The Gender of Sacrifice
Fyodor Dostoevsky's writings fit neatly between two major sacrificial events, his own mock execution along with other members of an early revolutionary circle in 1849 and the assassination of the Tsar in 1881. In his works, Dostoevsky shows one murder after another, and most of them had women as their victims. In Crime and Punishment, a male student murders two females, a pawnbroker and her sister. One can speculate that a premeditated murder evokes more guilt when directed against a woman, and the doubling-up of killed females reinforces this guilt. In this narrative, however, a theme of female suffering is illustrated by another female character, the prostitute. The prostitute, a victim of social abuse, is the opposite of the victim of murder, the pawnbroker. One suffers, another is killed, but both are females. The story of Idiot (1868) elevates these themes by merging them. The novel culminates in the murder of Nastasia Filippovna, who carries two features of Russian heroines, beauty and suffering, to the possible limits.
There are three main characters: prince Myshkin, the Man of Culture, merchant Rogozhin, the Man of the People, and Nastasia, the Russian Beauty. The action takes place in St. Petersburg, to where the prince comes from Switzerland and the merchant, from the depths of Russian mysticism, with a family connection to the sect of Skoptsy (Castrates). The strange dynamics of the relationship between Myshkin and Rogozhin reflect, as in a laboratory experiment, the structure of internal colonization. At the same time, the friendship and rivalry between these two men, united by their desire toward Nastasia, is a definitive example of the mediation of desire in Girard's sense. The plotline displays the characteristic drive towards the reduction of cultural distance and foreshadows the catastrophic consequences of such 'fraternization'.
Many men loved Nastasia; she kept running from one to another, and finally she preferred Rogozhin. Why did he kill Nastasia instead of marrying her? Trying to understand it in terms of common sense leads nowhere. However, prince Myshkin, with his ability to understand people, did understand Rogozhin. Why did he not prevent the murder or seek revenge for it? Why did he collaborate in concealing the murder? Why did he spend that night together with the corpse of his loved one and with her murderer? Of course, this experience was hugely important for him; afterwards, he went insane. Because we feel that Myshkin understood Rogozhin's reasons, why do we not know these reasons, either from Rogozhin himself or from Myshkin? Why do Rogozhin and Myshkin not talk about it? Actually, we are deprived of any possibility of understanding these events from the inside. In this particular situation, neither the characters nor the narrator perform a dialogue. In many preceding scenes, we heard their voices. They performed that very exchange between the internal positions of the actors, different but communicable, in which Bakhtin found the key to Dostoevsky. Rather than being a part and an outcome of human dialogue, the murder of Nastasia is presented as something that just happened. It permits only external observation. This is how sacrifice works, and this is where Girard complements Bakhtin.
Sharing the object of their passions, these two men who loved Nastasia became increasingly close. They were endowed with every possible difference: they came from two different estates, the old nobility and the rising capitalists; they belonged to different religious backgrounds, one to high Orthodoxy, another to a mysterious cult; they had opposite temperaments. But, united by their love for Nastasia and by their interest in each other, they become as close as twins.
They exchange crosses, performing a ritual of acquired brotherhood, and they read together "all of Pushkin." As a result of their friendship, competition, and mutual influence, they outgrow their personal limits. Relations between them are dialogical and ideological, and reading Bakhtin helps a lot to understand their substance. However, these relations cannot be explained without reference to the third person, whom both of them love. This process is explicable by an important concept of Girard, the concept of mimetic, or triangular, desire. As Girard insists, mimetic desire merges two components, a longing for the object and a competition with the rival, in such a way that one cannot tell what is primary and what is secondary. While passions develop, both parts become progressively dependent upon each other as mediators of their desires. As Girard says, mimetic desire is contagious, and an epidemic of it can be resolved only by a sacrifice. Mimetic brothers Rogozhin and Myshkin, who compete and collaborate in their desire for Nastasia, have their female counterparts in the mimetic sisters, Nastasia and Aglaia, whose passions are addressed to Myshkin. Nastasia, who is at the center of this mimetic network, logically becomes the sacrificial victim. Importantly, there is no word in The Idiot to suggest that Nastasia deserved her fate, from anyone's point of view. Sacrifice is neither punishment nor revenge; actually, the least guilty are the better victims for a true sacrifice.
The irrationality of this relationship is created in equal measure by all three protagonists. We never understand why Myshkin attempts to marry Nastasia, why she runs out from underneath the wedding wreath, why Rogozhin murders her, or why Myshkin forgives him. Scholars have suggested many partial explanations: the homoerotic attraction between the male heroes; class struggle between old nobility and the new bourgeoisie; a confessional debate that ends in Nastasia's initiation as a member of the Skoptsy sect. Without wishing to suggest one more such explanation, I will attempt to re-read Myshkin's speeches.
There is a wonderful episode in the novel, which involves Myshkin, St. Petersburg society, and a Chinese vase. Rogozhin is absent, although Myshkin constantly speaks about him. A society gathering is composed of a German-born general, an anglophile noble, a Russian poet, etc. The anglophile recounts with displeasure "certain outbreaks of disorder on the landed estates" and refers with sympathy to a relative who has converted to Catholicism. Myshkin replies that Catholicism is an unchristian faith and gives rise to socialism. He argues that "our Christ must shine forth in rejection of the West" and also that "he who has no roots beneath his feet has no God." In this speech, Russia is a country of the authentic east and God is, by definition, "our God." Just as in totemic cults, what is not our God is not God at all. Religion is thus inseparable from politics; both relate to geography, and all three are locked together in the national idea. Myshkin also says that "the most educated of our people have stooped so low as to become the Khlysty," a popular sect. Referring to Rogozhin, Myshkin sends his audience the message of internal orientalism: "Reveal to the yearning and feverish companions of Columbus the 'New World', reveal to the Russian the 'world' of Russia, let him find the gold, the treasure hidden from him on earth!" (Dostoevsky 1996: 511). The main colonial event - the discovery of America - is turned inwards on Russia: the interior provinces where Myshkin has recently traveled are, for him, the New World. The depths of these regions must be discovered in order to resurrect Russia and the world. But St. Petersburg society prevents genuinely Russian people from accomplishing their transfiguration. As Myshkin says: