The Idiot - A Question

[Countess]

I can find nothing on this so I'm asking it here:

Was Nastasia Philipovna going mad, and if so, from what? Do we ever know?

[Anna Seis]

We could hypothethize. After all, Dostoyevskii is not here to make objections. I think that Nastasja had always felt guilty for she was abused -It reminds me Lara, in Zhivago, but this is very later. She built the image of a good man, a little idiot man, who would love her and never blame her for the way of live she had carried. And then, when she meets Muichkhine, she finds out that she can't forgive herself. Ragogine is darkly closer to her, and it is why she chooses him... knowing that is a suicide election.

[Lady Stardust]

I can't imagine why Nastasya would NOT be going insane. To start with, she lost both her parents and her sister at a young age, making her a nobody, completely indebted to Totsky and essentially owned by him. When he discovers what a beauty she will be, only then does he take interest her, which tells her right away that her only value as a person is her beauty. He educates her mercilessly, so that when he ruins her position in respectable society, her own intelligence will drive her crazy, since she won't even have the comfort of not understanding it all. When she is 16, he puts her in the middle of nowhere and proceeds to take advantage of her and her position to him. She has no choice but to sleep with him, which is what ruins her. She becomes a slut in the eyes of society, while Totsky keeps his respectable position.

Finally, she learns through others that he plans to get married and sell her off to whomever will take her. If she didn't before, she must now understand how little she ever meant to him, since he doesn't even do her the courtesy of telling him this himself. She approaches him angrily and independently, as an educated woman, and he is completely surprised by this, as if she was little more than an animal with no will of her own. I think that all she wants at this point is to be treated like a human, but Totsky won't give her that even now. He sends her away and gives her money, so that she is still owned by the man who ruined her.

Five years later, Totsky does get himself together and talk to her with respect, even though he is still only manipulating her. He is again completely shocked at her response. When he talks to her civilly, she responds civilly, because she got the one thing she wanted: respect. Hatefulness is not a part of Nastasya's nature. I believe she very much wants to be a serene, agreeable housewife, which is what all of society is telling her to be. She can't do that now, because she is ruined, and Totsky even goes so far as to destroy her further by giving her a huge dowry. She soon learns that Gavril Ardanlionovitch, the man in whom she put all her hopes for a new life, is using her for her money and wants only to hurt her. Wouldn't you go crazy? I don't know how she could trust another man - or even another human being - ever again.

Through the rest of the novel, she is tossed about. The women hate her as a fallen woman. The men desire her, but only for her body. She tries to recover herself more than once, but each time she is thrown down again, like when Rogozhin wants to 'buy' her and actually presents her the money - one of the greatest insults she's ever received. She spitefully plays to other people's opinions of her. She lets herself be bought because she hates it all so much. Myshkin is the only man who really treats her as a human being, but by this point, she is already lost to society and the insanity it has given her.

This was far longer than I expected it to be, but the Idiot is truly my favorite book. Sorry to ramble on for so long!

[linz]

I believe this about Nastasya, though both the ideas above mine are prehaps much better. I believe it is this simple; Because she wants Myshkin, she wont have him: It actually often happens that people enjoy being chased by others indefinitly, or until the chaser gives up, whether this is snobbish, childish, or a type of self-inflicted suffering, I don't know.

[mvr_moorthy]

I believe this about Nastasya, though both the ideas above mine are prehaps much better. I believe it is this simple; Because she wants Myshkin, she wont have him: It actually often happens that people enjoy being chased by others indefinitly, or until the chaser gives up, whether this is snobbish, childish, or a type of self-inflicted suffering, I don't know.
I think Nastasya tends to have the vanity which makes her keep the prince in eternal doubt while she treats Rogozhyn with outright contempt.She thinks that she is not ethically fit to relate with the prince,and that Rogozhyn is too low and crude for any meaningful human relationship.She uses him as a ploy to distance herself from Myshkin and also to demonstrate to the world that she deserves no better.

[mvr_moorthy]

I believe this about Nastasya, though both the ideas above mine are prehaps much better. I believe it is this simple; Because she wants Myshkin, she wont have him: It actually often happens that people enjoy being chased by others indefinitly, or until the chaser gives up, whether this is snobbish, childish, or a type of self-inflicted suffering, I don't know.
I think Nastasya tends to have the vanity which makes her keep the prince in eternal doubt while she treats Rogozhyn with outright contempt.
She thinks that she is not ethically fit to relate with the prince,and that
Rogozhyn is too low and crude for any meaningful human relationship.She
uses him as a ploy to distance herself from Myshkin and also to demonstrate
to the world that she deserves no better.

[Yubei]

Reading your comments above an idea spired into my head. My thought is Nastasya feeling the way she does about herself and the world, thinks that the prince is her only hope for salvation, the only one that can release her from all her suffering. Therefore her biggest fear should be that she marries the prince and her expectations are not met,and her only hope for happiness and reason to carry on is gone. So maybe this is why, out of fear of loosing her last hope so to speak she chooses not to marry the prince.

p.s english is not my nativetongue so you know,just in case there should be any incorrect spelling or grammar in there=)

[WillieD]

I understood it this way - Nastassya viewed herself as a vile person beyond redemption. She was immediately touched by Myshkin as he was by her. She truly did want to marry him and become a princess, however she was sure that she would ruin the Prince and would not allow herself to do that. So I guess you would say that she was self defeatist - sentencing herself to Rogohzins knife instead of accepting the healing love of Myshkin, though that is what she craved.
Totsky would be to blame for instilling this self-defeatist mentality.