What defeated Smerdyakov?

Can someone explain why they think Smerdyakov was so emotionally dependent on Ivan? According to his philosophy, successfully killing the elder Karamazov and getting the money should have enabled him to realize his dreams of moving to Paris and starting a restaurant. This would have freed him from the stigma of being Stinking Lizaveta's son and member of the servant class. Instead, Ivan's rejection and disapproval destroyed him and suicide was his only option. I just don't understand why he even cared. I get that he saw Ivan as a teacher. But, once one has learned from a teacher, the knowledge and understanding are one's own. Why couldn't Smerdyakov see that?

My memory is that, besides being Smerdyakov's half brother, Ivan provides him with the agnosticism that gives him the freedom to take action in his life (however horribly). If there was more to it than that, I don't recall.

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Originally Posted by Franowve

Can someone explain why they think Smerdyakov was so emotionally dependent on Ivan?

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He wasn't. Just as Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigaïlov, in Crime and Punishment acts with more existential purity than Raskolnikov, so Pavel Fyodorovich Smerdyakov is more existentially committed than Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov. To live or to die is the same: all is vanity.

Yes, but why does he kill himself?

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Originally Posted by Jackson Richardson

Yes, but why does he kill himself?

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Why? To quote scripture, "Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity." Why not?

Smerdyakov's nihilistic suicide note, "I exterminate my life by my own will and liking, so as not to blame anybody," is not without irony.

The similarities between Smerdyakov and Svidrigailov (Crime and Punishment) are fascinating. Both are more consistently and comprehensively nihilistic, in the existential sense, than their counterparts Ivan and Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment). For both, all is vanity and a striving after the wind. Seduction, pedophilia, murder, suicide or compassion have no moral resonance. Svidrigailov has a conscience that intrigues but never bothers him in the least. Both happen to suicide.

I got the impression he was going to die anyway. His health was very poor. Maybe knowing that, he killed himself to spare himself from having to testify.

What I notice is that some of Dostoevsky's worst villains commit suicide: Smerdyakov, Stavroguin(The Possessed) and, to a lesser degree
Svidrigailov. Is this meant as the utter expression of despair or nihilism?