Lise Khokhlakova’s psychological crisis

Lise Khokhlakova’s psychological crisis emerges as a sequence of abrupt reversals that leaves her mother unable to understand or reach her. Through Madame Hohlakov’s report, repeated fits, hostility toward Ivan Fyodorovich, and rapidly changing acts of rejection and affection turn the household into a place of uncertainty; Madame Hohlakov finally entrusts Alyosha with the task of finding out what Lise herself will not explain.

The Crisis as Her Mother Reports It

Madame Hohlakov recounts that Lise had suffered a fit four days earlier, after Alyosha had last seen her and gone away. She describes screaming and shrieking, followed by another fit the next day and further episodes on the third day and the day before the conversation. The accumulation matters: this is not presented as one isolated outburst, but as a worsening sequence that culminates in what her mother calls an aberration.

The account reaches Madame Hohlakov through her own bewildered, anxious perspective. She measures Lise’s conduct against her ordinary expectations of polite behavior, including her insistence that she is always courteous to servants. Yet her narration records actions for which she has no explanation, and her repeated appeals for belief make the mother’s helplessness part of the scene. The reader receives the crisis as a report rather than as Lise’s own account of what she feels or intends.

Hostility Toward Ivan

During one of the episodes, Lise suddenly declares that she hates Ivan Fyodorovich and insists that her mother never allow him to come to the house again. Madame Hohlakov says the words leave her dumbfounded. She cannot see grounds for refusing to receive Ivan, whom she considers an excellent young man, and the strength of Lise’s demand therefore deepens rather than resolves her confusion.

The outburst also meets a pre-existing unease in Madame Hohlakov: she had wanted to question Ivan about his strange visits to Lise without her knowledge. That concern gives the crisis a concrete relational focus, but the passage does not establish why Lise is angry or what those visits mean to her. Her demand is unmistakable; its cause remains withheld. The gap between the force of her rejection and the mother’s inability to interpret it is central to the episode.

Aggression, Repentance, and Withdrawal

On the morning of the account, Lise flies into a passion with Yulia and slaps her in the face. Madame Hohlakov calls the act monstrous, emphasizing the breach of the civility she expects within the household. But the assault is followed, an hour later, by its opposite: Lise hugs Yulia’s feet and kisses them. The quick movement from violence to abasement makes the change visible in bodily gestures, without supplying an explanation for either impulse.

Lise’s behavior toward her mother follows another compressed cycle of separation and approach. She sends word that she will not come to Madame Hohlakov and will never visit her again. When her mother goes down to her, however, Lise rushes to kiss her, cries as she does so, and pushes her out of the room without saying a word. The kiss offers intimacy, while the silent expulsion closes off conversation. Madame Hohlakov is physically drawn near and immediately shut out, unable to discover what is wrong.

Alyosha Asked to Intervene

Having failed to understand these reversals herself, Madame Hohlakov places her hopes in Alyosha. She asks him to go to Lise, learn everything from her, and return with an account, believing that Lise may speak to him in a way she will not speak to her mother. The request assigns Alyosha a mediating role between mother and daughter, but the immediate evidence establishes only the appeal, not what he learns afterward.

The crisis is therefore defined as much by blocked explanation as by its visible incidents. Lise’s fits, demand to exclude Ivan, slap and abasement before Yulia, and rejection followed by a tearful kiss all reach the reader through a mother who cannot connect them into a motive. Her final appeal to Alyosha turns that uncertainty into an urgent narrative question: whether Lise will disclose to him what remains inaccessible to the household.