Prince Myshkin Prince Myshkin Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin (pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform ) is the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot". Dostoevsky wanted to create a character that was "entirely positive... with an absolutely beautiful nature", someone who is truly 'Christian'. According to Joseph Frank, the character of Prince Myshkin approaches "the extremest incarnation of the Christian ideal of love that humanity can reach in its present form, but he is torn apart by the conflict between the contradictory imperatives of his apocalyptic aspirations and his earthly limitations." Prince Myshkin has been in Switzerland for the last four years, at a
The Double (Dostoevsky novel) see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic break, and is dragged off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz. "The Double" is the most Gogolesque of Dostoevsky's works; its subtitle "A Petersburg Poem" echoes that of Gogol's "Dead Souls". Vladimir Nabokov called it a parody of "The Overcoat". Many others have emphasized the relationship between "The Double" and other of Gogol's Petersburg Tales. One contemporary critic, Konstantin Aksakov, remarked that "Dostoevsky alters and wholly repeats Gogol’s phrases." Most scholars, however, recognize The Double as Dostoevsky’s response to or innovation on Gogol’s work. For example, A.L. Bem called "The Double" "a