Question

I need help creating an impacting sentence for my essay.( check the comments below for essay)

Answer 1

Russian Religion: Christianity in Fyodor Dostoyevsky is The Idiot
In Russia Christianity, especially Russian Orthodox, is a well known religion which many Russian authors write about it in their novels. Fyodor Dostoyevsky is one of the main authors who incorporates this idea style into many of his novels. One of his novels that displays this theme is The Idiot. Many have said that Dostoyevsky writes about his life through characters in the novel to exemplify Prince Myshkin's epileptic fits to Rogozhin seducing Nastaya Filipovana. Which relates to Dostoyevsky's younger sister. Dostoyevsky propounds the main theme of Russian Christianity in this novel through the character Prince Myshkin, the painting of Jesus in the tomb, and the anti-religious character Rogozhin.

The first point which it exemplifies the idea of Christianity is the character Prince Myshkin which can be see in The Idiot through the quote, " But that it really was 'beauty and prayer'. That it really was 'the highest synthesis of life'; he could not doubt nor even admit the possibility of doubt."(Dosoyevsky 239) This character, who is also the protagonist, is known to being a good Russian who never takes life for granted and the way he speaks about not doubting can be seen as something religious. Prince Myshkin does not want to doubt because he is in a way quoting a verse from James in the Bible that also talks about doubting. For the author it leads to other quote that compares Prince Myshkin to Jesus which is, " Beyond that, the comparison between Myshkin and Jesus seems exactly apt only one characteristic in Myshkin, an important one to be sure, strikes me as Jesus-like and his timid chastity." (Hermann Hesse) Review critics view Prince Myshkin has a Jesus-like figure because of his personality that shows him being a religious figure in the story.

The second point is the painting of Jesus in the tomb that shows faith representation just like in this quote, "If such corpse (and it must have been just like that) was seen by all of his future chief apostles, by the woman who followed Him and by the cross by all who believed in Him and worshipped him, then how can he possibly believed looking at the corpse, that the martyr would rise again?" (Dosotrevesky7) Prince Myshkin questions the painting in this quote. The painting is made famous by the author because it made a tremendous impact when he saw it in a museum. This quote shows something called faith representation since Myshkin is questioning himself as to why Jesus was a man who lived such a perfect life, but when he the sees the painting he saw a human not much a son of God who did miracles when walking on earth. To back up this quote it gives more of an understanding to the novel quote, " In Rogozhin's picture there was no trace of beauty. It was a faith representation of the dead body of a man who has undergone unbearable torments."(Fister) Fister goes more in depth about the theme of religion in the story that sometimes people tend to forget Jesus was also human. Many artists during the Renaissance painted Jesus into something glorious, and this novel showed it differently with a much darker sense. Overall the main quote and critic quote both give an explanation of faith representation. It leads religion to the painting of Christ in the tomb.

The third point is Dostoyevsky's opinion on religion can be seen through in the character of Rogozhin. Rogozhin begins to defend religion with this quote from the novel, " One man does not believe in God at all, while the other believes in him so throughly that he prays as he murders men".(Dosotrovesky) The showing of religion in this quote is how religion can lead others into temptation. Whereby religion especially Russian Orthodox stands between evil in St. Petersburg. In his article Schneider explains Rogozhin by saying that: " Rogizhin, who is reduced to murderous insanity, or to the narcisstic vanity of Aglaia or the masochisim of Anastassya."(Schneider) The quote gives an idea about how religion is viewed on the character and the author personally because when Dosotrovesky's sister got seduced by a man, he did not know what to do. Therefore his view on religion got shaky that encouraged him to write this character with bitterness and anger.

Therefore, there were various ways Dosotrovesky shows religion in his novel, The Idiot. He uses the protagonist Prince Myshkin to show good in the novel. He gives an insight to how Myshkin is like a Christ figure. He also incorporates Hans Holbein's painting of Jesus in the tomb that is a symbolism of religion with faith representation between the character and author. Lastly Dosotrovesky gives an opinion on religion through the character Rogozhin who shows the lack of religion and faith.