The Idiot: Part Four, Chapter One Summary & Analysis

A week after Myshkin and Nastasya’s meeting in the park, Varya returns home from a visit with friends, feeling thoughtful and troubled. The narrator then embarks on a long reflection on the “ordinary” people who constitute most of the human population, yet who are underrepresented in works of literature. The narrator asks how ordinary people should be depicted in literature, and suggests that it is the task of the novelist to find and represent the quirks that exist even in the most normal individuals. The characters in The Idiot who are ordinary include Varya, Ptitsyn, and Ganya.

The narrator goes on to argue that some people deludedly believe they are special, whereas others are “much cleverer.” The less intelligent people are naïve, but happier than the latter category. One of the best representations of this kind of person is Lieutenant Pirogov, a character in Nikolai Gogol’s story “Nevsky Prospekt.” Ganya is in the “much cleverer” category, but desperately wants to be special. Sometimes, people who know they aren’t special but want to be end up doing extreme things in order to be more original. Ganya has got close to doing such a thing many times, but in each case he has backed down at the last minute. He is horrified by his family’s fallen fortunes. Sometimes he resolves to be cruel, but it never lasts.

Ganya is financially supported by Ptitsyn and lives in his house. Ganya despises Ptitsyn and this arrangement. He resentfully calls Ptitsyn a Jew because of his success in finance. Varya, meanwhile, is a sensible, ordinary person, and doesn’t mind not being special. Her decision to marry Ptitsyn was pragmatic and wise. Sometimes Ptitsyn gently suggests to Ganya that he should get a job, while Varya ingratiates herself to the Epanchins in order to help her brother. 

That morning in Pavlovsk, Varya comes home from the visit with her friends and hears Ganya shouting inside their house. Coming in, she asks him if he’s angry for the same reason as usual. Ganya curses their parents and promises that he will throw “him” (Ippolit) out of the house. When he begins to calm down, Varya tells him that it’s official: Myshkin and Aglaya are engaged, and Adelaida’s wedding has once again been pushed back, so that the two weddings can happen together. That night, the Epanchins will host “old Belokonsky” and publicly announce the engagement. Ganya asks if General and Mrs. Epanchin are happy; Varya says that the general is, but Mrs. Epanchin is worried.

Varya says that Aglaya laughs at Myshkin all day in order to conceal her true feelings. She then lets slip that the day before, General Ivolgin drunkenly went to the Epanchins’ dacha and, when he learned General Epanchin wasn’t there, spoke to Mrs. Epanchin. He asked her for a job and complained about Varya, Ganya, and Ptitsyn. Varya is not sure if the Epanchin daughters know about this incident. She suggests that if Ganya had been able to endure his misfortunes with a bit more courage, he may have been able to win Aglaya’s heart after all. She then says that she’s worried about the impact of General Ivolgin’s actions yesterday on their mother, and goes to see her.

Before Varya leaves the room, Ganya suggests it was Ippolit who told Nina about General Ivolgin’s visit to the Epanchins’. Ganya believes Ippolit considers him his “personal enemy.” He goes on to suggest that Ippolit may in fact be conducting a whole scheme to bring down their family while living in their house. He again declares that he is going to throw Ippolit out, though Varya tells him not to. At that moment, General Ivolgin enters, looking “purple” and “shaken” with anger, alongside Nina, Kolya, and Ippolit.