Soujin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
psalm_onethirtyone) wrote2005-09-08 12:44 am
psalm_onethirtyone) wrote2005-09-08 12:44 am
"That it Should Come to This..."
By the way, it would be really very dreadful if I went on DF as Ivan's devil. Yes. Which is why I won't.
Bed!
...Ivan's devil would be such a glorious contrast to all the other demons there, though. He's so--well, as I told Kali, he's like Stock and Florian combined, he's magnificent.
On the other hand, the fact that I can write neither Stock nor Florian ought to be adequate justification for not taking him. La. There we go.
BED.
Bed!
...Ivan's devil would be such a glorious contrast to all the other demons there, though. He's so--well, as I told Kali, he's like Stock and Florian combined, he's magnificent.
On the other hand, the fact that I can write neither Stock nor Florian ought to be adequate justification for not taking him. La. There we go.
BED.
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The part of my essay with him in it:
Later that evening when Ivan is rethinking the events of the day, he has a delusional conversation with the Devil. This strange visitor is nothing other than Ivan's own mind, or rather, Smerdyakov in Ivan's mind. From the book of French phrases in Smerdyakov's quarters, this Devil now speaks French. "Le diable n'existe pointe," he says (583), "The devil does not exist at all." Ivan's memory has ceased to be his own and he is left only with the twisted, broken surrogate memories that he has been spoon-fed by Smerdyakov. One can see a truly broken Ivan here, with scattered thoughts and irrational actions. At one point, Ivan becomes so frustrated with the unwelcome visitor that he yells, "Hold you tongue or I'll kick you!"(580), showing that he can no longer distinguish reality from fantasy and has fully succumbed to Smerdyakov's manipulation of his thoughts.
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But, you know, I really don't agree with that. I think Ivan's devil can't be Smerdyakov because he's just at an entirely different place. Perhaps Ivan has conjured him (although I'd like to think he was real enough, in a way), but I suppose at most I would think he was vaguely influenced by Smerdyakov--but he's really more Ivan that Smerdyakov. He's Ivan's devil, and he's like Ivan, just as Ivan says.
*blushes and ducks* I mean, that's what I think.
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I can totally see all the logic in what you're say. I do love Ivan's devil and Ivan's reactions to him so much. If there was only one possibly interpretation of this, The Brothers Karamazov would be a pretty boring book.
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^_^ That's very true!