35 pages • 1 hour read
The Idiot
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Character Analysis
Selin Karadağ
Selin is the book’s narrator. She is a budding writer who grew up in an immigrant Turkish family. Her parents are secular intellectuals and value education above all else. Selin’s mother is a medical researcher at a New Jersey tier 2 research university and is described as very fashionable. She is divorced from Selin’s father and is dating an American man, called Steve. Selin’s father lives in Florida with his second wife and Selin’s much younger half-brother.
Growing up in a single-parent household has made Selin very conscious of her family’s tight financial situation. Her mother agrees to pay for prestigious high school summer programs, as well as for her education at Harvard College, but there is no extra money. Feeling guilty to ask for financial help, Selin lives frugally, especially in terms of clothing and food. She shops at second-hand stores and rarely eats out. However, despite her own financial difficulties, Selin is also conscious of her relatively privileged upbringing and tries to give back to the community by volunteering to teach ESL. She believes that “when confronted by two courses of action, one should always choose the less conservative and more generous” (192). This philosophy, combined with her desire to spend more time with Ivan, prompts her to volunteer to teach English in a Hungarian village during the summer.
Through her narration, Selin appears as a very thoughtful and imaginative person with a wry sense of humor. She is not willing to accept things simply because everyone else does. She feels deeply and her unusual worldview often makes her feel that she does not fit in. She spends a lot of time with Svetlana and Ralph, but cannot talk to either of them about the things that really matter to her. Ivan is the closest that comes to understanding her, which is why she believes she is in love with him.
Svetlana
Svetlana is an international student from Serbia and Selin’s closest friend during her freshman year at Harvard. Her family is quite well off and all of them live in the States. Svetlana’s relationship with her father is fraught, which she believes is related to her problems with sexuality.
Even though Svetlana is Selin’s closest friend, there is still some distance between them. Selin is very conscious that she cannot share everything with Svetlana because she might start criticizing Selin’s choices or discuss Selin’s confidences with other people.
Svetlana and Selin become friends because both of them appear different from everyone else in college. Their worldviews and behavior embody the perceived differences between European and American cultures. Selin has almost no knowledge of history or preconceived ideas, which allows her to approach every question and problem from a fresh perspective. Svetlana has a very broad and detailed understanding of Western history and theory, which allows her to quickly make connections between concepts, but also limits her ability to come up with innovative ideas.
Ivan Varga
Ivan is Selin’s love interest. He is an international student from Hungary who is majoring in mathematics. At the beginning of the novel, Ivan is a senior and is looking forward to starting a graduate program in mathematics in California. He has an on-again off-again girlfriend “whom [he] only sometimes [loves]” (133). His parents and several sisters are all in Budapest. He has a good relationship with the women in his family, but his father thinks he is selfish.
Ivan is not aware of Selin until she sends him an email at the end of the first semester, mimicking the Russian story they read in class. He is intrigued by her message and replies, marking the beginning of their correspondence. Ivan does not trust language and prefers to communicate with Selin through emails from fear that a conversation in person would banalize their philosophical and quirky exchanges. Eventually, however, they start meeting in person and hanging out for hours at a time, suggesting that Ivan does have some feelings for Selin.
Ivan drinks a lot and expects Selin to do so, too. Several episodes hint that he might be attracted to her physically, such as when they go swimming towards the end of the semester. However, he does not make any attempt to seduce her, presumably waiting for Selin to take the first step. During their last conversation, he tells Selin that he enjoys spending time with her, but it remains unclear if what he feels for her is love or if he simply feels connected to her because of their unusual personalities. Overall, from what Ivan tells Selin, he is somewhat selfish or, at least, self-absorbed. He claims to understand the motivation behind the murder committed by Raskolnikov, the protagonist in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov, an impoverished, but gifted young student, kills an odious, old, rich woman believing that he has the moral and intellectual right to judge others. It is possible that Ivan’s belief in his intellectual superiority, similar to Raskolnikov’s, makes him unaware that his behavior towards Selin is hurting her.
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