Cultural Metaphor Of"Idiot"in Dostoevsky’s Works

The famous 19 th century realist writer Fyodor Dostoevsky(1821-1881)is the most representative writer with the depth of Russian literature.In 1846,he first appeared in the literary world with his first work Poor Folk.In his writing career of more than 40 years,he successively had published many world-renowned works such as Crime and Punishment,The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.Through these works,Dostoevsky had constructed a unique art world characterized by contradiction,and showed his most beloved character and favorite theme to the world by discussing the problem of “human”--Christ is the most perfect person in the world,and beauty and love will save the world.Dostoevsky created a kind of idiotic characters in his art world such as Smergasia,Elder Zosima,Duke of Myshkin and so on.They had idiotic characteristics.Some of them were natural stupid,some were madness in their words and deeds or confusion in thinking,or some of them were mistaken as idiots because of their noble character.But what really united them were decency,charity,tolerance and dedication.I call them Idiotic Figures.Idiotic Figures were the result of Dostoevsky’s long-term meditation on the future of mankind and the fate of society.It symbolized unique national temperament and religious and cultural traditions of the Russian people.The paper took Duke of Myshkin,the most typical Idiotic Figures in Dostoevsky’s works as an example.The paper also based on The Idiot and referenced his other works and related literature materials.I explored the reason why the Idiotic Figures exist by analyzing the image features of the Duke of Meshkin.And then the paper revealed the Russian national and religious culture what it metaphorized.This paper consists of three parts:The first part focuses on the image of the Duke of Myshkin.It is discussed from three aspects--appearance features,personality and religion culture.Dostoevsky believed that Christ is the eternal moral model for human beings,and his perfect moral personality is importantforce for human beings to revolt the world and moved towards the Golden age.From Duke of Myshkin himself,modeled on Christ,we can find many clues that indicate his identity,such as his name composition,his physical incompleteness,the rootlessness of identity and the incomparable character.All of them proved that he was the incarnation of Christ.However,it is obviously one-sided to understand Duke of Myshkin just from this point of view.As a typical Russian,Dostoevsky integrated Russian cultural tradition into Duke of Myshkin on the basis of Christ,making him the white Christ of Russia.The second part analyzes the reasons why Idiotic Figures exist on the basis of Duke of Myshkin’s image characteristics.The emergence of Idiotic Figures is closely related to Dostoevsky’s personal experience.Life experience,literary classics and religion influence are the important reasons for the emergence of Idiotic Figures.Words such as disease,poverty and exile were full of Dostoevsky’s life.While suffering from epilepsy,he also looked forward to the instant joy when the disease broke out.Epilepsy was a special life experience for him and brought him inspiration.As an important part of Dostoevsky’s personal life experience,the exile incident was the inflection point when his thoughts turned to religion,from an idealist to a religious saviour.Of course,Idiotic Figures were also influenced by classical writers,such as Pushkin,Gogol,Hugo,etc.Dostoevsky not only inherited the Russian literary tradition of The Little Man,but also absorbed Hugo’s literary features when describing positive figures,especially learned the religious flavor in Gogol’s works.It can be said that the emergence of Idiotic Figures is the result of Dostoevsky’s absorption of classical literature and religious factors from his personal experience.The third part points out the cultural and religious significance of the Idiotic Figures on the basis of the image features and causes of the Duke of Myshkin.The Russian nation is the most dipolar.They always swing between the two ends:extreme and contradictory,violence and gentle,unrestrained and abstemious.Figures in Dostoevsky’s works also have such national characters.Idiotic Figures have the incomparable quality of Christ,and they are the moral models of the world.However,the non-believers standing opposite to Idiot Figures are disgusting because of their bad character and misdeed.As a symbol of Christ,Idiotic Figuressave others through self-suffering.This special suffering complex and Messiah are religious and cultural accumulation flowing deeply in the blood of Russian nation.Dostoevsky showed his ideal on beauty through Idiotic Figures and conveyed the message that beauty and love will save the world.He solved the problem about Russia’s way out by his unique way.The thing that he left for later generations can wash away everything--love never ceases.