Content Category
Literary Criticism
Abstract/Description
If we accept Vinokurov’s claim of the “series of face-to-face encounters,” then The Idiot should display Levinas’s principles, as well. In fact, of Dostoevsky’s works, The Idiot may be the best representative of Levinas’s theory of the face. By reading The Idiot through Levinas’s theory of the face and the responsibility it entails, we see that not only does Prince Myshkin perfectly embody the execution of Levinas’s theory, but the continued violation of this theory drives the plot of the novel. Additionally, Myshkin becomes a victim of others violating the face, as he is placed in a position in which, no matter what he does, he violates the face, becoming a perpetrator himself.
Copyright and Licensing of My Content
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Location
B114 JFSB
Start Date
20-3-2015 10:15 AM
End Date
20-3-2015 11:45 AM
Included in
Levinas’s “Face” and “Other” in The Idiot: Embodiment and Betrayal
B114 JFSB
If we accept Vinokurov’s claim of the “series of face-to-face encounters,” then The Idiot should display Levinas’s principles, as well. In fact, of Dostoevsky’s works, The Idiot may be the best representative of Levinas’s theory of the face. By reading The Idiot through Levinas’s theory of the face and the responsibility it entails, we see that not only does Prince Myshkin perfectly embody the execution of Levinas’s theory, but the continued violation of this theory drives the plot of the novel. Additionally, Myshkin becomes a victim of others violating the face, as he is placed in a position in which, no matter what he does, he violates the face, becoming a perpetrator himself.