Gruschenka

Gruschenka does not kiss back, as she is, indeed, a selfish and rotten scoundrel, playing off of the insecurities of the characters entangled in mimetic confrontations. Dmitry and Fyodor’s attraction to Gruschenka, Gruschenka’s betrayal of Katerina Ivanovna, and the fight Gruschenka causes between Dmitry and Fyodor are testaments to her iniquitousness.

The part of Dmitry that is attracted to Gruschenka is unequivocally the half that is of greater semblance of his father. Katerina is clearly representative of the virtuous life that Dmitry struggles to maintain, and Gruschenka is the apotheosis of the sinful, underground man qualities of Fyodor, with all the too familiar non sequiturs surrounding her existence. Even when Dmitry describes her, he describes her wickedness that comforts him. Furthermore, in making his final act of unprecedented immorality, he states to Alyosha beforehand, “I could stop; if I stopped, tomorrow I could recover fully half of my lost honor; but I will not stop, I will carry out my base design, and in the future you can be my witness that I told you beforehand and with aforethought!” Dmitry resorts to the same illogical pattern of thought of his father. He begins to believe that by recognizing his addiction and realizing what actions it will lead to beforehand that it somehow makes his actions all the more acceptable. Dmitry begins to develop the same addictive love for his self-destructive qualities that his father has, and consequently, he falls in love with the destructive qualities of Gruschenka.

A true seductress, Gruschenka takes pleasure in seducing characters and spitting them out, even female characters. Dmitry may have been onto something when he spouted that Katerina became attracted to Gruschenka. Katerina’s is bipolar, quickly changing her mind on various important questions and becoming passionate about her decisions. The scene in which she speaks of kissing Gruschenka’s hand has undeniable homoerotic undertones. Dostoevsky perhaps does use Gruschenka to emphasize Katerina’s naïve nature to trust in a wicked person such as Dmitry or Gruschenka. She even had forewarnings from her aunts about Gruschenka but nevertheless had the innocent optimism to go forward with seeing her. Gruschenka tricks Katerina into believing that she will participate in a plot to bring all the problems to resolution that have arisen from Dmitry and Fyodor’s conflicting attractions, and then betrays these notions upon Alyosha’s arrival, and even attempts to seduce Alyosha himself, “Alyoshenka, dear, come with me! I have something very, very nice to tell you on the way. I performed this scene for you, Alyoshenka. Come with me, darling, you’ll be glad you did.” She even slyly merges the end of her name with the beginning of Alyosha’s name – “Alyoshenka.” Not kissing Katerina’s hand is the ultimate sign of her manipulation of Katerina.

Considering the pleasure and laughter that Katerina’ despair creates for Gruschenka, it begins to appear as though she may have purposely mislead Dmitry to believe that she was going to Fyodor’s house. Dmitry swears that he saw her heading toward Fyodor’s house, and yet, it is clear that no one in Fyodor’s house was expecting her or had contact with her. Aware of the tensions between the characters, and fully taking pleasure in the conflicts rooted in these tensions, it is likely that she played off these tensions to lead Fyodor and Dmitry to a confrontation.

Gruschenka appears to be the most base, and ultimate portrayal of evil in the book. Whereas Fyodor at least shows small signs of remorse, Gruschenka shows none and goes far out of her way to create problems between the characters.