The Lady of the Camellias and Madame Bovary in Dostoevsky’s Novel The Idiot

Abstract

The article analyzes the place and role of two novels, The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils (1848) and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856), in Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot (1868). It demonstrates how Dostoevsky introduces Dumas’ text in order to reflect on the falseness and destructiveness for the spirit of man of its key idea, which is the parallel between the compassion for fallen women that Dumas seeks to call for through the novel and the salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ. Besides, the article pays attention to the fact that Dumas considers the rehabilitation of such women, meaning the restoration of their social rights through marriage, the highest expression of humanity. It is shown that Dostoevsky, in his novel, reveals on a symbolic level that marriage in its earthly secularized form does not lead to spiritual restoration, as Dumas suggested, nor does it give real happiness. The article also analyzes the main ideas of Flaubert’s novel. It is argued that Dostoevsky specifically introduces Madame Bovary into his novel because it reveals the catastrophic situation of a corrupt world that has lost touch with God precisely through the image of marriage as a trap into which people fall because of deception. They seek in it a higher relationship; however, not obtaining it, they are devoured by their own lust and passions, which take hold in the absence of a connection with another level of being.

Keywords

• dostoevsky
• the idiot
• alexandre dumas fils
• the lady of the camellias
• gustave flaubert
• madame bovary
• marriage
• rehabilitation