Page 26 - GALIET BENEATH THE ICON: The Lamp Dostoevsky´s Kirillov IV
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himself because of guilt, a debt, a promise that has enslaved him to his ideals. His terrifying panic reinforces that he is neither free from his consciousness nor being. On the other hand, if he has killed himself because of his own volition, he becomes another romantic hero. In both cases, we sense his death is remarkably beautiful and equally absurd. Albert Camus affirms that Kirillov’s suicide represents the absurd in that he refuses to accept life killing himself in order to assert his ultimate freedom.
Whether we embrace God-Man or Man-God ideals in search for Socrates’ goddess and her torch at night, or whether we continue to worship and light icons in the name of faith, we, regretfully, continue to be possessed by an infinite desire to stake our identities and assert our wills over others. Moreover, the Man-God ideal promotes solipsism and the will to power inherent in human nature, condemning us to the perpetual shackles of living amidst the chaos of the second part of Stavrogin’s prophetic history: from the destruction of God to the Gorilla 3⁄4 Guerrilla wars.
(Shakespeare, how wise).
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