As copied and pasted from Dennis Abram's ProjectD blog for this section:
“Starting as the personal foible of a few foolish people, the corruption becomes a demoralization in the most literal sense. Dostoevsky introduces a whole series of incidents to illustrate it, ranging from a breakdown of standards of personal conduct and social propriety to disrespect for the dead and the desecration of a sacred icon. Just as with his general influence on society as a whole, the result of his pressure on the quintet is a collapse of their own moral-political standards and the approval of a wanton murder. There is a clear structural parallel between Stavrogin’s round of visits in the first half of this section and Pyotr’s calls in the second half on all the pawns he is engaged in maneuvering. Dostoevsky intended to bring these parallel sequences together by the two chapters of self-revelation that would conclude Part II: Verkhovensky’s mad hymn to universal destruction, inspired by Stavrogin, and then a disclosure of the moral bankruptcy and despair of Verkhovensky’s ‘idol’ as he makes his confession to Tikhon.
From his first appearance in the novel, Pyotr Verkhovensky is depicted as the genius of duplicity. He is Stavrogin’s demonism incarnated as a political will-to-power. ‘I invented you abroad,’ he cries furiously to Stavrogin. ‘I invented it all, looking at you. If I hadn’t watched you from my corner, nothing of alal this would have entered my head.’ What Pyotr has invented, under the spell of Stavrogin, is the plan to consecrate him as Ivan the Tsarevich — to use the very force he wishes to destroy, the faith of the Russian people in a just and righteous God-anointed ruler, as a means for their own destruction. This mask is ‘beautiful,’ as Pyotr exclaims ecstatically while gazing at Stavrogin, but, as already noted, it is the beauty of the demonic. ‘You are my idol!’ Pyotr passionately proclaims to Stavrogin. Pyotr’s plan, however, implicitly contains its own negation, for it reveals the impotence of his godless and amoral principles to establish any basis for human life. Falsehood and idolatry must speak deceptively in the name of truth and God, thus confessing their own bankruptcy.”
I personally have gone back and forth about whether to read the section in the appendix recounting Stavrogin's confession next, since it was what Dostoevsky originally wrote to follow this chapter. However, I read that after the editor refused to publish it as part of the serial, Dostoevsky thought of revising it for the first publication of the novel but decided not to include it after all. However, Frank makes it clear here that there was a purpose to placing the confession where it was originally.
“Starting as the personal foible of a few foolish people, the corruption becomes a demoralization in the most literal sense. Dostoevsky introduces a whole series of incidents to illustrate it, ranging from a breakdown of standards of personal conduct and social propriety to disrespect for the dead and the desecration of a sacred icon. Just as with his general influence on society as a whole, the result of his pressure on the quintet is a collapse of their own moral-political standards and the approval of a wanton murder. There is a clear structural parallel between Stavrogin’s round of visits in the first half of this section and Pyotr’s calls in the second half on all the pawns he is engaged in maneuvering. Dostoevsky intended to bring these parallel sequences together by the two chapters of self-revelation that would conclude Part II: Verkhovensky’s mad hymn to universal destruction, inspired by Stavrogin, and then a disclosure of the moral bankruptcy and despair of Verkhovensky’s ‘idol’ as he makes his confession to Tikhon.
From his first appearance in the novel, Pyotr Verkhovensky is depicted as the genius of duplicity. He is Stavrogin’s demonism incarnated as a political will-to-power. ‘I invented you abroad,’ he cries furiously to Stavrogin. ‘I invented it all, looking at you. If I hadn’t watched you from my corner, nothing of alal this would have entered my head.’ What Pyotr has invented, under the spell of Stavrogin, is the plan to consecrate him as Ivan the Tsarevich — to use the very force he wishes to destroy, the faith of the Russian people in a just and righteous God-anointed ruler, as a means for their own destruction. This mask is ‘beautiful,’ as Pyotr exclaims ecstatically while gazing at Stavrogin, but, as already noted, it is the beauty of the demonic. ‘You are my idol!’ Pyotr passionately proclaims to Stavrogin. Pyotr’s plan, however, implicitly contains its own negation, for it reveals the impotence of his godless and amoral principles to establish any basis for human life. Falsehood and idolatry must speak deceptively in the name of truth and God, thus confessing their own bankruptcy.”
https://projectdblog.wordpress.com/20...
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I personally have gone back and forth about whether to read the section in the appendix recounting Stavrogin's confession next, since it was what Dostoevsky originally wrote to follow this chapter. However, I read that after the editor refused to publish it as part of the serial, Dostoevsky thought of revising it for the first publication of the novel but decided not to include it after all.
However, Frank makes it clear here that there was a purpose to placing the confession where it was originally.