Previous
Part 3, Chapter 1, 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
Instead of reading a light fictional tale for perhaps 20 minutes, as would be fitting for the event, Karmazinov drones on for close to an hour reading a convoluted, self-aggrandizing treatise about love. Though the audience initially reacts to the presence of a literary “genius” like Karmazinov with respect, eventually they grow bored and tired. From the back, someone shouts that Karmazinov’s speech is rubbish. More voices chime in to heckle Karmazinov. Karmazinov is embarrassed, and his face grows red. Eventually, he says that he will cut his reading short and only read the final six lines of what he has written. After he leaves the stage, the audience is visibly restless. Someone asks if it’s true that there will be no buffet, and another person says that the gala is a sham. Stepan must then take the stage amid that unrest.
Karmazinov again shows that he is much more concerned with himself and his self-aggrandizement than anyone else, and he once again lets his ego get the better of him. In this case, though, consequences follow from his actions. In particular, the audience grows increasingly agitated, restless, and hostile. The novel has depicted how expectations for the gala were extremely high, and now the gala is decidedly falling short of what people expected. That includes the lack of food and the middling and scandalous quality of the readings.
Themes
