The Margin

Concept

Fyodor's Sensualist Creed

Also known as there are no ugly women.

In the drunken talk over brandy, Fyodor Pavlovitch turns lust into a rule of life: no woman is ugly if a man knows how to surprise and dominate her. The creed is coarse, comic, and cruel at once, mixing appetite with fantasies of mastery. It draws Alyosha's mother into the room as an example, and the talk wounds Alyosha because it treats suffering as another of Fyodor's tricks.

This entry is sealed. You have not yet read far enough to open it.

The Margin

Suggest a correction

Fyodor's Sensualist Creed