A new residence (symbol)
The narrator describes the house in which Lebyadkin and his sister live and later are killed as a completely secluded small wooden house just built and not yet sheathed with wood. A new house in ritual poetry is correlated with a coffin and death. Thus, the archetypal model of the new house is interwoven into the plot and dictates its development - Lebyadkin's moving to a new house symbolizes the movement from being to non-existence, where the characters are doomed to death.
A corner (symbol)
No less significant for the discovering of the main novel's idea is a space of the corner. The popular dictum "to drive somebody into a corner", which has the meaning "to put somebody into a hopeless situation, to drive to despair", is clearly visible in the structure of the analyzed work of literature. So, the characters of the novel, Ivan Pavlovich Shatov and Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, whose "demons" have penetrated into the soul and consciousness, constantly move from corner to corner. The corner is a symbol of a dead end, an ending, a certain obstinacy, a limit.
Shame, sin, unbelief (motifs)
A study of the motif complex "shame - sin" is being explored in the novel. The opposition of "saints" and "sinners" in the novel is a basis of its polyphonic organization. The motifs of shame and sin are considered in the attitude to questions of faith and unbelief. The tragedy of the nihilistic characters from the novel Demons is based on the spiritual degradation and the rejection of faith. Unbelief is associated with the motif of sin. Gradually, the plot and semantic structure of sinfulness expands and covers the whole novel. Due to this motif, the reader sees the consequences that happen with the characters.
