Violence, hatred and pain in The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky"There was a look of boundless pride and contempt, almost hatred, in that face , and at the same time something confident, something wonderfully simple." Thus began Prince Myshkin's curiosity and infatuation with the complex Nastasya Filippovna as he sat in awe before the image of this woman in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot. This story, set in Russia in the late 1860s, tells of ongoing love rivalries that describe the life of the Russian aristocracy in that period. Prince Myshkin is described as the "ideal" man because of his compassion towards everyone and his firm belief that there is a good side in all people. The story begins when Myshkin returns to Petersburg after being admitted to a Swiss psychiatric hospital due to his epilepsy. Upon arriving in Russia, he visits distant relatives who are quite receptive to him and ends up staying for a while. While there, he believes he has fallen in love with Nastasya Filippovna and prematurely proposes to her. She first accepts, but then rejects him. Nastasya is the driving force of the novel and transports the reader, as well as the characters, from scene to scene. The duration of the book consists of Myshkin's search for happiness and love through which he encounters jealousy of his love and the love of those who love him. Unfortunately, the tragic ending of this book, including Nastasya's expected death, causes Myshkin to regress to his previous status epilepticus. The period immediately following Myshkin's first proposal to Nastasya stands out as an extremely memorable moment in the book. At Nastasya's birthday party, several men bring money and begin bidding on her wedding. In the end, she announces to everyone that she wants to change her lifestyle and start over as a poor woman. Any man who can't accept her for who she is, she decides, is not the right man for her. She feels that all men are motivated by greed and that men will not want her out of love, only out of greed. Myshkin feels that he can love Nastasya for who she is and not for her money and so he proposes to her. She immediately agrees and shocks the rest of the group. One of the other suitors, Rogozhin, offers to give up everything he has for Nastasya and Myshkin encourages her to accept his offer because this sacrifice proves that he truly loves Nastasya..