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達斯妥也夫斯基：開欄文 - Cathy Young
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這篇文章原來的標題是《達斯妥也夫斯基的作品和思想》；今改為《達斯妥也夫斯基：開欄文》。 -- 2026/05/02
達斯妥也夫斯基的作品和思想 -- Cathy Young
去年是達斯妥也夫斯基 200 歲壽辰。剛剛在網上看到一篇紀念他的評論，轉載於下。其特色在反覆分析和討論達氏思想的「內在衝突」；中間穿插了作者對達氏寫作風格、小說主題、和小說意旨的介紹。在此大力推薦網友們一讀。
原文未分節；為了大家閱讀便利，我使用「編者權限」將它分成8節，並附上與內容相應的子標題。如有謬誤，尚請指正。
Dostoevsky at 200: An Idea of Evil
Radical yet reactionary, the Russian literary giant remains a bundle of paradoxes.
CATHY YOUNG, 12/31/21
0. 達斯妥也夫斯基生平
The life of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, the towering cultural icon whose two hundredth anniversary was among the past year’s great literary events, would itself have made a remarkable novel—or film, since its pivotal moment was a harrowingly cinematic scene. On December 23, 1849, shortly after his twenty-eighth birthday, the former military engineer was taken to what he believed would be his execution, with twenty other men condemned as dangerous subversives for membership in a clandestine literary circle that trafficked in banned books. The sentence was read out loud, the first three victims were tied to posts before a firing squad, the soldiers took aim; then, drums signaled a retreat and a messenger from Tsar Nicholas I announced a pardon and commutation to hard labor in Siberia. This was not, as some accounts have erroneously said, a last-minute change of heart by the tsar but a pre-planned sadistic charade.
In the remaining three decades of his life, Dostoevsky spent four years in a penal colony (reduced from the original eight-year sentence); had a stormy marriage and an even more tumultuous love affair before finding happiness and stability with his second wife, Anna; overcame a gambling addition that at one point reduced him and Anna to penury; fathered four children and was devastated by the deaths of two of them at a young age; struggled for years to establish himself as a writer and journalist; and finally achieved fame that brought more than 60,000 mourners to his funeral when he died at 59 of a pulmonary hemorrhage on February 9, 1881.
1. 達斯妥也夫斯基思想 1
Almost by definition, a great writer is a creature of paradox, containing (as Walt Whitman said) multitudes. Dostoevsky was a bold thinker with radical visions of freedom and justice, and a reactionary defender of the established order; a prophet of human universalism and a militant ultranationalist; a passionate champion of all-encompassing Christian love and the author of shocking passages filled with ethnic and religious bigotry. A Slavophile (or quasi-Slavophile) for whom Russianness was the core of all goodness, he also believed that Russia’s special mission to the world was to be the bringer of universal brotherhood. He scorned the West for its rationalism and materialism, yet was deeply influenced by Western literature, from late eighteenth-century Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe to Honoré de Balzac and Charles Dickens. Indeed, Vladimir Nabokov (not a fan, to put it mildly) suggested that Dostoevsky was “the most European of the Russian writers.” He had, in turn, an immense influence on Western literature and culture; among other things, he has been described as a forerunner of psychoanalysis, existentialism, expressionism and surrealism. Figures as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ayn Rand admired his genius while vehemently rejecting his beliefs, and even detractors such as Nabokov could not quite escape his magnetism.
Dostoevsky first found literary success with his debut, the 1846 novella Poor Folk, a moving tale of the struggles of a kind, sensitive, shy, middle-aged clerk and an impoverished young woman of genteel background making a living as a seamstress. By the time of his arrest in 1849, he had published two more novellas and several installments of a novel, Netochka Nezvanova (which remained unfinished). But his titanic stature rests on four novels written after his 1855 return from the penal colony: Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868-1869), The Demons, a.k.a. The Possessed (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880); one could also add to this list the 1864 proto-existentialist novella Notes from the Underground.
In the 2004 book How Russia Shaped the Modern World, Clemson University historian Steven G. Marks describes Dostoevsky’s contribution as “messianic irrationalism.” Obviously, literature had dealt with the irrational before Dostoevsky, but he delves into the subterranean elements of the human psyche with a new, terrifying and riveting intensity, exploring obsession, guilt, self-loathing, love/hate attachments, paranoia, and self-destructiveness. The “man from the underground” rejects rationality as a matter of principle, rebelling against the necessity of accepting that 2+2=4. In The Demons, the brilliant and tormented Nikolai Stavrogin, a sort of Byronic antihero on speed, does terrible things (among them, as revealed in an initially censored chapter, the rape of a child) in a desperate challenge to God and to his own conscience, as well as an attempt to fill his inner emptiness. The most famous Dostoevsky protagonist, Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, sets out to kill an old pawnbroker to validate his theory that a superior individual can sacrifice others to his goals unbound by guilt or morality, then spends the rest of the story in a feverish struggle with the burden of his act.
2. 作品風格
In all these works, the line between irrationality and insanity is thin and often blurred. (Interestingly, Dostoevsky explicitly disavows such an interpretation in Stavrogin’s case—the novel’s final line states that after his suicide, the medics at the inquest “categorically and adamantly ruled out insanity”—but the reader may beg to differ.) The French writer and critic Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé, one of Dostoevsky’s biggest champions in Europe in the late nineteenth century, nonetheless dubbed him the “Shakespeare of the lunatic asylum” and noted that every one of his characters was a potential case for the neurologist Jean Charcot. Nabokov was much more scathing; in his Dostoevsky segment of Lectures on Russian Literature, he scoffs that one can hardly speak of “realism” or “human experience” when discussing “an author whose gallery of characters consists almost exclusively of neurotics and lunatics.”
Of course, the same charge could be leveled at Nabokov’s own most notable characters, including Lolita’s Humbert Humbert and Pale Fire’s Kinbote. (As Boston University Russian scholar Katherine Tiernan O’Connor has argued, Dostoevsky’s “ghostly shadow” is in fact nearly ubiquitous in Nabokov’s work, and Lolita may be seen as a response to the child rape themes in The Demons and Crime and Punishment—an influence that attests to Dostoevsky’s cultural power.)
Nonetheless, the criticism has some validity; rereading Dostoevsky’s principal novels recently, I felt that, with the exception of Crime and Punishment, the crazy quotient often reached overload. At one point in The Brothers Karamazov, after youngest brother Alyosha is bitten on the finger by a nine-year-old boy seeking to avenge his father’s humiliation by Alyosha’s brother Dmitry, the comical rich widow Madame Khokhlakov anxiously suggests that “the boy could have been rabid” and is mocked by her daughter Lisa, who points out that there’s no such thing as rabid boys; but one might counter that the entire novel is populated by rabid men, women, and children. Shouting seems to be nearly everyone’s default mode; every conversation threatens to erupt into a row; during Dmitry’s murder trial, several witnesses collapse in a nervous breakdown while testifying, and both prosecutor and defense attorney seem on the verge of the same. By the time one gets to the closing chapter describing the funeral of Ilyusha Snegirev, the boy who bit (and later befriended) Alyosha—and who has died of tuberculosis—the wrenching scene of the grief-crazed parents mourning their child may lose some of its impact after 800 pages of near-constant frenzy.
One may list other flaws which infuriated Nabokov and were noted even by many Dostoevsky admirers, from lapses into melodrama to notoriously clunky prose (no, it isn’t just the English translation) and the utter lack of the rich sensory texture one finds in Tolstoy or Chekhov. The physical in Dostoevsky has a certain abstraction, which also accounts for the odd sexlessness of his characters’ sexual lives—be it Stavrogin’s womanizing, the Karamazov romantic obsessions and rivalries, or Sonya’s prostitution in Crime and Punishment. (The few exceptions, such as the repulsive omnivorous sensuality of Fyodor Karamazov, the father, evoke disgust rather than eroticism.)
And yet somehow, it all works. The melodrama transcends itself through its very excess, aided by Dostoevsky’s keen sense of the ridiculous; he is an unsurpassed master of interweaving drama with humor that ranges from warm to very dark to savagely satirical. The roughness of the prose adds both to the frenetic pace of the storytelling and to the sense of a world out of joint. The unrealistic reflects an intensely human reality, with the intensity turned up to the maximum and beyond; the ugly and grotesque is amplified (see Karamazov père, or his wily and sadistic illegitimate son the lackey Smerdyakov, or the crass and pompous Captain Lebyadkin in The Demons), and yet the beauty and goodness shines through. The stripped-down texture evokes a minimalist—and riveting—theatrical production in which cataclysmic clashes play out on a nearly bare stage. What French translator and critic Céleste Courrière wrote in 1875, in Dostoevsky’s lifetime, still holds:
From the very first page, you feel yourself snatched up by an invisible power and set down in a strange and unreal world. All your ideas are turned upside down. You barely have time to ask yourself where you are being hurried off to. The further you go, the more this nightmare weighs on you. You read on and on, panting, aghast, unable to analyze or reflect on your impressions, to such a degree this monstrous, extravagant world grips you and holds you fast.
3. 作品主題/意旨
This grip is not just the result of masterful plotting which has elements of the crime thriller, but of the Dostoevskian world itself. The Brothers Karamazov may on some level be a whodunit, but long before we get to the murder, the story pulls us in with the chronicle of the “nice little family.” Nor does the riveting effect dissipate (as Nabokov claims in his attempted Dostoevsky takedown) once the reader knows all the twists and turns of the plot. The exchanges between Raskolnikov and Porfiry Petrovich, the investigator trying to coax him not only into confession but into moral awakening, remain gripping on multiple rereads; the terse account of the discovery of Stavrogin’s suicide by his mother and a woman who had hoped to “save” him still shocks; Ivan Karamazov’s conversations with the vile Smerdyakov, whom he correctly suspects of being their father’s murderer, are still taut with tension and malevolence.
What’s more, one of Dostoevsky’s literary triumphs is that he manages to make ideas gripping. In Crime and Punishment, the focus of suspense is at least as much on Raskolnikov grappling with challenges to his theory, which separates superior individuals from “trembling creatures,” as on whether he will get caught. In The Brothers Karamazov, the debates about faith, freedom, human suffering, the moral balance of the universe, and whether “everything is permitted” in the absence of God are as fascinating as the family drama and the murder mystery (with which these debates are deeply intertwined). The conversation between the devout Christian Alyosha and the skeptic Ivan about God, suffering, freedom and evil—which includes the justly famous “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor,” Ivan’s tale about a medieval Spanish cardinal who witnesses the return of Jesus and promptly throws him in the dungeon—may well be the pinnacle of philosophical literature.
4. 達斯妥也夫斯基思想 2
The ideas have also made Dostoevsky perennially controversial. A socialist early in his career, he came out of the penal colony a conservative Christian. The Demons, his most political work—conceived as a “pamphlet-novel” and fictionalizing an actual incident in which a man who tried to leave an underground revolutionary group was murdered by his former comrades—has been rightly hailed as a brilliant, terrifyingly prophetic portrayal of Russian revolutionary radicalism. (In their new book Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us, Northwestern University scholars Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro write that The Demons was “the only nineteenth-century work to have foreseen what we have come to call ‘totalitarianism.’”) Yet the book’s targets also include pro-Western liberals, depicted as well-meaning but foolish accomplices to the radical destroyers. Shatov, the doomed ex-revolutionary who sees the light, is often assumed to channel the author’s own views in a speech articulating a militant religious nationalism: Society can only be founded on faith, with reason and science relegated to a subordinate role; national identity is irrevocably connected to nation’s “own special God,” and a nation can be great only “for as long as it believes that it will prevail with its God and banish all the other gods from the world”; in the end there is only one true God, and the Russian people is the only “God-bearing people.”
It’s not entirely clear, in fact, that Shatov is fully a vehicle for Dostoevsky himself. (Right after the reference to the “God-bearing people,” he breaks off and declares that he knows his words could be either “old, worn-out rubbish, grist for every Slavophile mill in Moscow, or a completely new word, the last word, the only word of resurrection and renewal”; it is also worth noting that his religious-nationalist zeal has been instigated by Stavrogin in a deliberate experiment.) But there is little question that Dostoevsky saw Russia as having a special mission—though, unlike “true” Slavophiles, he believed it should incorporate Western cultural influences—and that Christianity, for him, was at the heart of this mission. To Dostoevsky, the West was mired in godless liberalism and materialism, and it was Russia’s role to save it by bringing it back to spirit of Christ.
5. 當代意義
This message may seem especially relevant today when the revolt against liberalism, from both the left and the right, is an increasingly popular stance in the West itself while nationalism and populism are ascendant. Dostoevsky’s critique of Western secularism and consumerism, and what Shatov calls “half-science,” “humanity’s most terrible scourge”—probably something akin to what we now call “scientism”—will no doubt strike many social and religious conservatives as startlingly prescient. (They may be chagrined to learn that he regarded Roman Catholicism as the beginning of Europe’s loss of true Christianity and believed that even atheism was preferable—though that didn’t stop him from having a profound appeal for such Catholic thinkers as Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy.)
Dostoevsky’s linkage of religion, nationalism, and populism can also sometimes seem to approach the “national conservatism” advocated in recent years by American-born Israeli political scientist Yoram Hazony. But therein lies a cautionary tale: Dostoevsky’s religious nationalism has a very marked dark side. In 1876-77, it led him to agitate for the Russo-Turkish war, which he believed could unify the people in a sacred endeavor—helping fellow Slavs and Orthodox Christians oppressed by the Ottoman Empire—and to urge the conquest of Constantinople. It also expressed itself, on many occasions, in virulent hostility toward “alien” groups that didn’t fit his vision of a godly Russia united by Orthodox Christianity: Catholic Poles and, notably, Jews.
6. 達斯妥也夫斯基的反猶情結
Dostoevsky’s attitude toward Jews has been the subject of much discussion and contention; but attempts to exonerate him from charges of anti-Jewish bigotry are singularly unconvincing. The anti-Semitism is not limited, alas, to occasional grating passages in his fiction (such as the otherwise superb scene in Crime and Punishment in which the suicide of the ambiguous villain Svidrigailov is witnessed by a bystander with a farcical Jewish accent and a face expressing “the eternal peevish sorrow so sourly stamped on every single face of the Jewish tribe”). It also found a far more explicit voice in his monthly newsletter, A Writer’s Diary, published in 1876-77 and resumed in 1880 shortly before his death.
The March 1877 issue on “the Jewish Question,” in response to criticism from readers (many of them Jewish) who questioned Dostoevsky’s earlier attacks on “Yids” and their malign influence, is particularly revealing. Dostoevsky indignantly rejects accusations of being “an enemy of Jews”—but in the next breath, mockingly notes that Jews are forever complaining about their oppression “as if they’re not the ones who reign in Europe, not the ones who dominate the stock exchanges at the very least, and therefore the politics, internal affairs, and morality of states.” He then goes on to blame Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Turkish war on the Jews—or at least on British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, a descendant of “Spanish Yids” whose policies at least partly reflect “the Yid’s point of view.” There’s a lot more in that vein, including the assertion that Jews had become ruthless exploiters not only of recently emancipated serfs in Russia but of freed blacks in the Southern American states.
As always, Dostoevsky remains a man of contradictions. In the same text, he expresses hope for harmony between Jews and (Christian) Russians, praises the nobility and intelligence of some of his Jewish correspondents, and sees the promise of universal brotherhood in the life of a German doctor in a provincial Russian town who had treated poor people regardless of ethnicity or religion and whose funeral had brought together Jewish and Christian mourners. (He also stresses that this “sincere and moving” account was sent to him by a Jewish woman.) And yet for every positive point, there is a “but”: Yes, we should strive for brotherhood, but the obstacles to that really come mainly from Jews; yes, Jews’ civil rights should be expanded, but there’s always the danger that they’ll use those rights to fleece the Russian peasant even more viciously; etc., etc.
7. 達斯妥也夫斯基思想 3
It’s not surprising to learn that, as Marks notes in How Russia Shaped the Modern World, Dostoevsky inspired some far-right intellectuals in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s who saw him as the mortal enemy of decadent liberalism. Equally unsurprising is the fact that today, he is being embraced by Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia. In an essay on Dostoevsky’s 200th anniversary in the online magazine Sobesednik (“Interlocutor”), the eminent writer and critic Dmitry Bykov suggests that Dostoevsky should be “scrubbed clean of [the regime’s] sticky love, which can only compromise the writer and the thinker”; but he also notes that in a sense, Dostoevsky is “the father of Russian fascism.”
Of course, as Bykov acknowledges, Dostoevsky is also much more than that. For one thing, he is too independent and too paradoxical to be a propaganda tool. His cultural conservatism was idiosyncratic enough to coexist with strong sympathy for Russia’s nascent feminist movement. His support for tsarist Russia’s symbiosis of church and autocracy—a stance Bykov regards as a “Stockholm syndrome” response to Dostoevsky’s pardon by the tsar in 1849—inevitably clashed with his passion for human freedom, which is the central theme of “The Grand Inquisitor”: The Inquisitor sees Jesus as a carrier of dangerous heresy for giving people free choice rather than the safety of authority. As Russian religious philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev argued more than half a century after Dostoevsky’s death, Dostoevsky himself may not have understood that, despite its Catholic setting, his story applied equally to Russian Orthodoxy: “In actuality, Dostoevsky in the Legend rose up against every religion of authority, as being a temptation by the Anti-Christ. . . . This was an unprecedented hymn to the freedom of the Spirit, a most extreme form of religious anarchism.” It is not for nothing that in the 1890s, Russian censors barred The Brothers Karamazov from school libraries and free public libraries as insufficiently, well, orthodox.
Bykov believes that toward the end of his life, Dostoevsky’s views were evolving again: There are tantalizing hints that the planned second volume of The Brothers Karamazov was going to take the saintly Alyosha in the direction of becoming a revolutionary. It is also worth noting that in the acclaimed speech Dostoevsky gave in June 1880—just six months before his death—at the unveiling of the monument in Moscow to Russia’s great poet Alexander Pushkin, he strove to articulate a Russian patriotism that would reconcile the Slavophiles and the Westernizers, emphasizing Pushkin’s Europeanness and “pan-humanity” as an essential part of his Russianness.
8. 結論
Perhaps no Russian writer attained this “pan-humanity” more than Dostoevsky, who has, for a century and a half, inspired people across national, religious and political lines—including members of groups toward which he harbored the strongest prejudices. This is one way in which Dostoevsky’s legacy is relevant to our cultural moment: It is a reminder that great art and literature transcend their creators’ politics and biases and endure long after the polemics of the day are forgotten.
本文於 修改第 7 次
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達斯妥也夫斯基《一個怪人的夢》讀後
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0. 前言
** 本文原為《文學和倫理學之《一個怪人的夢》和《沉淪》讀後》的一部份；發表於2022/09/26(該文已刪除)。現在將這兩篇名著的「讀後」獨立成章，分開發表(請見以下「前言」最後一段)。造成不便，尚請見諒。
七月下旬在YouTube上看到一個介紹達斯妥也夫斯基《一個怪人的夢》這部影片(以下分稱達氏和《怪人》)。《怪人》發表於1877年4月《一個作者的日記》(1)；它也被收錄於《達斯妥也夫斯基最佳短篇小說選集》，1980年代中期我讀過一次。看過上述影片後，在網上找到它再讀了一遍。
這本小說的風格和體裁近於達氏的《地下室手記》；它的情節和意旨則讓我聯想到卡木的《沉淪》。我大概在40多年前讀過該書；當時印象深刻，並引起我在「倫理學」議題上的一些想法。因此，我決定以這兩書為基礎(2)，談談我的「道德觀」和「倫理觀」(3)。由於「道德」一詞常常引起人們在歷史、教條、道學、情緒、或偏見等等層面的反應，我過去傾向用「社會規範」來代替它(4)。本文沿用「道德」一詞。
本文第1節簡單介紹該書內容：第2節則談談我的感覺和淺見。
以下的摘譯和敘述根據該書嘉縲女士的英譯版本。摘譯部份加了引號(「」)；敘述部份則沒有引號。所有未沿用通譯者是我的翻譯；請自行斟酌其「信、達」程度。 -- 以上文字發表於2022/09/26。
本文原與《卡木《沉淪》讀後》合併為一篇文章(該欄2026/05/06)，做為拙作《文學和倫理學之「行為指南」》的討論基礎。由於我最近分別成立了三位文學大師：卡木、卡夫卡、和達斯妥也夫斯基的個別專欄，決定將兩篇文章獨立出來。意旨未變，內容略有修改。此外，這兩篇「讀後」原來是一篇文章，自然意旨相近，部分內容有重複之處。不過，對文學或倫理學有興趣的朋友，還是不妨將這三篇文章對照參看。 -- 最後這段文字在2026/05/07補增。
1. 故事情節 (嘉縲 英譯，網路版)
1.1 第1節
「我是個不合時宜、言行怪異、被大家當成笑柄的人；他們『現在』都叫我『神經病』。如果不是因為在大家眼中我然然和以前一樣是個怪胎，這該算是高升了吧。不過，我現在一點都不在乎。即使都在嘲笑我，他們還是我的好夥伴。大家越是把我當個笑柄，我越覺得他們可愛。我甚至跟著他們一起笑 -- 當然不是笑我自己；如果不是看著他們會引起我一絲傷感，我覺得其實跟他們還蠻親近。我可憐這些人，因為我懂世間的真理而他們不懂！天啊，做為世界上唯一了解真理的人，有時真的不免愴然淚下。但他們不會了解的。是的，他們不可能了解。(雙引號是我加上的，請見第2.2節。)
…
不久之前我就想到自我了斷，告別這個世界；只是遲遲沒有下定付諸實行的決心。去年11月一個傾盆大雨的晚上，在雨後孤寂苦寒的時刻，我在路上走著走著一瞬間決定：就是今晚！剛好這個時候，一個衣衫襤褸，大概只有八、九歲的女孩，一直拉著我的袖子，苦苦哀求。雖然我一時沒搞清楚她說些什麼，最後我大概懂了：她媽媽出了事，情況危急，要我過去看看，幫幫忙。我一邊不耐煩的跺腳一邊推開她；心想，少煩我！我自己就要去死了，那有心思管你家的事。
…
回到自己五樓的公寓後，我拿出前些時買的手槍，放在沙發前茶几上。我跟自己說，就這樣完結吧！如果不是早些時碰到那個小女孩，我那天應該會自殺死掉的。」
1.2 第2節
「我雖然從來就不合時宜，也不把任何事情當回兒事；但我並非麻木不仁，我還是有感覺的。
…
就在我尋思『做』還是『不做』的當口，那個小女孩的身影和她無助的眼神，在我腦海中揮之不去，心頭感到一陣陣刺痛 ….；一個一個的問題，此起彼落，像浪潮般湧進我的意識。為了理清這些問題，我決定把自殺的事先暫時往後挪一挪。
…
想著，想著，我睡著了。」
1.3 第3節
主角在夢中自殺，被埋葬，被帶著穿越太空到了一個世外桃源般的星球。
1.4 第4節
主角鋪陳這個世外桃源走多麼好、好、好，愛、愛、愛，快樂、快樂、快樂！以及讓該地居民們達到這個美麗境界的想法和看法。但這個世外桃源最終被主角帶壞了。
1.5 第5節
帶壞的原因是主角無意間教會世外桃源的居民們「說謊」；從此居民們開始了一系列腐敗不堪的行為。主角從夢中驚醒，重新肯定生命的可貴，立志宣揚他在夢中經歷所領悟到的一套人生觀、價值觀、世界觀、認識論、…。
…
「我終於找到了先前提到的那個小女孩；… 然後我就不停地傳播我在夢中發現的真理！」
2. 作品主題 – 道德感
本節討論我看了這本小說後的感受和感想；網路上有相當多其他學者/讀者對這本書的評論和詮釋，請自行搜尋、參考(5)。
2.1 解讀基礎
如上所述，《怪人》和《沉淪》這兩本小說，在情節和意旨兩方面都相當接近：
「主角在碰上一個『自己應該採取些行動但沒有做任何事』的情況後，人就瘋掉了！」
一個人真的會因為自己的「作為」或「不作為」而發瘋或變成神經病嗎？
很顯然兩位作者這樣認為或希望。從這個單純的角度看，我們可以把它們歸入所謂的「警世小說」。當然，達氏和卡木除了是大文豪外，也都是深邃睿智的思想家；除了「警世」，這兩部鉅作分別表達了他們的倫理觀。此處談談達氏的思想(請參考本欄其它貼文)。卡木思想簡介請見此欄各文。
達氏生活在19世紀中、後期帝俄時代(1821 -- 1881)；他青年時期是位虔誠的東正教教友和追求社會主義的進步人士。在沙皇尼可拉斯一世槍下留人後，他被流放到西伯利亞九年；四年勞役，五年軍營。回到首都聖彼得堡後，達氏在中、晚年仍然堅信東正教；但思想上轉向泛斯拉夫主義。他的作品以刻劃人的心理來彰顯人性，以及探討人存在的意義。和後來的尼切一樣(1844 -- 1900)，他經常批判「人生虛無論」。但根據上面「故事情節」的介紹，《怪人》主角在故事開始時是一位「人生虛無論者」。
卡木生活在在20世紀中期的西歐(1913 -- 1960)，主張無神論、人生荒謬論、和造反有理論。他們兩位卻寫出在情節和意旨上相當接近的作品；除了在時代、地區、和思想上是一個有趣的對比外，我想這個現象值得我們深思它的意義。
在達氏許多小說中，一個常常出現的的主題是：
1) 「一個人沒有能力或權利不去面對自己行為的後果」；或
2) 「一個人沒有能力或權利不對己的行為負責。」
《卡拉馬佐夫兄弟們》中有一段名句，從另一個方式來表達以上第二個詮釋：
「沒有上帝或來世？那就相當於世界上沒有什麼事不能做；如果真是這樣，人不就可以為所欲為了嗎？」(裴維爾/芙蘿杭斯基 英譯，維克斯勒引用)
從東方文化觀點看，達氏這句話表達的是：
沒有主宰賞善罰惡的老天爺或閻王爺，人自然就會肆無忌憚的為所欲為，只圖個眼前歡了！
換句話說，如果沒有上帝，所謂「輪迴報應」、「善惡到頭終有報」、或「不是不報，時候未到」等等，只是忽悠壞人，或受害者自我安慰的話語。這就引出倫理學上一個基本，但一直沒有定論的問題：「道德的約束力從何而來？」；以及連帶而來的第二個問題：
「我為什麼要接受道德的約束？」或
「只要我我喜歡，有什麼不可以？」
達氏相信有「上帝」，至少他很希望有「上帝」。由於他無法調和「上帝存在」的命題和「世界有無窮盡苦難」這個現實，達氏不像基本教義派名嘴們那樣能夠臉不紅，氣不喘的確認「有上帝！」。因此，或許他希望：「一般人不能夠承受道德感或羞愧心的巨大壓力」這個心理現象，可以取代「懲罰」或「報應」的概念，來解決：「人為什麼要有所為？」以及「人為什麼要有所不為？」這兩個問題。《罪與罰》表達著類似的思考模式。
道德感或羞愧心能夠擔負約束人們行為的功能嗎？我將在《倫理學之「行為指南」》中討論這個問題。
2,2 《怪人》 -- 解讀和討論
《怪人》一書的主角在碰到「情況」前，或許已經有點神經兮兮；所以，該書並沒有明確表達出我說的這個主題，但全書第一句有個暗示：
「我是個不合時宜、言行怪異、被大家當成笑柄的人；他們『現在』都叫我『神經病』。」
這段話中的「現在」，相對於「情況」發生的時間(「去年11月3號夜晚」(第1頁)。我上一節所謂「情況」指的是：小女孩向主角求助，但被主角不耐煩的趕開；請見本文1.1節– 1)。
本文1.1節– 2)刻畫這個「情況」對主角心理所產生的衝擊；我只做了簡短摘譯，達氏完整的文筆請見《一個荒謬人的夢想》或英譯本2 – 3頁。
該書第5章最後結束前一大段語無倫次(本文未譯出)，可以看成是主角瘋掉後的現象。達氏最後回到「小女孩」來結束這個故事；請見本文1.1節– 5)所翻譯全書的最後一句話。
以上說明我對這篇小說情節和主題「解讀」的根據。不過，我看到的評論中，都把重點放在該書第3 – 5節；沒有觸及我解讀的主題。
上面所引用四篇評論/詮釋《怪人》文章中，有一篇引用巴克廷教授的話：「《怪人》一書包含了達氏作品中所有最重要的主題」；這些主題如：人生行為論、人生虛無論、反「獨尊理性」論、「上帝博愛」概念和「人世苦難」現實兩者間的衝突、以及「上帝有無」和「行為容許與否」兩個命題之間的關係等等。
在達氏小說種種主題中，上一段所列舉的最後一個，可以用《卡拉馬佐夫兄弟們》中的一段話做代表：
「沒有上帝或來世？那就相當於世界上沒有什麼事不能做；如果真是這樣，人不就可以為所欲為了嗎？」(裴維爾/芙蘿杭斯基 英譯，維克斯勒引用)
請注意，這句話在達氏原著中是兩個疑問句。但沙垂用一個陳述句來表達這個意思：
「(達斯妥也夫斯基曾寫道)：如果沒有上帝，人就什麼事都可以做了。」(麥瑞特 英譯)
跟達氏和卡木的作品一樣，各家對這句名言的詮釋不盡相同。請參看Sartre、Zizek、Volkov、Vexler和Tim等人對達氏這個觀點的討論。
從東方文化的觀點看，達氏這句話表達的是：
沒有主宰賞善罰惡的老天爺或閻王爺，人自然就會肆無忌憚的為所欲為，只圖個眼前歡了！
換句話說，如果沒有上帝，所謂「輪迴報應」、「善惡到頭終有報」、或「不是不報，時候未到」等等，只是忽悠壞人，或受害者自我安慰的話語。這就引出倫理學上一個基本，但一直沒有定論的問題：「道德的約束力從何而來？」；以及連帶而來的第二個問題：
「我為什麼要接受道德的約束？」或
「只要我我喜歡，有什麼不可以？」
達氏相信有「上帝」，至少他很希望有「上帝」。由於他無法調和「上帝存在」的命題和「世界有無窮盡苦難」這個現實，達氏不像基本教義派名嘴們那樣能夠臉不紅，氣不喘的確認「有上帝！」。因此，或許他希望：「一般人不能夠承受道德感或羞愧心的巨大壓力」這個心理現象，可以取代「懲罰」或「報應」的概念，來解決：「人為什麼要有所為？」以及「人為什麼要有所不為？」這兩個問題。《罪與罰》表達著類似的思考模式。
道德感或羞愧心能夠擔負約束人們行為的功能嗎？我將在《倫理學之「行為指南」》中討論這個問題。
後記：
我不是一個多愁善感的人，中學時代喜歡看武俠小說。當然也有機會讀到一些世界文學名著。例如高中三年我到建中對面的中央圖書館讀了80%朱生豪先生翻譯的莎士比亞劇本；承同學劉容生教授介紹，看了好幾本屠格涅夫的小說；以及達氏的《罪與罰》和歌德的《少年維特的煩惱》等。大學時代幾乎沒有看什麼小說；大概就看了《咆嘯山莊》、《科學怪人》、《台大青年》上翻譯的好幾部沙垂劇本、和小半本《地下室手記》(服預備軍官役時它在《拾穗》連載，沒來得及看完就出國了)。
我從小對倫理學有興趣。我對道德或倫理的認知，著重在人際互動。由於自己生活經驗相當「單向度」，工作後開始讀文學作品來補足這一方面的欠缺。但由於時間和英文程度雙雙不足，我大概讀了達氏、卡木、和卡夫卡三位70%左右的作品。其它大文豪就是一、兩本或兩、三本。英、美作家我涉獵的更少。因此，我以上的詮釋純屬井底之蛙的見解，敬請指正。 -- (2022)
附註：
1. 《日記》(1873 – 1881)當時以月刊形式出版，作者只有達氏和他的弟弟米凱爾兩人；可視為時下「部落格」的前身。
2. 請參見拙作：《卡木《沉淪》讀後》和《文學和倫理學之「行為指南」》。
3-1 「道德」：(一個人用來)認定「對」、「錯」或「好」、「壞」的一組「信念」，「判斷」或「態度」。
3-2 「倫理學」：研究「道德信念」是否合理的哲學學門。
3-3 準此，「倫理」指的是「道德信念」、「道德判斷」、或「道德態度」的理由和/或基礎。
以上3-1和3-2兩個「定義」翻譯自此文第1節下的說明(該欄2026/04/06)。3-3則是我根據這兩個「定義」所做的闡述。
4. 史特勞斯曾說：「離開『社會』，『道德』並無意義」(What Is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies，40 – 55頁)。
5. 請見：Wikipedia、Book Discussion、Meaning of Life、和Encyclopaedia Britannica等。
附錄 1：術語/一般名詞中英對照 (正文中有連結者未列於此)
人生行為論 – existantialism，通譯為「存在主義」或「存在哲學」
人生荒謬論 – absurdism，通譯為「荒謬哲學」；請參見Albert Camus。
人生虛無論 – nihilism，在本文第2.1節中的用法，通譯為「道德虛無主義」或「存在虛無主義」。在一般哲學領域中的用法，請見下面的「虛無論」。
主題 – theme
東正教 – Eastern Orthodox Church
泛斯拉夫主義 – pan-Slavism
情節 – plot
虛無論 – nihilism，通譯為「虛無主義」；在本體論、認識論、和倫理學等領域各有其特定主張。
附錄 2：人名中英對照(以英語發音為準)
巴克廷 – Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin
卡木 – Albert Camus，通譯為 卡謬
尼切 – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche，通譯為 尼采
沙垂 – Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre，通譯為 沙特
芙蘿杭斯基 – Larissa Volokhonsky
麥瑞特 – Philippe Auguste Mairet
達斯妥也夫斯基 – Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy，或譯為杜斯妥也夫斯基、朵斯妥也夫斯基
嘉縲 – Constance Garnett
維克斯勒 – Vlad Vexler
裴維爾 – Richard Pevear
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達斯妥也夫斯基Z世代群走紅 - Apurva Khadye
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索引(以下中譯尚請指正)：
Angst：焦慮
catharsis：(心靈)淨化作用
Gen Z：Z世代
gloom：悲傷、沮喪、悲觀、黑色(心情)
“it’s giving …”：「有 … 的味道」、「跟 … 一樣讚」；見「道地英語」
Kubrick, Stanley：美國電影導演、編劇、和製片人
loathe：憎恨、厭惡
“main character energy”：不可一世、顧盼自雄
melancholic：感傷、憂傷、哀愁、無可奈何
redemption：救贖、贖罪、新生、重生
situationship：微妙關係、炮友情誼、逢場作戲情誼、不即不離情誼
spiteful：心眼壞的、懷有惡意的、看不得別人好的、
Swift, Taylor：泰勒絲
When Harry Met Sally：美國喜劇/愛情片；1989 年
下文對達斯妥也夫斯基有精簡的介紹。其中第5節提及達斯妥也夫斯基對人們「心情」的了解；記得尼切說過：「達斯妥也夫斯基是我唯一尊敬的心理學家」。此議題可參考本欄2026/04/26貼文及其所附參考書目。
紀州庵過去曾提供丘光教授介紹達斯妥也夫斯基作品的講座；相當到位。對達氏小說有興趣的朋友可以關注該機構最新信息。
Dostoevsky Is Trending Again — And It Says a Lot About Gen Z
Apurva Khadye, 11/06/25
0. 前言
In an age of 10-second attention spans and dopamine-driven scrolling, who would’ve thought Fyodor Dostoevsky; the 19th-century Russian novelist known for 600-page existential crises, would become a social media phenomenon? Yet here we are. On TikTok, White Nights is dubbed the “Russian When Harry Met Sally.” On Reddit, young readers discuss whether Raskolnikov was “mentally ill or just really dramatic.” And in bookshops, Crime and Punishment sales are surging like it’s 1866 all over again.
What exactly is happening? Why is Gen Z; the generation that popularised phrases like “it’s giving” and “main character energy”, swooning over a man whose novels feature more guilt than gossip?
The answer is surprisingly complex, funny, and a little poetic, much like Dostoevsky himself.
1. From BookTok to the Gulag: A Most Unlikely Trend
Scroll through BookTok, Bookstagram and you’ll find creators weeping over The Brothers Karamazov or annotating Notes from Underground with glitter pens. Dostoevsky memes sit comfortably between Taylor Swift lyrics and Stanley Kubrick clips. It’s chaotic, but it works.
The recent surge began when clips comparing Dostoevsky’s White Nights to modern romance films went viral. Suddenly, the Russian master’s melancholic musings were relatable content. Longing in White Nights suddenly became situationship.
There’s also a cultural hunger for something real. After years of social media perfectionism, Gen Z is drawn to the raw honesty of Dostoevsky’s writing. He doesn’t sugar-coat human nature. Instead, he drags it into the light; flawed, fearful, and yearning for redemption. In an era that glorifies authenticity, Dostoevsky feels more honest than most influencers.
2. An Author Who Gets the Angst
If there’s one thing Dostoevsky understood better than anyone, it’s the chaos of being human. His characters are anxious, impulsive, idealistic, self-destructive, in other words, perfectly Gen Z. With less slangs, of course!!
Take Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment: a broke student convinced he’s morally superior to society, yet crippled by guilt after doing something unforgivable. Replace the axe with a bad tweet, and you’ve got a 2025 cautionary tale.
Or consider the narrator of Notes from Underground; bitter, overthinking, perpetually online in spirit if not in fact. His “I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man” could easily open a depressive TikTok monologue.
Even in The Idiot, Prince Myshkin’s kindness is seen as foolishness, a theme that resonates deeply with a generation told to be “kind but not naïve.” Dostoevsky gives moral complexity a human face, and Gen Z, ever alert to hypocrisy and moral grey zones, can’t get enough.
3. When Existentialism Meets the Internet
For Gen Z, reading Dostoevsky isn’t just about literary appreciation; it’s about self-exploration. His novels confront the big questions: Why do we suffer? What makes life meaningful? Are we ever truly free?
These aren’t new questions, but they hit differently in a world where algorithms dictate our desires. Dostoevsky’s characters wrestle with internal conflict, while Gen Z wrestles with the infinite scroll. Both face a sense of alienation in modern life one caused by industrialisation, the other by digitalisation.
And unlike many modern self-help books that promise instant clarity, Dostoevsky offers no easy answers. His novels demand introspection; something Gen Z, ironically, seems more willing to engage with than previous generations. Perhaps it’s because they’ve grown up in crisis: climate change, political turmoil, and economic uncertainty. A little Russian existential dread feels like home.
4. The BookTok Paradox: Sad Boys, Smart Girls, and the Search for Depth
There’s also a certain aesthetic to Dostoevsky; gloomy lighting, cigarette smoke, fur coats, and moral despair. It’s practically made for TikTok. But behind the romanticisation lies something genuine.
Many Gen Z readers, especially young women, are reclaiming Dostoevsky from the so-called “sad boy intellectual” stereotype. For years, the Russian novelist was the poster child of moody male philosophy students quoting The Grand Inquisitor at parties. Now, readers are reframing him through empathy rather than ego.
Dostoevsky’s novels, often misread as cynical, are deeply compassionate. They portray redemption through suffering and love through chaos; a combination that resonates in an age of burnout and emotional detachment.
TikTok discussions about The Idiot and White Nights often highlight Dostoevsky’s tenderness; his belief that beauty and kindness, however fragile, can still save the world. It’s not nihilism that attracts Gen Z, but hope disguised as despair.
5. A Timeless Therapist
Perhaps what truly makes Dostoevsky click with Gen Z is his uncanny understanding of mental health; long before psychology had a name for it. His characters display symptoms of anxiety, mania, depression, guilt, and dissociation.
For a generation fluent in therapy speak, Dostoevsky feels eerily relatable. His novels normalise suffering without romanticising it. They insist that despair is part of being human; but so is compassion.
And perhaps that’s the paradox Gen Z finds comforting: that one can feel broken and still be capable of moral beauty.
6. The Rebellion of Reading Slowly
There’s also something quietly radical about Gen Z choosing to read Dostoevsky at all. His books are long. His sentences are dense. His ideas unfold like philosophical arguments rather than plot twists.
To read Dostoevsky in 2025 is to rebel against the algorithm, to trade instant gratification for introspection. It’s an act of intellectual defiance, and Gen Z loves a good rebellion.
7. More Than a Meme: The Dostoevsky Renaissance
Of course, not everyone reading Dostoevsky on BookTok is analysing the duality of man. Some are just in it for the vibes; the candles, the melancholy playlists, the Russian winters aesthetic. But even that has cultural value.
The fact that a 19th-century Russian writer is trending among teenagers is extraordinary in itself. It shows that the classics are far from dead; they’ve just found a new platform.
BookTok, Reddit, and Instagram have become gateways to the canon. And while some may scoff at “aesthetic reading,” the truth is simple: it works. A generation once accused of being shallow is rediscovering one of the deepest thinkers in literary history.
8. So, Why Dostoevsky?
Because he gets it.
He understands what it’s like to overthink every moral choice, to crave love and loathe oneself simultaneously, to feel too much and nothing at all. His writing gives voice to inner chaos, and in doing so, offers catharsis.
In White Nights, the lonely narrator says, “My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man’s life?” That line, over 150 years old, now circulates on Instagram with soft piano music in the background, a reminder that joy, even fleeting, still matters.
Gen Z, for all its irony and digital detachment, is rediscovering sincerity. And Dostoevsky, once seen as the patron saint of gloom, has become their unlikely companion in that journey.
9. Final Thoughts: Dostoevsky for the Digital Age
Maybe Dostoevsky isn’t just “hot right now.” Maybe he’s always been hot; we just needed Wi-Fi to notice.
In an era obsessed with mental health, moral grey areas, and the meaning of authenticity, his voice feels startlingly modern. Dostoevsky doesn’t give answers, but he makes us ask better questions.
And perhaps that’s why Gen Z, a generation fluent in chaos yet hungry for depth, finds him irresistible. After all, what’s more rebellious than caring deeply, sincerely in a world that tells you not to?
Written by Apurva Khadye
Writer & professional overthinker Expect musings, rants, reviews & cold-tea crises. Book announcement coming soon. buymeacoffee.com/apurvakhadye
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《達斯妥也夫斯基和心理學》讀後
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** 下文於2023/01/08在本版發表，為《達斯妥也夫斯基和心理學》一文的「編者前言」。現在把它單獨發表並改置此欄；造成不便，尚請見諒。
坎垂爾先生大作中闡述：弗洛伊德、布瑞格、特拉斯三位學者就達斯妥也夫斯基個人經歷和他的作品與作品人物(刻畫)三者之間關係所做分析；並對三位學者的觀點做了比較研究。
在我看來，弗洛伊德觀點能夠說得通的條件是：至少以下兩個前提都得成立：
1) 多數大腦神經學家接受「伊底帕斯情結」是一個具有普遍性和物質基礎的意識。
2) 人在成長過程中無法擺脫或消除：嬰兒、幼童、或青春期等階段所形成的意識。
此處可參照文中特拉斯教授對達氏筆下人物的評論。
我不是科學家 也沒有受過相關領域的專業訓練；但我認為以上兩個命題在目前還無法通過波普的「反證」測試。
布瑞格教授雖然批評了弗洛伊德對達氏作品及其筆下人物的觀點，在最後兩節中，坎垂爾先生引用他的分析，認為「伊底帕斯情結」可以詮釋《卡拉馬佐夫兄弟們》的情節；它也反映達斯妥也夫斯基青年時代的意識和心路歷程。
原文雖然略長但平易清晰，喜歡心理學或達氏著作的朋友不妨一讀。我選擇性的表達以上意見；還請看官們指教。
參考書目和文章：
* 紀德．安德列 著，彭鏡禧 譯，《杜斯妥也夫斯基》，新潮文庫，台北 1990
* Bakhtin, M.M., Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, Ed. and trans.by Caryl Emerson, University of Minnesota Press., Minneapolis, MI, 1984
* Holquist, M., Dostoevsky and the Novel, Northwestern University Prress, Evanston IL, 1977
* Young, C., Dostoevsky at 200: An Idea of Evil, TheBulwark, 2021 (本欄開欄文)
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達斯妥也夫斯基和心理學 ---- Dan Cantrell
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** 下文於2023/01/08在本版發表；現改置此欄。造成不便，尚請見諒。原有的「編者前言」將改為獨立的短文發表(本欄下一篇)。
Dostoevsky and Psychology
Dan Cantrell (發表日期不詳)
"A sick man's dreams are often extraordinarily distinct and vivid and extremely life-like. A scene may be composed of the most unnatural and incongruous elements, but the setting and presentation are so plausible, the details so subtle, so unexpected, so artistically in harmony with the whole picture, that the dreamer could not invent them for himself in his waking state. . . " 1
Fyodor Dostoevsky's remarkable insight into the psychology of man is seen here in the development of Raskolnikov's dream on the beating of a horse by drunken peasants. The dream is significant on several planes, most notably in the parallel of events in the dream with Raskolnikov's plan to murder the old pawnbroker. It also serves as perhaps the most direct example of the inseparable tie between events of the author's life with the psychological evolution of his protagonists, as well as lesser characters, through the criminal minds of Raskolnikov, Rogozhin, Stavrogin, and Smerdyakov, and into the familial relationships of The Brother's Karamazov. 2
Traditional interpretation of literature from a psychoanalytic standpoint has relied extensively upon the work of Sigmund Freud. In the case of Dostoevsky, however, this method is both anachronistic and inadequate. Dostoevsky's great works, considered individually or holistically, though fictional, established him as one of the forefathers of psychoanalysis, and a predecessor to Freud. 3 Indeed Freud himself acknowledged that "the poets" discovered the unconscious before he did, 4 stating further in a letter to Stefan Zweig, "Dostoevsky 'cannot be understood without psychoanalysis - i.e., he isn't in need of it because he illustrates it himself in every character and every sentence.'" 5 There is, however, a complementary relationship between Dostoevsky and Freud brought about through the striking clinical accuracy of psychological traits exhibited both individually in Dostoevsky's characters, as well as in reflecting the author's own mental processes. Thus, it is necessary first to examine Freud as a point of departure before looking at modern alternatives of psychoanalytical method.
Freud on the Oedipus complex
Epileptic seizures plagued Dostoevsky throughout the last thirty-four years of his life, occurring about once a month on average, and consisting of "A brief, intensely exalted, premonitory sensation, loss of consciousness, convulsions, and a lingering depression with vague feelings of criminal guilt for three to eight days." 6 Freud delves into the psychological roots of this illness in his essay "Dostoevsky and Parricide", calling into question Dostoevsky's "alleged epilepsy". "It is highly probable", he states, "that this so-called epilepsy was only a symptom of his neurosis and must accordingly be classified as hystero-epilepsy - that is, as severe hysteria." 7 Dostoevsky's "hystero-epilepsy", Freud believed, occurred throughout his early life, but did not take the form of violent attacks until after the death of his father. Evidence of mild trances which occurred regularly throughout his childhood in the years preceding his first epileptic attacks, indicated to Freud the beginnings of an Oedipus complex in Dostoevsky. "Dostoevsky would fall into a 'death-like' sleep", about which Freud states,
"signify(ies) an identification with a dead person, either someone who is really dead, or with someone who is still alive and whom the subject wishes dead. . . For a boy, this other person is usually his father and that the attack (which is termed hysterical) is thus a self-punishment for a death wish against a hated father." 8
Based on this method of clinical psychology, the boy essentially regards his father as a rival for the love of his mother. Additionally, he seeks to achieve the status of his father because he respects and admires him; but it is the primal fear of castration, punishment by the loss of masculinity, which prevents the boy from removing his father. 9 There are, however, in Dostoevsky, indications of sexual ambivalence, which Freud refers to as,
"(Latent homosexuality) in the important part played by male friendships in his life, in his strangely tender attitude towards rivals in love and in his remarkable understanding of situations which are explicable only by repressed homosexuality, as many examples from his novels show." 10
Thus, his condition becomes more complex. Equivalent feelings of rivalry occur in the boy's mind towards his mother, competing for the love of his father. Again, ultimately castration is necessary to gain the femininity that will achieve him the love of his father, but again, the boy cannot relinquish his masculinity.11 (rivalry 指「戀母情結」；competing for 在此指跟兄弟姐妹間的競爭，不是指跟母親間的競爭。)
Indeed we find throughout the text of Dostoevsky's major works, language and gestures which are inherently suggestive of heterosexual, homosexual, and even incestuous tendencies in the author. Heterosexuality in Dostoevsky is rather overt, given that each of his protagonists at one point, or throughout has romantic inclinations towards a female figure: the Underground Man in his youth with prostitutes, Raskolnikov with Sonya, Prince Myshkin with Aglaya and Nastasya, Stavrogin in his countless sexual conquests, and in the seemingly boundless love network between women and the brothers Karamazov. Examples of homosexuality in Dostoevsky's novels arise with more subtlety. The final embrace of Prince Myshkin and Rogozhin beside the dead body of Nastasya, in which Myshkin's tears flow down Rogozhin's face, invariably connotes "the culmination of the homosexual fantasy", 12 as well as reiterates a degree of the bisexual Oedipus complex with the dead figure of Nastasya. 13 In Devils, we again see the "tenderness" of Dostoevsky's language, to which Freud referred, in the early relationship between Stepan and Stavrogin:
"Stepan Trofimovich had succeeded in touching his young friend's deepest heartstrings and evoking in him an initial intimation, as yet undefined, of that eternal, sacred yearning which some chosen souls, once they've tasted and known it, never ever exchange for any cheap pleasure. (There are some devotees who value the yearning even more than the most radical satisfaction of it, if such a thing were to be believed.) In any case, it was a good thing the tutor and his fledgling were separated and dispatched in different directions, even though it came a bit late." 14
It is important to note here, that Freud somewhat contradicts himself in looking to the texts for examples that support his contention for an Oedipus complex within Dostoevsky. Given that many personality traits of his characters fall into the category (and perhaps contributed to the foundation, as evidence suggests) of Freudian psychology, Dostoevsky strove to, and succeeded in developing characters whose psychology defies the clinical mold. 15 One leg of Freud's argument stands on the inseparability of elements between Dostoevsky's life and his novels; and it is difficult to contest given the circumstances of Dostoevsky's life which so readily manifested themselves in the fabric of his work, and appear consistent with an Oedipus complex. Clearly Dostoevsky's early family life laid the foundation for such interpretations. His father was an authoritative figure, whose position Fyodor both respected and admired, yet he harbored intense hatred, and even a degree of guilt for his father's harsh treatment of his mother.16 Louis Breger likens the Dostoevsky family situation to that of an image instilled on Fyodor in his adolescence - the beating of a carriage driver by a courier, who intern whipped his lead horse. Forty years later, Dostoevsky writes of this experience in his notebooks,
"Here there was method and not mere irritation - something preconceived and tested by long years of experience - and the dreadful fist soared again and again and struck blows on the back of the head. . . [The driver who] could hardly keep his balance, incessantly, every second, like a madman, lashed the horses. . . This disgusting scene has remained in my memory all my life. . . This little scene appeared to me, so to speak, as an emblem, as something which very graphically demonstrated the link between cause and effect. Here every blow dealt at the animal leaped out of the blow dealt at the man." 17
Like the horse and courier, Breger states, "[The] father, feeling insecure and oppressed from above, passed down his pain and outrage to his wife, the servants, and the children. Fedya, recipient of his father's criticism and coercive control, no doubt felt like passing his hurt down the line to the siblings beneath him." 18 This image of the beating of the horse unquestionably finds its way into the text of Crime and Punishment as Raskolnikov's dream, foreshadowing the murder of the pawnbroker; again reinstating a parallel of events in accordance with Freud.
The role of dream in Dostoevsky's novels, for the most part, cannot be considered independently of his theological mission, as in "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", and others, such as the dreams of Alyosha and Dmitri. In Crime and Punishment, however, Svidrigaylov's final dream reiterates yet another source of internal conflict which Breger believes existed within the author himself. "The theme of the abuse of young children", he states, "and specifically the sexual abuse of young girls, had a strong grip on Dostoevsky's imagination." 19 The image of raping a young girl, as in Svidrigaylov's dream, arises again through "Stavrogin's confession" in Devils. Breger goes further to suggest, "Dostoevsky was drawn to it with fascination and horror, it represented the ultimate crime and source of guilt. [T]his was because it symbolized the most powerful source of rage and guilt in his own life: the wish to attack his own mother and the children who were rivals for her love." 20 If this is the case, and indeed Freud would agree, other examples in the text appear which, though speculative, contribute to further psychological connections between the author and his characters. Raskolnikov's rage towards Luzhin arises primarily through jealousy, indicating sexual tension between he and Dunya, and perhaps incestuous feelings within the author in his adolescence. 21 Additionally, Stavrogin is ultimately responsible for the death of a young girl who, prior to her hanging, "kept brandishing her little fists at [him] menacingly and shaking her head in reproach." 22 "One wonders", Breger states, "if this repeated image (also seen in The Eternal Husband) does not come from Dostoevsky's own sexual/angry games with a young sister?" 23
At the core of Freud's essay "Dostoevsky and Parricide" lies The Brothers Karamazov. If nowhere else in his other works, this novel provides the most compelling evidence outside his biography of the author's own struggle with his father and with epilepsy. Ironically, despite its overt, and seemingly direct accordance with the Oedipus complex, it is at this point where departure from Freud is necessary to further understand the complex psychology behind Dostoevsky and his characters.
Shortcomings of Freud: Breger's View
As aforementioned, one leg of Freud's argument rests on the idea that elements of Dostoevsky's life are inseparable from his works. The other rests upon a medical assumption by Freud, that his seizures were not epileptic, but rather "hysterical", driven by neurotic impulses which stemmed from an Oedipus complex, unresolved by natural means. Breger states,
"Hysterical epilepsy" is a recognizable entity today; it appears in patients who mimic, or act out, seizures, almost always before an audience. It is clear that Dostoevsky did not have this particular condition; his seizures mainly occurred during sleep when he was alone. What is more, he suffered physical injury from them, something that does not occur in hysterical epilepsy." 24 (指出弗洛伊德「誤診」了達氏的癲癇症。)
It is believed that Dostoevsky suffered from temporal-lobe epilepsy, the most common form of the disease. 25 Another obvious shortcoming of Freud's analysis, as previously mentioned, lies in his attempt to cite specific traits of Dostoevsky's characters as rooted wholly within the psyche of the author. Indeed, despite some unquestionable parallels, his characters appear infinitely more complex than Freud's stock, clinical psychological portraits. Victor Terras elucidates one of the fundamental differences between Dostoevsky and other nineteenth-century novelists in the psychological development of his characters:
"They are developed centrifugally rather than centripitally. As the novel progresses, the reader keeps discovering new character traits in a Dostoevskian hero, and some of these will come quite unexpected. As a result the character in question keeps growing fuller, more complex, and more intriguing. . . . Dostoevsky himself did not believe in psychological determinism and insisted on the double-edged nature of all psychological analysis." 26 (指出達氏筆下人物性格在小說中是開放、變化、複雜、和耐人尋味的，而不是固定或一成不變的。達氏本人並不相信「心理決定論」，他認為心理分析可以得到針鋒相對的兩種結論。)
Indeed, this theme is consistently apparent throughout Dostoevsky's novels, in Raskolnikov's self-discourse prior to his confession of the murder, "everything cuts both ways", through to the moral, philosophical, and religious debates in The Brothers Karamazov - "moral perfectibility may be a two-edged weapon" 27, and in Father Iosif's words regarding Ivan's article, "He brings forward much that is new, but I think the argument cuts both ways," 28 and concluding with Dmitri's trial in the argument of the defense, "But profound as psychology is, it's a knife that cut's both ways." 29 Clearly, Dostoevsky seeks not only to express here the old cliché, "two sides to every story", but to reiterate the pluralistic nature of psychology, as well as moral philosophy and theology, which in his characters, cannot be considered independent of psychology.
Louis Breger seems to present the most comprehensive and adequate approach to psychology in Dostoevsky. While building upon Freud, he rejects the simplicity and atomistic nature of his analysis: "Too often, applications to literature have relied on particular psychoanalytic observations - the Oedipus complex, the primal scene, - or some version of theory - orthodox Freudian, Lacanian. But observations and theory can only be guidelines in the application of the method." 30 (此之謂：「活學活用」或「盡信書不如無書」)
Breger argues here, that Freudian methods of analysis tend to think of the author as patient, and believes rather, in the case of Dostoevsky, that he should be considered a fellow psychoanalyst. "What is most characteristic in [Dostoevsky] is the presence of multiple points of view; he is never, as an author, completely identified with one character." 31 (此處請見「參考書目」)
With this, we turn back to The Brothers Karamazov, which, more so than any of his great works, presents the author's multiple viewpoints openly and readily tangible in the brothers, father Karamazov, and the epileptic, Smerdyakov. It is impossible here, nor is it Breger's point, to reject the Oedipus complex as it is so completely manifested within Dostoevsky and his characters. However, a more complete picture is given through individual analysis of Dostoevsky's association with these characters. From a psychological standpoint, the figures of Ivan and Dmitri are more significant than Alyosha. Both harbored the desire to kill their father, Fyodor Karamazov, who, as Breger states, "displays much of the impulse-ridden side of Dr. Dostoevsky." 32 Additionally, there appears to be a direct correlation between the real and fictitious fathers' handling of money, and it is the figure of Dmitri who embodies Dostoevsky's correspondence with his father- full of hatred, with an innate desire to kill him, but with a constant need for money which the father refused to appease. Ivan's reaction to the death of his father is ambivalent, and indeed illustrates what conflicting emotions were present in Dostoevsky with the death of his father. "It is certain that his death", Breger states, "produced a duel effect on Fyodor. On the one side, he must have felt glad: finally justice was done, revenge taken, on the tyrant who had oppressed him. . . On the other side, he must have felt guilty over the actualization of his own murderous wishes." 33 Yet it is Smerdyakov, the epileptic, who murders the father. There is a question as to whether Smerdyakov was actually Fyodor Karamazov's son, thus it is ambiguous to find this as fulfillment of the Oedipus complex. Rather, it is the meaning of this disease which Dostoevsky struggled with his entire life, and addresses here through Smerdyakov's ability to fake an attack in plotting and carrying out the murder. Breger states, "By showing how Smerdyakov uses his disease for manipulative and selfish ends, Dostoevsky confronts the same tendency in himself." 34 (real father 指達氏的父親。)
As his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov serves to complete the evolution of Dostoevsky's psychological battles, on a more refined, mature, and wholly paternal level.35 It is impossible to neglect the unarguable Freudian themes within his characters, nor is it possible to consider these characters in isolation from events of the author's life. However, Dostoevsky clearly exhibits unconscious insight into the human mind, and thus must be considered at par, if not above the canon of psychology.
Notes：
1 Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. V, Coulson Translation, 1964.
2 Breger, p. 1
3 Id., p.238
4 id., p.5
5 Rice, p.5
6 Id., p. 185
7 Freud, p. 179
8 Id., P. 183
9 Id.
10 Id., p. 184
11 Id., p. 184-85
12 Dalton, P. 180
13 Id.
14 Dostoevsky, Devils, Part I, Chapter 2, Katz translation, 1992.
15 Terras, p. 29
16 Breger, p. 74
17 Id., p. 2
18 Id., p. 74
19 Id., p. 79
20 Id.
21 Breger, p. 80
22 Dostoevsky, Devils, "At Tikhon's", Katz translation, 1992.
23 Breger, p. 80
24 Breger, p. 241
25 Id.
26 Terras, p. 28, 29
27 Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Book I, Chapter V, Garnet translation, 1976.
28 Id., Book II, Chapter V
29 Id., Book XII, Chapter X
30 Breger, p. 6
31 Id., p. 7,8
32 Id., p. 88
33 Id.
34 Id., p. 251
35 Id.
Bibliography：
* Breger, Louis, Dostoevsky: The Author as Psychoanalyst, New York University Press, 1989.
* Dalton, Elizabeth, Unconscious Structure in The Idiot: A Study in Literature and Psychoanalysis, Princeton University Press, 1979.
* Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Devils, "At Tikhon's", Katz translation, Oxford University Press, 1992.
* Dostoevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov, Garnet translation, revised by Ralph E. Matlaw, W.W. Norton & Company, 1976.
* Rice, James L., Freud's Russia: National Identity in the Evolution of Psychoanalysis, Transaction Publishers, 1993.
* Strachey, James, translator, The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. XXI (1927-31), The Hogarth Press, 1973.
* Terras, Victor, F. M. Dostoevsky: Life, Work, and Criticism, York Press, 1984.
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