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Masculine Degeneration

To those of you familiar with my account already, I read a lot of academic papers about Dostoevsky's books. It’s my way of “looking back” on the story that I’ve read, and it allows me to gain a deeper understanding of the themes and other elements discussed in a particular book. I do this a lot with Demons, because… it’s just the gift that keeps on giving. 

Let’s start with the idea of “masculine degeneration”. This came from Dostoevsky’s exploration of the “torn and dead souls” of both the liberal fathers of the 1840s and their nihilist sons. I won’t dive into this specific topic too deeply because it warrants a separate post for itself (if any of you want me to talk about that, do let me know, I’ve opened my inbox again), but for this post’s sake, let us focus on the liberal fathers and their version of masculine degeneration. Dostoevsky derides their “hysterical, effeminate, and ineffectual” characteristics—though he is harsher on the nihilists in the book—through Stepan Verkhovensky and Karmazinov, but more so through the former, when taking into consideration his “valorization of art and beauty, self-sacrifice in love, and a chivalric respect for women” (Doak). Stepan is servile when it comes to Varvara Petrovna. He somewhat likens himself, too, to a young woman being married off when Varvara plotted to have him cover up for Nikolai’s relationship with Dasha by way of marrying her ward. In his essay, Doak noted that Stepan used “выдать кого-нибудь (замуж)” (“to marry somebody off”), a verb normally used for women, to denote his own participation in this effeminate role. 

Mavriky Nikolaevich: Lizaveta’s Ersatz Kukolnik

Chapters in Focus: The Lame Girl and The Wise Serpent

Now that we have a baseline understanding of masculine degeneration, let’s apply this principle onto Mavriky Nikolaevich. I’d like to start by saying that it’s hard to talk about Mavriky Nikolaevich without talking about Liza, because some of what she does reflects back onto the “flesh” of his character. He’s not entirely exempt from these “degenerate” men, i.e. Stepan Trofimovich, Governor von Lembke, and even Virginsky, who are manipulated/subjugated/undermined by the women in their lives. Liza has some power over Mavriky. I think we see this best in the events that occurred in Semyon Yakovlevich’s home, the town’s local holy fool, where she made Mavriky kneel down, only to frantically order him to rise when he did obey her command. (I’ve only made a thread about this on Twitter, but I will make a post on it here as well just so things are cohesive.)

Let’s examine the drawing room scene, particularly after Nikolai escorted Marya Timofeyevna out of the room, as she had tripped on her shorter leg. We start with Pyotr’s short recollection of the train ride; the last few carriages had “come off the rails” and he said that they “nearly broke [their]  legs”. Upon hearing this, Liza pipes up, saying that she and her mother, Praskovya, had plans of going to Matveyevo last week and that they “could have broken [their] legs too”. She goes on to suggest to Mavriky that having a hypothetical broken leg would make her a “more interesting person” and would be a “stroke of good fortune”. Mavriky is understandably unnerved by these statements, and asks her why she thinks so. Liza doesn’t seem to mind that he’s not buying her enthusiasm to be incapacitated. She goes on to say that she wants him and no one else to carry her around and that would make them a fine couple. 

With that in mind, I’d like you to recall what just transpired before this conversation. Nikolai was doing just that to Marya Timofeyevna, a woman with a bad leg, and though she said nothing, Liza reacted negatively to this scene before her. We go back to her conversation with Mavriky. I think Liza’s sudden desire to become more “interesting” (Martinsen) by literally breaking a leg is an attempt to build a fantasy where her relationship with Mavriky is parallel to that of Marya Timofeyevna and Nikolai. In her eyes, being physically disadvantaged is a step closer to achieving a near identical copy of her ideal reality, where she is the one being helped by Nikolai instead; where he is attending to her in the way that she saw him do to Marya Timofeyevna in front of everyone in that room.

Liza and Nikolai have some similarities in their “spiritual sickliness”, but ultimately this does nothing for their relationship. Liza is not on the same level of Varvara’s ability to exert control over men, at least when it comes to Nikolai (he is a nihilist “son”), and she knows this; she’s painfully aware that it’s hard to triumph over Nikolai’s hold on her, so instead, she displaces this need for control onto Mavriky, a man who’s more willing to go along with her whims. I do believe that Mavriky’s “compliant” characteristic isn’t entirely because he’s servile like Stepan — the narrator does note that he has some sort of discreet kindness, so that plays a part, too, in his willingness to “obey” Liza — but for the sake of the argument, Mavriky is, when compared to Nikolai, an “easier” man to manipulate, perfect for someone who’s trying to simulate what it’s like to hold down a man as diabolical as Nikolai. 

I interpret Liza’s goal of turning Mavriky into a “placeholder” for Nikolai as being similar to Varvara dressing Stepan to be more like her favorite Kukolnik portrait. Liza wants her own Kukolnik, too, and by proxy, Mavriky is her Kukolnik, because she knows that she is unable to apply that treatment unto Nikolai.

References:

Doak, Connor. “Masculine degenerationinDostoevsky’sDemons.” Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2015, pp. 107–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139683449.007.