Ontological view of suicide in Demons by F. M. Dostoevsky and A novel about London by Milos Crnjanski

Abstract

Two novels analyzed in this work share the same theme of suicide, and not just a suicide as a fact, but as a literary transfiguration. During the epoch of modernism, writers started to show interest in the so called logical suicide for the first time. Both heroes in these two novels share similar suicidal ideas but with different consequences. Kirilov in Demons acts as a hero of an early modern poetics, trying to create a new man and a new post-Christian order. His suicide should make him a God, so he can replace the old religious paradigm. If man could be freed from the idea of immortality and also from the fear he senses because of the possible post-existential revenge, he would finally turn attention to the people he lives with. Kirilov thinks that without God a new golden era of humanity will emerge, so his suicide appears to be a mission that leads the world into this. On the other hand, A Novel of London creates a late modern perspective in which the main hero Repin lives in a world that has to deal with a lack of God's presence, and as a consequence with a lack of anything good or beautiful that can bring any sense to existence. Unlike Kirilov, Repin considers suicide only when he knows that all of his attempts to stay in this world are senseless because this world functions only in demonic ways. A demon figure is present in both novels, but in Demons it is an alternative to God's way that still exists. In A Novel about London, demonic presence is everywhere, so suicide seems like the only dignified way to maintain identity.