathly afraid of the potential consequences of being associated with revolutionary movements. Notably, much of the drama appears to be in Stepan’s head. The revolutionaries he wants to respect him seem to be only dimly aware of him (considering that he didn’t know that they would print his poem), and the authorities take no notice of him whatsoever. To wit, Stepan readies a letter to defend himself to the authorities, but that letter ultimately proves pointless because he has no reason to send it and no one to send it to.
Themes
