Previous
Part 2, Chapter 5, Section 2
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
At the same time that the group goes to visit Semyon, Stepan and Varvara have a meeting that Varvara has been putting off for some time. Stepan goes to Varvara’s house. She is busy with preparations for a gala she plans to hold after Yuliya’s to let the public decide who the better host is. When Stepan arrives, Varvara tells him that she’ll continue to give him a yearly allowance and will include extra money that will account for the servants and treatment he has grown accustomed to at Varvara’s house. But, she says, he can no longer live in her house.
Varvara holds a meeting to declare a final split from Stepan. Varvara has reached that point, at least in part, because Pyotr has shown her Stepan’s letters and suggested to her that Stepan has been using her for her money. With that in mind, the split between Varvara and Stepan shows that Pyotr’s manipulations can be effective and lead to significant and irrevocable consequences.
Themes
Stepan is devastated. He cries out that he knows that perhaps he came off as a leech, and he certainly took Varvara’s money, but that wasn’t ever his guiding motivation. He says that he was guided by something higher: love for Varvara. He begins weeping and tells Varvara that he won’t take her money. By doing that, he plans to prove to her that he actually loves her. For a moment, it seems that Varvara might begin weeping, too. Instead, she says that Stepan’s threats are always hollow, and he’ll surely live out the rest of his days on her dime holding his weekly gatherings with his friends. Stepan returns home, deeply unhappy.
This passage shows that Varvara has, essentially, lost faith in Stepan’s integrity. In that moment, it seems that in order to avoid losing Varvara, Stepan must confront his vanity and self-importance, which have prevented him from looking honestly at himself throughout the novel. Varvara asserts that Stepan doesn’t have the capacity for that kind of honest introspection. The question of whether Stepan means what he says or whether he will fail to rise to the occasion will then provide further insight into the true nature of Stepan as a character.
Themes
