The Idiot Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory

Um, this might be a little obvious, but have you seen this painting that they keep talking about in the novel? It's a real thing, so click on the link. Go ahead, we'll hang out and wait for you. No...

Since Dostoevsky name-drops Don Quixote as one of the inspirations for Myshkin (check out the "In a Nutshell" section for his letter to his niece) it's not such a big shock that we get a reference...

The Homeless Swiss GirlWe can kind of save ourselves the trouble of reading the rest of the book after Myshkin tells the Epanchins the story of Marie, the homeless girl that he falls in pity-love w...

The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov has a famous rule about how objects are used in literature: "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fire...