Stavrogin and Prince Hal: The Hero in Two Worlds

Abstract

Even a brief look at the criticism of Dostoevskij's novel, The Possessed, will indicate the diversity of interpretations given its enigmatic hero, Nikolaj Vsevolodovic Stavrogin. A large number of his critics attempt to relate him to one or another of the better known heroes of literature. Thus Vjaceslav Ivanov, for example, finds the story of Stavrogin to be parallel to the Faust myth, but with more explicit Christian overtones. He finds a relationship in the novel between the earth-soul (Mar'ja Lebjadkin and Gretchen); the daring but erroneous human spirit (Stavrogin and Faust); and the powers of Darkness (PetrVerxovenskijand Mephistopheles). Ivanov adds, however, that in Stavrogin love has been quenched andwith it the erotic striving-in the Platonic sense-by which Faust is saved. 1 George Steiner sees in Dostoevskij's hero a variant of the Satanic heroes of Byronism and the Gothic. But Steiner goes even further and suggests that he conveys to us a tragic apprehension of the