many of his characters are based on facets of his own personality. The main characters in The Brothers Karamazov, for example, are based on facets of Dostoyevsky’s own personality: Dmitri is a losing gambler (like Dostoyevsky), Ivan a journalist tormented by religious doubts (like Dostoyevsky), Smerdyakov an epileptic (like Dostoyevsky), etc.(11) Many of Dostoyevsky’s characters possess the sadistic and masochistic tendencies that Dostoyevsky himself possessed. The protagonist of “A Gentle Creature,” for example, says, “I tormented myself and everybody else.” Masochism leads many of Dostoyevsky’s male characters to love crippled women. The severe super-ego of these characters prevents them from loving normal women. Masochism also leads many of Dostoyevsky’s characters to be buffoons, to make fools of themselves; such characters derive a certain pleasure from publicly humiliating themselves. One can compare Dostoyevsky with Johnson’s biographer, Boswell: both had tyrannical fathers, both developed defective super-ego’s, both experienced bouts of masochistic severity toward themselves, and both had tendencies to make fools of themselves.(12) Dostoyevsky’s greatest fault is that he carries his psychological analysis to an excessive and morbid point. This fault is particularly evident when Dostoyevsky is compared with Tolstoy. Tolstoy has Dostoyevsky’s profundity and keen insight and, in addition, Tolstoy has a simplicity and serenity that Dostoyevsky lacks. 23. Tolstoy While Dostoyevsky is famous for his psychological insights, Tolstoy’s greatness as a psychologist is sometimes overlooked. Dostoyevsky could understand others because he probed his own complex, neurotic personality. Tolstoy was less neurotic than Dostoyevsky, but he lived with exceptional intensity, energy and animal vitality. Tolstoy experienced many things, and was familiar with his own rich per...
