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Part Two, Chapter Two
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Idiot, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Innocence v. Foolishness
Money, Greed, and Corruption
Social Hierarchy, Authority, and Rebellion
Absurdity and Nihilism
Passion, Violence, and Christianity
Summary
Analysis
Myshkin wants to go to the Epanchins’ house, even though he knows that the only person likely to be there is General Epanchin. There is another visit he wants to make, but is not sure he should; nonetheless, he soon finds himself standing outside Rogozhin’s “dreary” house. When Rogozhin opens the door and sees Myshkin, he goes white, but then welcomes him in. Myshkin tells Rogozhin that when he got off the train at St. Petersburg station, he felt a pair of eyes staring at him. He says he is beginning to feel as he did at the height of his illness. They have a somewhat stilted conversation, and Myshkin observes that Rogozhin’s house suits him perfectly: “So gloomy. You sit in such gloom.”
There is a highly sinister, slightly surreal quality to Rogozhin’s gloomy house and Myshkin’s feeling that Rogozhin’s eyes were staring at him. Here Rogozhin (along with his house) appears to be less than a real person, and more an embodiment of all the evil, corruption, and fear that haunts the world of the novel and Myshkin in particular. Again, this characterization of Rogozhin is a direct foil for the lighthearted innocence that Myshkin displays throughout the novel.
Themes
Rogozhin says castrates used to live in the house. Myshkin notices a portrait of Rogozhin’s father and asks if he was an Old Believer. Rogozhin says that he wasn’t. Myshkin then emphasizes that in trying to prevent Rogozhin marrying Nastasya, he was attempting to save Rogozhin as much as Nastasya, because he would also be destroyed by the marriage. Myshkin says that he loves Rogozhin, and goes to leave. Rogozhin asks him to stay, explaining that while Myshkin was gone he resented him, but now he is back he cannot help but love him again.
Here, “Old Believer” refers to a follower of an older form of Russian Orthodox Christianity that largely fell away following a schism. Even in this uncomfortable situation, Myshkin is still concerned with faith. Myshkin is so pure and innocent, such an absolute embodiment of goodness, that even Rogozhin, who is a disturbed and perhaps even evil character, cannot help but love him. At the same time, the fact that Rogozhin proclaims to love Myshkin does not mean that Myshkin is safe from harm. Rogozhin also loves Nastasya, and the way he treats her is possessive and cruel.
Themes
Rogozhin admits that Nastasya “hates” him, even though she has agreed to marry him. He is convinced that after abandoning him at the altar, Nastasya had an affair with an officer called Zemtiuzhnikov. He has avoided her for five days, but in their previous actions she would either laugh at him or scowl and remain silent. When he gave her an unimaginably expensive shawl as a gift, she gave it to her maid. During one argument, he “beat her black and blue.” Myshkin is shocked to hear this. Rogozhin says he then threatened to kill himself if she didn’t forgive him. When he tells her this, she says he might still manage to kill her before committing suicide himself.
Here Rogozhin describes what would, in the contemporary era, likely be characterized as an abusive relationship. Beyond the horror of Rogozhin’s awful treatment of Nastasya, there are two particularly disturbing aspects to this passage. First, Rogozhin seems to have little shame about his treatment of Nastasya, based on the fact that he is willingly telling Myshkin about it. Second, Nastasya herself appears to be aware that Rogozhin is a threat to her life.
Themes
Eventually Nastasya agreed to marry him, saying “I’ll perish all the same.” They set a date, but she once again abandoned him at the altar. When he found her, she said that she wasn’t trying to stop their marriage altogether, but just wanted a little more time. Myshkin observes that it would be better for Nastasya to marry anyone except Rogozhin, “because you may put a knife in her.” Myshkin says that under different circumstances Rogozhin could have turned out just like his father, confined to a gloomy house with an obedient wife, and trusting no one. Rogozhin says that when Nastasya came to his house and saw his father’s portrait, she said the exact same thing.
This passage further emphasizes the idea that Nastasya and Rogozhin’s marriage would prove to be a death sentence for Nastasya. Indeed, her insistence that she is not actually trying to cancel the marriage but just delay it so she has a little more time eerily recalls the pleas of Madame du Barry Lebedev discussed earlier in the novel. Nastasya almost appears to accept her “execution” as inevitable, but wants to live a little longer first.
Themes
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Rogozhin adds that when she visited, Nastasya was very kind to his ill, senile mother. However, he finds it impossible to imagine that their marriage could ever be peaceful. Growing increasingly angry, he says that Nastasya is in love with someone else—Myshkin—but will not marry him because she thinks that doing so would “ruin” him. Myshkin notices a very sharp knife, used to cut pages of books. Rogozhin defensively asks if he’s not allowed to have a new knife, and the prince then laughs, blaming his strange behavior on his illness.
In the 19th century, books would come with their pages sealed in pairs, and whoever purchased them would have to slice these pages open with a knife. Of course, Myshkin senses that Rogozhin has a much more sinister purpose in mind with the knife: harming or killing Nastasya.
Themes
