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aglaya ivanovna yepanchina analysis

aglaya is by nature sly and haughty, but if we look at it from a better angle, she actually has a point. the prince is a christlike figure with infinite kindness and forgiveness. as the title of the novel suggests, he is taken for an idiot because his kindness and forgiveness have a huge weakness: naivety. such figures are very rare, so everybody suspects he is lying and is not as genuine as he seems. however, aglaya decides to catch the prince in a trap by constantly changing her moods and saying mean things to him. her cat and mouse game lasts longer than she expected, and she is deeply moved by the prince’s purity. gradually, her bewilderment transforms into love, and she eventually stops being cruel, though unfortunately, it is too late by the end of the book.
​her mother is worried that she will fall in love with the prince and she constantly warns him that he is not going to marry her daughter. it is a big question why she hates this idea in the beginning, but no one really believes he is a kind, pure angel rather than a scammer seeking a bride. on the other hand, aglaya is not stupid, so she does what i described above. her mother does not want to let her daughter marry a scoundrel, but as she understands aglaya’s little games, she finally chills down.
​nastasya becomes a big threat for aglaya again. she cannot bear her letters or her situation with the prince. it is common knowledge that the prince and nastasya were living together at one point, and that he might love her. because aglaya was completely fascinated by the prince’s honesty and innocence, she fell in love with him. however, because he had this situation with another woman, she had to get rid of her the best way she could think of. aglaya goes as far as to directly state her love for the prince, which determines nastasya to do the same.
​aglaya stops talking to the prince after this confrontation because he grows closer to nastasya. aglaya was utterly envious when the prince saved nastasya when she fainted. this is the biggest contradiction in the book in my opinion: if she fell in love with a deeply honest, genuine, innocent, forgiving, and kind man, why did she not expect him to be kind to nastasya too? it would have been suspicious if a kind, christlike man had not done so. however, because she was envious, she distanced herself from him. besides, nastasya caught the prince under her spell again in her desperate urge to get rid of rogozhin, even though in his soul he also loved aglaya.
​this soirée happens before the confrontation. aglaya tells the prince to avoid lizaveta’s chinese vase so he does not break it, as such a naive figure is expected to do. besides, aglaya is afraid the prince might touch upon slippery topics and then the guests might not quite comprehend him and take him for an eccentric. consequently, her fear that the prince might be taken for a peculiar man grew because she wanted to marry him, and if everybody knew what a strange person she was marrying, it would have been a shame. unfortunately, this marriage never took place.
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