The Idiot

The Idiot centers on Prince Lev Myshkin, a man of unusual gentleness and candor who returns to Russian society after years of illness and treatment abroad. His openness is mistaken for foolishness, yet his moral clarity exposes the vanity, cruelty, and hunger for possession that surround him. Drawn into the lives of Nastasya Filippovna, Rogozhin, and Aglaya, Myshkin becomes the fragile center of a drama where compassion collides with pride and desire. Dostoyevsky uses the figure of a radically innocent man to ask whether goodness can survive in a world governed by humiliation, money, rivalry, and emotional violence.