598
PARTISAN REVIEW
leaving the narrative energy of the novel depleted and fo r a time
directionl ess, until a new wave of tension begin s to accumul ate. This
spasmodi c rh ythm produces seri ous structural fl aws, gaps and incon–
sistences in the narra tive sequ ence that threa ten the integrit y of the
entire conception. The first and most obvious brea k of thi s kind occurs
after Nastasya's birthday party, whi ch ends Part I; the openin g o f Part
II is almost like the beginning of a new novel. The next ep isode is
Myshkin 's long day in Petersburg, ending in the climactic scene on the
staircase when Rogozhin tri es to murder him and Myshkin fall s in the
seizure. Again, after this scene, th ere is a sort of brea k in the na rra tive,
and then a new action begins. The narra tive conn ecti on from one
climactic scene to the next is ra ther tenuous.
T-he Idio t
does no t have
the ti ghtl y integra ted plot of
Crime and Punishment
o r
Th e Brothers
Karamazov,
with their relentl ess fo rwa rd mo tion and evenl y calibra ted
tension , nor the compl ex intri gue of
The Possessed.
Its dramat ic scenes
are no t strongly connected by the thread of continuo us narra tive. Each
scene, instead of being genera ted by the preceding one, seems to
origina te directl y in some explosive emotional experi en ce a t the center
of the novel.
Myshkin's epil epsy appears to be so much a conditi on of the soul
that one almost forgets its connecti on with the body. Medically,
ep ilepsy rema ins a compl ex and littl e unders tood di sorder-a confi gu–
ration of symptoms ra ther than a singl e clini cal entity. The symptoms
may come from a number of quite different sources. including a
phys io logical altera tion of the central nervo us sys tem such as a les ion
or chemi cal imbalance, a psycho logica l cause such as a trauma ti c
incident or hysteri a, or some combin ation of phys ical and psychologi–
cal elements. Th e data on Dos toevsky's illn ess a re ha rd to decipher.
However, even if hi s ep il epsy was based on an o rgani c predisposition,
as seems likely, the di sease certa inl y assumed a psychological mean ing
for him in the contex t of hi s experi ence and personality, as it must for
anyone who suffers from such a conditi on . Indeed, Dostoevsky himself
seemed always to conceive of hi s illness primaril y as a psychological
and spiritu al phenomenon.
Freud argues th at Dostoevsky's ep il epsy was probably "affective"
and h ys terical in ch aracter. The ep il ep ti c reaction , whatever its organi c
bas is, was ava ilabl e for th e express ion o f hi s neu ros is; thus the
psychological fun cti on of the se izure was to get rid, by soma ti c means,
of masses of stimu li that could no t be dea lt with psychi ca ll y. From
informa tion about Dostoevs ky's life and persona lity, Freud concludes
that in him the Oedipus compl ex LOok a particular turn tha t led to the
"nega tive" resoluti on , in whi ch the boy abandons hi s identifi cation
