Underdeveloped self



The underdevelopment of self could be the main reason for a person to surrender himself to ideas,icons,godmen,organizations and advocating them as his own.These are the people who can be easily abused,insulted and humiliated.Only when a person is humiliated and insulted he is able to think of his true self.His true self is not that of the icon or the idea or the godman.Because in this suffering he is alone.Only then he identifies his own self and how he is different from others , has rights to have his own views,has right to privacy,has right to think irrationally,has right for his body and soul.By identifying his self he can then lead a healthy life.

But how many people can really come out of the deep shame and identify their self is difficult to answer.Lot of them get shattered and even get a deeper belief in their idea and icon and get destroyed completely.

In the novel Adolescent by Dostoevsky,the illegitimate son Arkady, of Russian nobleman Versilov, develops an idea to become a Rothschild.He is a nineteen year old.And he develops the idea.It is so original.But the idea gets developed in him possibly because of his underdeveloped self.He develops the idea so that he can be powerful.At the end of the novel , he is a developed man.He doesn't drop the idea, but he is no more contemplating it.

In all of Dostoevksy's novels , we can see that, those who are influenced by an idea have a gloomy past.The gloomy past leads to underdeveloped self.Dostoevsky basically feared that the very cause like Versilov , the fathers , identifying Russia with Europe and moving away from Orthodox Russian Church, could be reason of underdeveloped self of sons like Arkady and their new and dangerous ideas.

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