In part I chapter 3 of Demons, Dostoyevsky brings in an interesting analogy comparing pain and fright with a boulder looming over ones head. This scene in particular is a conversation between Mr. Kirillov and the narrator, whom we do not know they’re name. Mr. Kirillov makes the claim that suicides have gone down in recent times and the reasons people refrain from committing suicide is because of pain and “the other world”. The narrator asks Kirillov the significance of pain in regards to suicide, his response :
“There are two sorts: those who kill themselves from from great sorrow, or anger, or the crazy ones, or whatever… they do it suddenly. They think little about pain and do it suddenly. But the ones who do it judiciously––they think a lot” (Dostoyevsky 114).
Kirillov makes the analogy of a big stone the size of a big house hanging there over your head – would it be painful? The narrator said it would be frightful but not painful. Kirillov goes on to say that if he were standing under the stone the size of a house he would be “very much afraid of the pain”.
This interpretation goes along well with the idea of totalitarian culture – if one is under the looming cloud of the totalitarian government, it is not the pain that causes people to commit suicide but the idea of the pain that could be caused them is what drives them to that act. It is the mental aspect of the pain that is so hard to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Kirillov goes onto to discuss the idea of the other world and how deceit instigates the change in human nature. The narrator gives his predetermined idea of human nature that “man is afraid of death because he loves life”. Kirillov says that this is the deceit of the whole system… that men are unhappy and their whole life is consumed by pain and fear. Men are turned against each other in an exchange of pain and fear for life and those that overcome fear and pain become God. He later goes on to say “… that he who dares to kill himself knows the secret of deceit. There is no further freedom;” (Dostoyevsky 115). This interpretation is indicative of a totalitarian culture. The lies the Party contorts into truth and then relinquished unto the population is this exact idea. Fear and pain go hand-in-hand for a totalitarian regime to be successful and to carry on the ideas throughout its members, the only way out of this cycle is suicide in Kirillov’s mind.