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
Prince Myshkin and actions. —Nastásya Filíppovna Baráshkova (Настасья Филипповна Барашкова) It is in the character of Nastasya Filippovna that the capacity of the Prince to affect an other's interior dialogue is most marked. Viewed by both society and her self as a 'fallen woman' because of years of sexual exploitation by Totsky, Nastasya Filippovna often embraces the sharp-tongued, destructive persona of a cynical courtesan. Myshkin understands that this persona grows out of an internalisation of the abuse she suffered and the unjust moral condemnation consequent upon it, and from their first meeting lets her know that it is not who she really