Dostoevsky and Psychology :: Biography Biographies Essays

Dostoevsky and PsychologyA sick bits dreams are ofttimes extraordinarily distinct and vivid and extremely life-like. A scene may be composed of the most unnatural and incongruous elements, but the view and presentation are so plausible, the details so subtle, so unexpected, so artistically in harmony with the whole picture, that the dreamer could not make up them for himself in his waking state. . . 1Fyodor Dostoevskys remarkable insight into the psychology of man is seen here in the development of Raskolnikovs dream on the beating of a horse by drunken peasants. The dream is significant on several(prenominal) syllabuses, most notably in the parallel of events in the dream with Raskolnikovs plan to murder the old pawnbroker. It also serves as perhaps the most fill example of the inseparable tie between events of the authors life with the psychological growth of his protagonists, as well as lesser characters, through the criminal minds of Raskolnikov, Rogozhin, Stavrogin, and S merdyakov, and into the familial relationships of The Brothers 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. Dostoevskys neat works, considered each 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 isnt in need of it because he illustrates it himself in either character and every sentence.5 There is, however, a complementary relationship between Dostoevsky and Freud brought intimately through the striking clinical accuracy of psychological traits exhibited both individually in Dostoevskys characters, as well as in reflecting the authors own amiable processes. Thus, it is necessary first to examine Freud as a point of sack before looking at modern alternatives of psychoanalytical method.Freud on the Oedipus obscureEpileptic 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, redness of consciousness, convulsions, and a lingering depression with vague feelings of criminal guilt for 3 to eight days.6 Freud delves into the psychological roots of this illness in his bear witness Dostoevsky and Parricide, calling into question Dostoevskys alleged epilepsy. It is highly probable, he states, that this alleged(prenominal) epilepsy was only a symptom of his neurosis and must accordingly be classified as hystero-epilepsy- that is, as severe hysteria.