Truley an idiot

[Gladys]

If she had stayed a few moments longer she could have saved her prince from the Mad Woman. But she was too righteous for that. In essence, she abandoned her Prince to NF because she was too proud to accept that his heart could feel love for another woman. Or was she just protecting herself?

Had Aglaya 'stayed a few moments longer', the prince would not have acted differently, but Aglaya might have understood his compassionate dilemma.

Whether or not Aglaya was proud, she totally misconstrued the way in which ‘his heart could feel love for another woman’. The prince agreed to marriage with Nastasya Filippovna through compassion for two lost souls - for 'the mad woman' and murderous Rogozhin - even though he truly dreaded both of them. His motive was to save Nastasya Filippovna from despair and Rogozhin from anarchy. He was certainly not head over heals in love, with anyone, since the time he first saw her heart-rending picture on the train.

I am less clear on the character of Aglaya, but here also, the prince was driven by compassion in action: by works of love.

[WillieD]

Hi Gladys,
Some good points you had there. It was a few months back that I read the book - had to go over chapter 46 again to get my thoughts together. I think what I was getting at was Aglaya's inability to bear insult/endure emotional anquish with regard to the prince. This is the bit I was thinking of:

He could bear it no longer, and with a look of entreaty, mingled with reproach, he addressed Aglaya, pointing to Nastasia the while:

"How can you?" he murmured; "she is so unhappy."

But he had no time to say another word before. Aglaya's terrible look bereft him of speech. In that look was embodied so dreadful a suffering and so deadly a hatred, that he gave a cry and flew to her; but it was too late.

She could not hold out long enough even to witness his movement in her direction. She had hidden her face in her hands, cried once " Oh, my God!" and rushed out of the room. Rogojin followed her to undo the bolts of the door and let her out into the street.

So the prince was by no means betraying Aglaya - he still viewed N.F. as a mad woman, and as proof of his attachment to Aglaya he cries out when he sees her in pain and flies to her. But it was too late Dostoevskiy writes! Aglaya's noble position has been compromised - her love for the Prince is defeated by something, and I'm not sure what you would say that something is. Her overiding quest to be the most beautiful, the most beloved, her shining vision of adulation? I dont know - but she sure didn't have any qualms about slapping the prince around emotionally. You'd think she could endure a smidgen of grief emotionally for his sake. Then again, she is young and seems to have some deep fear that it is really N.F. that the Prince loves and not her. I guess they call that jealousy.
But I think, with a bit of distance from the details, you could say that the whole thing is about hopeless love. Roghozin and N.F. is obviously hopeless - N.F. and the Prince - I think she wasnt sane enough to be a loving or loveable wife. So that was hopeless. And Aglaya was too noble, or perhaps too self-concious to deaden her jealous fears. So that could never really have worked.
On the other hand - if Aglaya had loved the Prince enough - she would have stayed and endured reproach for his sake. And they could have all lived happily-ever-after (with her nagging him constantly just like her mother).
Now if you view the prince as a Christ figure... What does Aglaya represent? And her fleeing him in his moment of need...

[Gladys]

Aglaya's noble position has been compromised - her love for the Prince is defeated by something

Aglaya, if proud and jealous, seems intelligent, ardent and loyal. She deeply loves the prince, who did not and would not betray anyone. ‘Her love for the Prince is defeated’, could only have been defeated, by the awesome (almost divine) sacrifice the prince suddenly makes in the hope of saving Roghozin and Nastasya Filippovna from despair or worse. Can Aglaya, or indeed anybody, be expected to recognise selfless love of such magnitude?

Prince Myshkin’s self sacrifice, in committing to wed the dreaded, neurotic Nastasya Filippovna, is boundless. If her situation is ‘hopeless’, he clings to hope however slim. Faced with this paradox, Aglaya recoils in anguish. Understandably. No one can fathom an infinity of love, a seeming madness, so unexpected and misunderstood: all are offended! And like Christ facing crucifixion, all have fled. Worse still, the prince has saved no one; even for Aglaya, ‘it was too late’. So the madman, the idiot, is committed…and, in a sense, crucified. ‘Selfless Love’, personified in the prince, is crucified.

If ‘Aglaya had loved the Prince enough’ and stayed longer in the house of Nastasya Filippovna, the prince would have explained his motives to Aglaya but, his path ahead, fueled by compassion, would be unalterable. Even so, she may have gained enough strength to resist, later on, a disastrous Polish adventure.