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Part 3, Chapter 7, 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
The crimes that happen in town quickly come to light. Arina finds her husband, Virginsky, distraught. He keeps yelling, “It’s not right,” over and over. He then confesses to her the role he played in Shatov’s murder and how Pyotr used Aleksey’s suicide to try and create a false narrative about that murder. Marie then becomes troubled that her husband, Shatov, hasn’t returned home. She goes to check with Aleksey to see if he knows what has happened and finds Aleksey’s dead body. She doesn’t find his suicide note. Marie then takes the baby and leaves, running through the streets. Though she has no evidence yet, she’s convinced that Shatov has been killed. The baby catches a cold and dies. Three days later, Marie dies as well.
This passage shows some of the consequences of Shatov’s murder. Not only is Shatov killed, but his wife is distraught to the point that she runs through the streets, leading to illness that kills both her and her baby. Virginsky’s guilt over killing Shatov serves as a rejoinder to the nihilistic approach embraced by the revolutionary faction. While Pyotr once said that to be a true revolutionary, one must be willing to take a hundred million heads, Virginsky’s reaction shows how misguided that idea is, as people cannot, and should not, commit murder so brazenly.
Themes
It becomes clear that there actually is a secret society of murderers at work in town. Pyotr’s plan initially works, and the authorities believe that Aleksey killed Shatov, but they believe he must also have had accomplices. They don’t know who those accomplices are, though. They find Shatov’s body a day later. The authorities might have been at a loss at that point, but Lyamshin, who can’t bear the guilt, ultimately confesses and tells the authorities everything. He tells them that the Society aimed to shake the foundations of the established order to demoralize the population and create chaos. Out of that chaos, the Society hoped to utilize a network of “groups of five” to advance the cause of the rebellion. When authorities ask Lyamshin if more groups of five exist, Lyamshin seems sincere when he says that there are innumerable similar groups.
This passage clarifies the underlying approach of the revolutionary faction. That faction hoped to destabilize society to the point that chaos would take over. That shows why the faction devoted itself to doing things like stealing, breaking icons, or causing an uproar at Yuliya’s gala. The faction hoped that ultimately their actions, both large and small, would lead to chaos. Once they achieved that chaos, they would be able to swoop in and offer guidance to a demoralized population, thereby achieving their revolutionary aims.
Themes
Lyamshin exonerates Yuliya and Nikolay. He blames Pyotr for Shatov’s murder, the arson, and the murder of Marya and Lebyadkin. Virginsky is arrested the same day that Lyamshin confesses. Virginsky also confesses to everything. Erkel is also arrested, but he stays silent when asked questions and confesses to nothing. The authorities find and arrest Liputin in Petersburg. Mavriky leaves town for good. Varvara and Darya remain at Varvara’s house. One day, Darya receives a letter that is delivered to her in secret.
Lyamshin’s exoneration of Nikolay, and especially of Yuliya, also points to the previous successes of Pyotr and the revolutionary faction. While Yuliya and Nikolay weren’t directly involved in the murder of Marya or the arson, that didn’t stop people from speculating that both she and Nikolay might be behind the murders or the arson. With that in mind, that speculation serves as another example of the kind of chaos the revolutionary faction successfully unleashed in the provincial town.
Themes
The letter is from Nikolay. In the letter, Nikolay asks Darya if she would still consider running away with him. He writes that he has become a citizen of Switzerland and bought a house in a small town in the mountains there. He says that he feels vile for asking Darya to come but that he still wants her to join him. He adds that he feels guilty for Marya’s death. He also says that he knows that he should take his own life, but he's afraid to do it.
While Nikolay previously believed that he was above right and wrong and beyond good and evil, his comment that he feels guilty for Marya’s death shows that, despite his ideology and apparent embrace of nihilism, he is governed by his conscience just as much as anyone else. That makes it clear that he is not actually above good and evil.
Themes
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After Darya reads the letter, she immediately shows it to Varvara. Varvara asks Darya if she plans to go to Nikolay. When Darya says yes, Varvara says that she will go too and become a Swiss citizen as well. She promises she won’t get in the way of Darya and Nikolay. Just then, Aleksey Yegorych tells Darya and Varvara that Nikolay has just arrived. Darya and Varvara run to see Nikolay, but they can’t find him in the house. The doors to his quarters are open, but he’s not there. Finally, they see that the door to the attic is open, though it is almost always closed. When they go into the attic, they see Nikolay’s body. He has hanged himself.
In the letter to Darya, Nikolay showed that he was planning for the future, making it clear that, at the time of writing the letter, he had not decided to take his own life. With that in mind, it can be surmised that his guilt over his involvement in Marya’s murder continued to increase and ultimately drove him to die by suicide. In that way, Nikolay’s death gives the novel’s final word on the question of whether he was beyond good and evil by showing that he could not transcend morality—and perhaps should not have tried to.
Themes
