The Possessed

[SFG75]

I've decided to re-read this book, with a more careful lens.  I have read the first four chapters of part I and I am taking a more critical look at Lady Stavrogina and Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky.  I'm curious to learn what others feel, in particular if any and all would agree that Dostoyevsky was commenting on how the monied population of his time dangerously flirted with anarchists, socialists, and others of ill repute.  Is that how you read the introductory chapters as well?  Any and all thoughts on this are definitely encouraged and asked for.

[carnage_complex]

Dostoevsky definitely attributed the dissolution of the 1860s to its progenitors of the 1840s.  As we see in "Demons," Verkhovensky senior isn't an active dissident, but he and his like provided the amoral framework which later produced the Bakunins and the Nechaevs.  Varvara is nothing special, she's a mother; hers is a special sort of wilful blindness.  Madame Von Lembka is an egoist, she ultimately wants to avenge the disempowerment of her youth by ingratiating herself in a pathological way to the 'up and coming' generation, no matter what the cost.  She is very stupid, and ultimately means well.  The main thing we need to remember about "Demons" is Dostoevsky's portrayal of the revolutionary as a very rare breed who goes against the grain of egalitarianism.  The only real 'revolutionaries,' he says, are the Verkhovenskies; sadistic, twisted criminals who blackmail or bribe flunkies into carrying out their will, everyone from the Erkels to the Kirillovs to the Shatovs.  He's saying that this sort of insurrection is unnatural.