Epilepsy disrupted the education and socialization of Prince Lef Nicholaievitch Muishkin in his youth and so he is called the idiot. After four successful years of treatment and rest in Switzerland, he returns to Russia where the contrast of his innocence and honesty against the tact and deceptions of society leads to revealing conversations about death, love, politics, and faith. The women in the novel are not fully imagined as, even in their rebellions, fit the limited roles of women prescribed at this time and place.