Loving villains

virtue in response to wrongdoing

Kamila Pacovská

pp. 125-139

in: Christian Maurer, Tony Milligan, Kamila Pacovská (eds), Love and its objects, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

It is an interesting fact about Dostoevsky's novels that the most villainous characters are loved only by the most saintly ones. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, who brutally murdered two old women, confesses his crime to Sonia, who is deeply shocked but swears to follow him to jail. To quote another example, father Karamazov seems to represent a character without any redeeming quality in the novel The Brothers Karamazov. He is a completely selfish person who indulges in the most base pleasures and who never did good to anyone. There is only one person who is able to show any affection for him, and that is his youngest son Alyosha, who contemplates joining the monastery. Both Sonia and Alyosha are depicted as saintly characters, and this saintliness is revealed in their ability to love unconditionally, yet without any blindness.