Posted by satyrwish on March 01, 19101 at 10:00:22:
In Reply to: "Going to America" posted by East Meadow on January 02, 19101 at 18:07:03:
Deeper significance in terms of symbolism...I would think not. What I do find particularly significant, and moving, are Svidrigailov's final moments. Here is a character who we have despised all through the novel, suspected, watched with dread and a chilled back-of-neck- yet when he takes pistol out and says,
"Tell them I've gone to America"-
and it's over....
I pitied Sv. A man who would not leave his vices, was drawn inexplicably to Dunia (a good woman), denied her, and had no more will to live. Bored. Wretched. Sucicidal.
I think the only deeper sig. to that phrase would perhaps be the sadness that is attached to it. America has a ring of liberty, of big dreams, of open country and a chance to start over (esp. in the 1860's), and Sv. chooses to do the exact opposite of everything that phrase depicts, emotionally. He chooses suicide instead of living, staying on Russian soil instead on starting over anew in a different location, away from his past....Sv.'s death is a very touching moment, even though I was rather glad to see him go. Something in me says- just, not that way. Not the wet, dismal, gloomy, abrupt bullet to the head...