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Part 1, Chapter 3, Section 7
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
Anton goes to find Shatov, but Shatov isn’t home. He tries again two more times, but both times, Shatov still isn’t back. The third time Anton looks for Shatov, he finds Aleksey instead. Anton explains that he’s looking for Shatov, and Aleksey offers to help. Aleksey invites Anton into the small shed near the larger house where he lives. Aleksey moved to that shed from the main house to avoid being party to Lebyadkin’s beatings of his sister. In the shed, Anton asks if it’s true that Aleksey is writing about suicide.
Anton shows how infatuated he is with Liza by going repeatedly to Shatov’s house to try and get closer to Liza. Aleksey’s decision to leave the house to avoid being around Lebyadkin’s beatings of Marya points to the helpless role that Marya finds herself in, as Aleksey seemingly cannot stop the beatings, and it’s unclear who else there is to turn to to get Lebyadkin to stop.
Themes
Aleksey says it’s true. He says that his writing is about why so few people commit suicide. He says that if one were truly free, that person would show no preference between life or death. If everyone were truly free, he reasons, then no one would want to live. Aleksey says that at this point, two prejudices keep people from committing suicide: pain and the afterlife. He explains that if someone stood under a rock the size of a house or mountain, they would rationally know they would feel no pain if it fell, but even the most rational person would still be afraid of that pain.
According to Aleksey, he wants to take his own life not because he is unhappy but because he wants to prove humans’ capacity for radical freedom. To prove that, Aleksey believes he must overcome humans’ fear of death. The novel draws parallels between Aleksey’s ideas regarding suicide and Nikolay’s ideas regarding morality. Both want to overcome what they view as longstanding prejudices— toward life in Aleksey’s case and toward morality in Nikolay’s.
Themes
Aleksey explains that that fear is a kind of pain in and of itself. God, Aleksey then says, is “the pain of the fear of death.” The person who overcomes pain and fear will then become God. No one has conquered that fear in themselves. If someone were able to, it would fundamentally reshape history. History would then be divided into two parts: from primates to the “annihilation of God” and from the “annihilation of God” to some kind of fundamental future change. Anton asks why Aleksey is being so open with him, and Aleksey says that Anton reminds him of his late brother. Anton turns to leave. He thinks that Aleksey is deranged.
Aleksey notably says that his philosophy, if proven true, will represent the “annihilation of God.” While Aleksey puts that in positive terms and views that potential annihilation as desirable, the novel is skeptical of Aleksey’s position, as reflected in the view of Anton (who is the narrator of the novel) that Aleksey is “deranged.” The novel asks two implicit questions at this point: is it possible to, as Aleksey says, annihilate God? And if so, what would that mean for the world?
Themes
