Prince Myshkin sanatorium for treatment of his epilepsy. At age 26, having recovered his health, and in possession of a legal document suggesting entitlement to a significant inheritance, he returns to Russia. In St. Petersburg, his purity and guilelessness lead many to the false conclusion that he is an "idiot". In fact, he possesses an incisive intellect, deep emotional intelligence, and a wisdom that surpasses all the other characters in the novel. As a polyphonic novel each character in "The Idiot" has a unique voice and perspective in relation to the action and the other actors. As such every scene is a
Demons (Dostoevsky novel) a Russian nationalist response to socialist ideas, and was initially based on Nechayev's victim Ivanov, but later on the contemporary slavophile ideas of Danilevsky and to some extent on Dostoevsky's own reformed ideas about Russia. Stepan Verkhovensky began as a caricature of Granovsky, and retained the latter's neurotic susceptibilities, academic interests and penchant for writing long confessional letters, but the character was grounded in the idealistic tendencies of many others from the generation of the 1840s, including Herzen, Belinsky, Chaadaev, Turgenev and Dostoevsky himself. Liberal figures like Stepan Trofimovich, Varvara Petrovna, Liputin, Karmazinov and the Von Lembkes, and minor authority