Demons

Questions

The most common questions about Demons, answered from the book.

What is the summary of Demons?Demons tells how, in a small Russian provincial town, a small and badly organized revolutionary group, led by Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky,...
What does Demons, by Dostoevsky, say?Demons is about how respectable, well-meaning people, without realizing it, open the way for a small group of fanatics. The book does not ask whether...
Why is the book called Demons (and The Possessed)?Because the Russian title, Бесы, means "demons," and the book takes as its epigraph the passage from the Gospel of Luke in which demons come out of a...
What does the epigraph of Demons, the one about the pigs, mean?The epigraph is the passage from Luke 8:32-36: on a hillside a large herd of pigs was grazing; the demons that had come out of a man entered them,...
Who is Stavrogin in Demons?Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin is the only son of Varvara Petrovna, the richest woman in town, and the center of Demons: everyone wants him as a...
Who is Pyotr Stepanovich in Demons?Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky is the conspirator of the novel, son of Stepan Trofimovich, and the only one of the principal characters who believes...
Who is Kirillov in Demons, and why does he want to kill himself?Kirillov is the twenty-seven-year-old engineer who decides to kill himself to prove that he is God. The idea, which he received from Stavrogin and...
Who is Shatov in Demons, and what is the people who carry God?Shatov is Stavrogin's disciple who believes that only the Russian people is the people that carries God. He was born a serf of Varvara Petrovna, was...
Who is Stepan Trofimovich in Demons?Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky is the idealistic liberal of the 1840s who opens the book, and whose genealogy the book traces: supported for twenty...
What is "With Tikhon" in Demons, and why was it suppressed?"With Tikhon" is the chapter in which Stavrogin takes to a retired bishop, in a monastery in town, the written confession of a crime he committed in...
Is Demons based on real events? What was the Nechaev case?In part: the starting point of Demons is a real crime, the murder of the student Ivan Ivanov in Moscow, on November 21, 1869, by a secret...
What is Shigalyovism in Demons?Shigalyovism is the social system of Shigalyov, the man with the long ears in the quintet, which starts from unlimited freedom and arrives at...
How does Demons end?Demons ends in four fates: Shatov and Kirillov die the same night, Stepan Trofimovich dies on the road, Stavrogin is found hanged in the attic, and...
Is Demons a good book to start reading Dostoevsky?It is not the easiest starting point. Demons is long, about 880 pages in a standard edition, with many characters bearing Russian names and...
How many pages does Demons have?Demons runs to about 880 pages in a standard edition, divided into three parts and 23 numbered chapters, plus the chapter "With Tikhon." The number...
What is the main theme of Demons?The main theme of Demons is how a respectable, well-meaning society, without realizing it, opens the way for a revolution made by people without...
Where and when does Demons take place?Demons takes place in a Russian provincial town, which the chronicler does not name, in the late 1860s, over a few weeks beginning on a Sunday in...
Who narrates Demons?Demons is narrated by a chronicler, a resident of the town who is a friend and confidant of Stepan Trofimovich, who writes after the disaster and...