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The Idiot
Returning to 19th-century St. Petersburg after years of epilepsy treatment in Switzerland, the penniless, naive Prince Myshkin seeks refuge with distant relatives. Almost immediately, he is drawn into a tangled web of passion, greed, and moral decay centered on the fiery, self-destructive Nastasya Filippovna—coveted by the obsessive millionaire Parfyon Rogozhin and the social-climbing Ganya Ivolgin. As Myshkin navigates high society’s hypocrisies, he falls for the sharp-witted, privileged Aglaya Yepanchina, sparking a devastating love triangle. His unique perspective, shaped by illness and innocence, exposes the dark underbelly of the era’s elite, but his inability to resolve conflicting demands of love and compassion leads to tragedy: Nastasya’s murder by Rogozhin, Aglaya’s ruinous marriage, and Myshkin’s descent back into mental illness. Dostoevsky’s masterpiece explores goodness’s fragility in a world corrupted by greed and cruelty.
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