Grushenka proves to be a rather silly girl, doesn't she? She's so flighty, and yet, she seems deeply intelligent and pragmatic. I wonder if she and Ivan would have made a good couple. Hmm...
I did not, at first, enjoy Grushenka at all. She was no puzzle; she had no moral standard and seemed only interested in making men succumb to her. Even to the end, she treated Rakitin this way.
But now, I think she was distraught, rather than an intentional man-eater. She loved and hated the Officer. She hated him for not wanting her near. The other men were incidental and she took her fury out on them, rather than on the man she loved. She says this to Alyosha/Alexei about why she wanted him to come to her home. She wanted to ruin him, but the moment she gets him in her home, she does not continue, because her pain was lifted--her Officer now wanted her to join him. Ha! Probably saved from death as well...but I'm not there yet. I have, up to this point, expected Dmitri to kill her. I really thought that's how Dmitri would end. But Grushenka has flown, and unless she comes back, or Dmitri hunts her down, he will not have the opportunity to kill her.
This deed, of course, would have been tragic for Grushenka and Alyosha...and the other brothers too, because I thought old man Karamazov would have been killed with Grushenka, but Dmitri is nuts; he has just enough sense to be culpable for his crimes.
I have to review because it was a while ago that I read this book, and out of the blue, I just picked it up again and tried to start off where I left off.
Regina G
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