Summary
In The Idiot, the ideological battles which form the basis of Dostoevsky's other major novels are decentralized, in favour of experimentation with the ethical value of literary form, exploring narrative as a mode of interactivity which is fundamental to self-perception and orientation towards the other within both interpersonal and textual relations. As control is ceded to the characters, the structuring of the text becomes dominated by the tension between the openness and presentness of Prince Myshkin's saintly scripting, and the determinism and impulse to closure of Nastas'ia Filippovna's counterscripts. The clash of worldviews represented by their scripts provides the dynamics of the text, and gives the novel a sense of unity in spite of the ad hoc manner in which it was written. As Nastas'ia Filippovna gradually increases her control over the text, and disrupts the narrator's attempts to tell the story of the positively beautiful man, the novel develops according to her refusal to define a single script and the attempts of the other characters, and in particular of the narrator, to resist her scripting. The pressure she brings to bear on the narrative, as she attains a level of power not granted to any other female character in Dostoevsky's oeuvre, allows her, when she finally comes to a decision regarding her script, to make her own denouement the denouement of the entire novel.
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- Dostoevsky's The Idiot and the Ethical Foundations of NarrativeReading, Narrating, Scripting, pp. 183 - 185Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2004