Dostoevsky and Psychology :: Biography Biographies Essays

Dostoevsky and PsychologyA sick mans ambitiousnesss are often extraordinarily distinct and vivid and exceedingly life-like. A scene may be composed of the most violent and incongruous elements, but the setting and presentation are so plausible, the expand so subtle, so unexpected, so artistically in harmony with the exclusively picture, that the dreamer could not invent them for himself in his waking state. . . 1Fyodor Dostoevskys singular insight into the psychology of man is seen here in the development of Raskolnikovs dream on the beating of a horse by drunken peasants. The dream is significant on several planes, most notably in the tally of events in the dream with Raskolnikovs plan to murder the old pawnbroker. It also serves as perhaps the most direct example of the inseparable tie surrounded by events of the authors life with the psychological evolution of his protagonists, as well as lesser characters, through the criminal minds of Raskolnikov, Rogozhin, Stavrogin, an d Smerdyakov, and into the familial relationships of The Brothers Karamazov.2 Traditional interpretation of literature from a psychoanalytic standpoint has relied extensively upon the work of Sigmund Freud. In the case of Dostoevsky, however, this mode is both anachronistic and inadequate. Dostoevskys great works, considered individually or holistically, though fictional, schematic him as one of the forefathers of psychoanalysis, and a predecessor to Freud.3 Indeed Freud himself acknowledged that the poets observed the unconscious before he did,4 stating further in a earn to Stefan Zweig, Dostoevsky cannot be understood without psychoanalysis- i.e., he isnt in need of it because he illustrates it himself in every character and every sentence.5 There is, however, a complementary color relationship between Dostoevsky and Freud brought about through the striking clinical trueness of psychological traits exhibited both individually in Dostoevskys characters, as well as in reflectin g the authors own mental processes. Thus, it is necessary first to examine Freud as a point of departure before looking at juvenile alternatives of psychoanalytical method.Freud on the Oedipus complexEpileptic seizures plagued Dostoevsky throughout the last thirty-four years of his life, occurring about once a month on average, and consisting of A brief, intensely exalted, premonitory sensation, loss of consciousness, convulsions, and a lingering depression with dumb feelings of criminal guilt for three to eight days.6 Freud delves into the psychological root of this illness in his essay Dostoevsky and Parricide, calling into question Dostoevskys alleged epilepsy. It is highly probable, he states, that this so-called epilepsy was only a symptom of his neurosis and must accordingly be classified as hystero-epilepsy- that is, as barren hysteria.