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Part 1, Chapter 5, Section 3
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
Varvara offers Lebyadkin a seat. He sits down and thanks Varvara for looking after his sister, Marya. He doesn’t seem drunk but like someone who has just woken up after days spent drinking. He fumbles and tries to count money, which he offers first to Varvara’s servants and then to Varvara herself for helping Marya. Varvara says that it would be inappropriate for her to take the money. Lebyadkin says that Varvara gave Marya 10 roubles, but Marya only took it because it came from Varvara. Varvara asks why Marya wouldn’t have taken the money if it came from someone else, and Lebyadkin offers a confused and cryptic response.
Lebyadkin has presumably come to try and clear things up about Marya and to settle whatever issues might be at hand. He is characterized, though, as someone who seems only to confuse matters more and drive them further into chaos. Lebyadkin’s assertion that Marya only took money from Varvara because Varvara was the one who gave it to her again suggests some kind of intimate connection between Marya and Varvara. Varvara, though, is completely unaware of what that connection might be.
Themes
Lebyadkin then begins to recite a fable he wrote about the plight of a cockroach. Varvara grows angry. She asks Lebyadkin why he has been lying and saying that Darya took his money. Lebyadkin says it’s not a lie. Varvara asks him to explain the situation, and Lebyadkin says that family honor requires that he say no more. Just then, a servant enters and says that Nikolay has arrived. Everyone is surprised, as Nikolay isn’t expected in town for another month. A man then enters the room, but it isn’t Nikolay. Instead, it’s someone who nobody recognizes.
Again, Lebyadkin shows that he has a tendency not to clear matters up or resolve issues but to add to the chaos of a given situation. He does that in particular by delivering a fable he wrote. Previously, he sent poems to Liza, declaring his love for her. That puts Lebyadkin as a character in conversation with people like Stepan and Karmazinov, the other two characters who are writers.
Themes
