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The Brothers Karamazov
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The Brothers Karamazov (1880) (edit title/settings)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author) (edit contributors)

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The Brothers Karamazov (Russian: Братья Карамазовы Brat'ya Karamazovy, pronounced <ˈbratʲjə karəˈmazəvɨ>) is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian... read more

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  • “I am glad that at such a moment my young man turned out to be not so reasonable; the time will come for an intelligent man to be reasonable, but if at such an exceptional moment there is no love to be found in a young man's heart, then when will it come”
  • “You Know, boys," Aloysha said, "you needn't be afraid of life! Life is so good when you do something that is good and just.”
    Alexei Karamazov
  • “Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”
  • “I'm a Karamazov... when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be.”
  • “The stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.”
  • “Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side.”
  • ““Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to the passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself.””
    Zosima makes this speech to Fyodor Pavlovich in Book II, Chapter 2.
  • ““Listen: if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray tell me what have children got to do with it? It’s quite incomprehensible why they should have to suffer, and why they should buy harmony with their suffering.””
    Ivan makes this argument to Alyosha in Book V, Chapter 4, as part of his rejection of the idea of a loving God.
  • ““Decide yourself who was right: you or the one who questioned you then? Recall the first question; its meaning, though not literally, was this: ‘You want to go into the world, and you are going empty-handed, with some promise of freedom, which they in their simplicity and innate lawlessness cannot even comprehend, which they dread and fear—for nothing has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching desert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you withdraw your hand and your loaves cease for them.’””
    The Grand Inquisitor levels this accusation at Christ in Ivan’s prose poem in Book V, Chapter 5.
  • ““Very different is the monastic way. Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet they alone constitute the way to real and true freedom: I cut away my superfluous and unnecessary needs, through obedience I humble and chasten my vain and proud will, and thereby, with God’s help, attain freedom of spirit, and with that, spiritual rejoicing!””
    Zosima makes this speech when analyzing the nature of the Russian monk in Book VI, Chapter 3.
  • ““But hesitation, anxiety, the struggle between belief and disbelief—all that is sometimes such a torment for a conscientious man like yourself, that it’s better to hang oneself. . . . I’m leading you alternately between belief and disbelief, and I have my own purpose in doing so. A new method, sir: when you’ve completely lost faith in me, then you’ll immediately start convincing me to my face that I am not a dream but a reality—I know you know; and then my goal will be achieved. And it is a noble goal. I will sow a just a tiny seed of faith in you, and from it an oak will grow—and such an oak that you, sitting in that oak, will want to join ‘the desert fathers and the blameless women’; because secretly you want that ver-ry, ver-ry much. . . .””
    This taunt is delivered by the devil that visits Ivan in Book XI, Chapter 9.
  • “"I'm a Karamazov... when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be."”
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • “"Listen: if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray tell me what have children got to do with it? It’s quite incomprehensible why they should have to suffer, and why they should buy harmony with their suffering."”
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • “"Everything is permitted..."”
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • “"All is lawful."”
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • “"I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness."”
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • “"If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral; everything would be lawful, even cannibalism."”
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • “"Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them."”
    Father Zossima discourses on the Russian monk, Book 6 Chapter 3
  • “"And what's strange, what would be marvellous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit it does to man."”
    Ivan Karamazov speaking to his brother Alyosha, Book 5 Chapter 3
  • “This soul is not yet at peace with itself, one must be tender with it...there may be a treasure in that soul.”
  • “Page 617. "The fact was that the identity of the founders of Troy had become a secret for the whole school, a secret which could only be discovered by reading Smaragdov (ANNA code 100), and no one had Smaragdov but Kolya. One day when Kolya´s back was turned Kartashov hastily opened Smaragdov, which lay among Kolya´s books, and immediately lighted on the passage relating to the foundation of Troy.”
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.
    Highlighted by 48 Kindle customers
  • In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.
    Highlighted by 46 Kindle customers
  • In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith.
    Highlighted by 44 Kindle customers
  • the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons.
    Highlighted by 33 Kindle customers
  • “By the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul.
    Highlighted by 30 Kindle customers
  • Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself.
    Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers
  • Although, unfortunately, these young men do not understand that the sacrifice of life is, perhaps, the easiest of all sacrifices in many cases, while to sacrifice, for example, five or six years of their ebulliently youthful life to hard, difficult studies, to learning, in order to increase tenfold their strength to serve the very truth and the very deed that they loved and set out to accomplish—such sacrifice is quite often almost beyond the strength of many of them.
    Highlighted by 19 Kindle customers
  • But to fall in love does not mean to love. One can fall in love and still hate.
    Highlighted by 19 Kindle customers
  • Mankind will find strength in itself to live for virtue, even without believing in the immortality of the soul! Find it in the love of liberty, equality, fraternity …”
    Highlighted by 18 Kindle customers
  • For people are created for happiness, and he who is completely happy can at once be deemed worthy of saying to himself: ‘I have fulfilled God’s commandment on this earth.’ All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.”
    Highlighted by 18 Kindle customers
Show all 31 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of a landowner from our district, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, well known in his own day (and still remembered among us) because of his dark and tragic death, which happened exactly thirteen years ago and which I shall speak of in its proper place.

Table of Contents edit see section history

From the Author

PART I

Book One: A Nice Little Family
1. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov
2. The First Son Sent Packing
3. Second Marriage, Second Children
4. The Third Son, Alyosha
5. Elder

Book Two: An Inappropriate Gathering
1. They Arrive at the Monastery
2. The Old Buffoon
3. Women of Faith
4. A Lady of Little Faith
5. So Be It! So Be It!
6. Why Is Such a Man Alive!
7. A Seminarist-Careerist
8. Scandal

Book Three: Sensualists
1. In the Servants' Quarters
2. Stinking Lizaveta
3. The Confession of an Ardent Heart. In Verse
4. The Confession of an Ardent Heart. In Anecdotes
5. The Confession of an Ardent Heart. "Heels Up"
6. Smerdyakov
7. Disputation
8. Over the Cognac
9. The Sensualists
10. The Two Together
11. One More Ruined Reputation

PART II

Book Four: Strains
1. Father Ferapont
2. At His Father's
3. He Gets Involved with Schoolboys
4. At the Khokhlavovs'
5. Strain in the Drawing Room
6. Strain in the Cottage
7. And in the Fresh Air

Book Five: Pro and Contra
1. A Betrothal
2. Smerdyakov with a Guitar
3. The Brothers Get Acquainted
4. Rebellion
5. The Grand Inquisitor
6. A Rather Obscure One for the Moment
7. "It's Always Interesting to Talk with an Intelligent Man"

Book Six: The Russian Monk
1. The Elder Zosima and His Visitors
2. From the Life of the Hieromonk and Elder Zosima, Departed in God, Composed from His Own Words by Alexei Fyodorovich Karamzov. Biographical Information
(a) Of the Elder Zosima's Young Brothers
(b) Of Holy Scripture in the Life of Father Zosima
(c) Recollections of the Adolescence and Youth of the Elder Zosima While Still in the World. The Duel
(d) The Mysterious Visitor
3. From Talks and Homilies of the Elder Zosima
(e) Some Words about the Russian Monk and His Possible Significance
(f) Some Words about Masters and Servants and Whether It Is Possible for Them to Become Brothers in Spirit
(g) Of Prayer, Love, and the Touching of Other Worlds
(h) Can One Be the Judge of One's Fellow Creatures? Of Faith to the End
(i) Of Hell and Hell Fire: A Mystical Discourse

PART III

Book Seven: Alyosha
1. The Odor of Corruption
2. An Opportune Moment
3. An Onion
4. Cana of Galilee

Book Eight: Mitya
1. Kuzma Samsonov
2. Lyagavy
3. Gold Mines
4. In the Dark
5. A Sudden Decision
6. Here I Come!
7. The Former and Indisputable One
8. Delirium

Book Nine: The Preliminary Investigation
1. The Start of the Official Perkhotin's Career
2. The Alarm
3. The Soul's Journey through Torments. The First Torment
4. The Second Torment
5. The Third Torment
6. The Prosecutor Catches Mitya
7. Mitya's Great Secret. Met with Hisses
8. The Evidence of the Witnesses. The Wee One
9. Mitya Is Taken Away

PART IV

Book Ten: Boys
1. Kolya Krasotkin
2. Kids
3. A Schoolboy
4. Zhuchka
5. At Ilyusha's Bedside
6. Precocity
7. Ilyusha

Book Eleven: Brother Ivan Fyodorovich
1. At Grushenka's
2. An Ailing Little Foot
3. A Little Demon
4. A Hymn and a Secret
5. Not You! Not You!
6. The First Meeting with Smerdyakov
7. The Second Visit to Smerdyakov
8. The Third and Last Meeting with Smerdyakov
9. The Devil. Ivan Fyodorovich's Nightmare
10. "He Said That!"

Book Twelve: A Judicial Error
1. The Fatal Day
2. Dangerous Witnesses
3. Medical Expertise and One Pound of Nuts
4. Fortune Smiles on Mitya
5. A Sudden Catastrophe
6. The Prosecutor's Speech. Characterizations
7. A Historical Survey
8. A Treatise on Smerdyakov
9. Psychology at Full Steam. The Galloping Troika. The Finale of the Prosecutor's Speech
10. The Defense Attorney's Speech. A Stick with Two Ends
11. There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery
12. And There Was No Murder Either
13. An Adulterer of Thought
14. Our Peasants Stood Up for Themselves

Epilogue
1. Plans to Save Mitya
2. For a Moment the Lie Became Truth
3. Ilyushechka's Funeral. The Speech at the Stone

Notes

Glossary edit see section history

  • Agnosticism: A philosophy that holds that one cannot know whether God exists.
  • Allegory: A story that acts as an extended metaphor; a parable.
  • Asceticism: An austere, simple lifestyle associated with the pursuit of spiritual discovery.
  • Atheism: The belief that God does not exist.
  • Avarice: Greed
  • Benefactor: One who offers financial help to another.
  • Cana of Galilee: The site where Christ performed his first miracle, changing water into wine, at a wedding celebration.
  • Catharsis: The dramatic purging of feelings of guilt or tension.
  • Consumption: A colloquial term for tuberculosis.
  • Ecclesiastical: Pertaining to a church.
  • Elder: A high-ranking monk.
  • Epilepsy: A disease of the neurological system characterized by violent seizures.
  • Faro: A card game where the players bet on what cards will turn up.
  • Freemasonry: A mysterious fraternity, originally of stone workers, that is dedicated to helping one another and society.
  • Friedrich Schiller: A German philosopher and poet in the late 18th century.
  • Mysticism: A set of spiritual beliefs centered on the idea that one can experience spiritual clarity, not through rationality but in other ways such as, in the Christian mystic tradition, by praying, fasting, and imitating Christ.
  • Nihilism: A philosophy based on the belief that religion and morality are meaningless. Nihilists believe that God does not exist and that life has no meaning.
  • Oedipal Stage: Freud believed that there is a stage of development where a child will feel competitive with his father for his mother’s love.
  • Parricide: Murder of one’s own father.
  • Paternal: Fatherly.
  • Penance: A voluntary punishment undergone to show penitence for a sin.
  • Pestle: A grinding tool used to crush varied things such as food or mortar.
  • Preconsciousness: Latent memories that can be accessed by the conscious mind.
  • Profligate: Immoral or debauched.
  • Rationalism: The belief that one can find truth through reason and deduction.
  • Requiem: A service or hymn for someone who has died.
  • Ruble: The unit of Russian currency, worth 100 kopecks.
  • Sensualist: A person who pursues sensual enjoyment.
  • Serf: In the feudal system, a serf is a peasant who does forced labor, usually working for a landowner.
  • Spanish Inquisition: In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, non-Catholics were persecuted by the Catholic Church. Recent converts to the church were interrogated for blasphemy.
Show all 30 glossary entries

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

  • The Conflict Between Faith and Doubt: The central philosophical conflict of The Brothers Karamazov is the conflict between religious faith and doubt. The main characters illustrate the different kinds of behavior that these two positions generate. Faith in the novel refers to the positive, assenting belief in God practiced by Zosima and Alyosha, which lends itself to an active love of mankind, kindness, forgiveness, and a devotion to goodness. Doubt refers to the kind of logical skepticism that Ivan Karamazov practices, which, in pursuing the truth through the logical examination of evidence, lends itself to the rejection of God, the rejection of conventional notions of morality, a coldness toward mankind, and a crippling inner despair. Dostoevsky does not present these positions neutrally. He actively takes the side of faith, and illustrates through innumerable examples how a life of faith is happier than a life of doubt. Doubt, as we see in Smerdyakov’s murder of Fyodor Pavlovich and in Ivan’s breakdown, leads only to chaos and unhappiness. But the novel nevertheless examines the psychology of doubt with great objectivity and rigor. Through the character of Ivan, in chapters such as “The Grand Inquisitor,” Dostoevsky presents an incisive case against religion, the Church, and God, suggesting that the choice to embrace religious faith can only be made at great philosophical risk, and for reasons that defy a fully logical explanation.
  • The Burden of Free Will: The novel argues forcefully that people have free will, whether they wish to or not. That is, every individual is free to choose whether to believe or disbelieve in God, whether to accept or reject morality, and whether to pursue good or evil. The condition of free will may seem to be a blessing, guaranteeing the spiritual independence of each individual and ensuring that no outside force can control the individual’s choices with regard to faith. But throughout The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky portrays free will as a curse, one that particularly plagues those characters who have chosen to doubt God’s existence. Free will can be seen as a curse because it places a crippling burden on humanity to voluntarily reject the securities, comforts, and protections of the world in favor of the uncertainties and hardships of religious belief. Most people are too weak to make this choice, Ivan argues, and most people are doomed to unhappy lives that end in eternal damnation. The Grand Inquisitor story in Book V explores Christ’s biblical rejection of the temptations offered to him by Satan and concludes that Christ was wrong to have rejected them, since his rejection won free will for humanity, but took away security. Nevertheless, the condition of free will is finally shown to be a necessary component of the simple and satisfying faith practiced by Alyosha and Zosima, and the novel’s optimistic conclusion suggests that perhaps people are not as weak as Ivan believes them to be.
  • The Pervasiveness of Moral Responsibility: One of the central lessons of the novel is that people should not judge one another, should forgive one another’s sins, and should pray for the redemption of criminals rather than their punishment. Zosima explains that this loving forgiveness is necessary because the chain of human causation is so interwoven that everyone bears some responsibility for the sins of everyone else. That is, one person’s actions have so many complicated effects on the actions of so many other people that it is impossible to trace all the consequences of any single action. Everything we do is influenced by innumerable actions of those around us, and as a result, no one can be held singly responsible for a crime or for a sin. This idea of shared responsibility is abhorrent to characters in the novel who doubt God and Christianity, especially Ivan, who repeatedly insists that he is not responsible for the actions of anyone but himself. Ivan’s arguments counter a belief in mutual responsibility, since he believes that without God or an afterlife, there is no moral law. In a world in which the absence of God makes moral distinctions meaningless, people are logically justified in simply acting out their desires. Additionally, Ivan’s deep distrust of human nature makes him inclined to keep the rest of humanity at a chilly distance, and the idea that the things he does affect other people makes him emotionally uncomfortable. When Smerdyakov explains to Ivan how Ivan’s amoral philosophical beliefs have made it possible for Smerdyakov to kill Fyodor Pavlovich, Ivan is suddenly forced to accept the harshest consequences of his relentless skepticism: not only has his doubt paved the way for murder, but he has no choice but to admit his own complicity in the execution of that murder. Ivan suddenly understands the nature of moral responsibility as it has been explained by Zosima, and the sudden comprehension is so overwhelming that it leads to a nervous breakdown—Dostoevsky’s final depiction of the consequences of doubt.
  • Crime and Justice: In the context of the novel’s larger exploration of sin, redemption, and justice, a major motif in the novel is the idea of crime and criminal justice. The crimes portrayed in the novel are also sins, or crimes against God, and the novel presents them in such a way as to suggest that human beings are not capable of passing judgment on one another. The only true judge, as we see in the aftermath of Dmitri’s wrongful conviction, is the conscience. Images of criminal justice in the novel occur most prominently in the debate between Ivan and the monks about ecclesiastical courts, in the story of the Grand Inquisitor, and in Dmitri’s arrest, imprisonment, and trial.
  • Redemption Through Suffering: A central part of Dostoevsky’s exploration of spiritual redemption is the idea that self-knowledge is necessary for a person to be redeemed. As Zosima explains in Book I, only when a man knows himself and faces himself honestly can he come to love others and love God. The principal way to arrive at that self-knowledge is through suffering. Suffering can occur either through the grief and guilt of sin, or, as in the case of Grushenka and Ivan, through the agony of illnesses that are metaphors for spiritual conditions. Apart from the sufferings of Grushenka and Ivan, the other major embodiment of this motif in the novel is Dmitri, who suffers through the misery of realizing his own evil before he can embrace his goodness. When Lise willfully slams her fingers in the door, she provides another, bitterly ironic instance of the motif. Lise wants to punish herself for being wicked, but her idea of suffering is so shallow, vain, and ridiculous that it is not really a serious attempt at redemption.
  • The Profound Gesture: Although The Brothers Karamazov is fundamentally an exploration of religious faith, the novel supports the idea that the choice to believe in God cannot be fully explained in rational terms. Profound, inexplicable gestures often take the place of argumentative dialogue. These gestures defy explanation, but convey a poetic sense of the qualities that make faith necessary and satisfying for the human soul. Examples of these profound, enigmatic gestures include Zosima kneeling before Dmitri in Book I, Christ kissing the Grand Inquisitor in Book V, Alyosha kissing Ivan in the same book, Zosima embracing the Earth just before he dies in Book VI, and Alyosha kissing the ground after his dream in Book VII. Each of these gestures can only be partially explained. Zosima, for example, kneels before Dmitri to acknowledge the suffering Dmitri will face. But none of these gestures can be fully explained, and their ambiguity is a way of challenging the rational paradigm that Ivan embraces.
  • Characters as Symbols: Because The Brothers Karamazov is both a realistic novel and a philosophical novel, Dostoevsky’s characterizations tend to yield fully drawn, believable individuals who also represent certain qualities and ideas bearing on the larger philosophical argument. The drama acted out between the characters becomes the drama of the larger ideas in conflict with one another. Most of the important symbols in the novel, then, are characters. Almost every major character in the novel embodies a concept: Alyosha represents faith, Ivan represents doubt, and Fyodor Pavlovich represents selfishness and physical appetite. Some characters have more specific designations. Smerdyakov, for instance, works primarily as a living symbol of Fyodor Pavlovich’s wickedness.
  • Passion for Life: At one point in the novel, Ivan proclaims that if nothing else, the Karamazovs all share a “passion for living.” In Fyodor’s case, this passion consists of a constant appetite for sensual gratification. Alyosha, however, simply desires to be connected to the world and its creatures, spreading love and understanding. Such disparate attitudes all spring from this “passion for living,” so it seems to be a neutral energy that can be used for good or ill. Dostoevsky places great importance on religion, and his religious attitude is that a person should be “married” to the world. This idea of spirituality is very tangible and corporeal. This leads the reader to believe that Dostoevsky considers “passion for living” a good thing when informed by religion.At the same time, it leads to hedonistic behavior by characters including Fyodor and Dmitri. Consider Dmitri’s brief consideration of suicide. When Grushenka’s ex-lover returns and Dmitri’s affair with her seems thwarted, he decides to kill himself. This implies that his desire or passion for life is waning, a feeling based on the outcome of events and relationships. His ardor is conditional. This conditional passion is inconsistent with Father Zossima’s view that one should love everyone and everything in the world. Dmitri’s passion expresses a selfishness that can be confused with a desire for life. When Dmitri goes to prison, however, he realizes he wants to begin anew. He gains perspective and realizes his mistake. He decides he wants to be with the woman he loves, “till the soil,” and die in his own country. Desire for life should be unconditional, it seems; his former course was misguided. “Passion for living” is necessary for a good life, though it easily can be redirected through selfishness.
  • Generational Divide: There is a strong sense of generational influence in The Brothers Karamazov. Even if Fyodor does not exert direct control over his sons, his presence is definitely a large influence in all their lives. Father Zossima is even more clearly a paternal figure, for he teaches Alyosha how to think and act from his position at the top of the hierarchy in the monastery. And as Father Zossima was a teacher to Alyosha, so is Alyosha a teacher to the young boys of the town. Since Sofia, Adelaida, and Lizaveta are all dead, the older generation has a distinctly paternal character.This is not simply a story of “passing the torch” and coming of age, however. The younger generations are not simply growing to fulfill the roles left vacant by the passing older generation; they are trying to extricate themselves from the sins and burdens left by their elders. (Recall that the Russian nation was, in some ways, under revolutionary ferment.) Dmitri feels that “since he is a Karamazov,” he is doomed to fall into “degradation” and “humiliation” as his father has. Ivan, trying to set himself apart from the father he disdains, becomes his father’s opposite–a rational, thoughtful man who pays all his debts. The idea of repaying old debts and finding justice for sins long since committed is another way the generations are connected. When Dmitri loans Katerina’s father money, she takes it on herself to repay him and offer him her hand in marriage to repay her father’s debt. Smerdyakov, the son of Fyodor’s rape of “Stinking Lizaveta,” is bitter and mean. Despite his rationalizations for murder based on Ivan’s cold logic, his murder of the old man is in part retribution for the sins committed against his mother. Similarly, Ilusha bites Alyosha’s hand when he meets him because he is defending his father’s honor; his father was severely beaten by Dmitri, and Ilusha deems it fair to treat all Karamazovs with hostility.The generations in The Brothers Karamazov thus are distinct from each other yet inextricably linked. Most importantly, the younger generations represent hope. When Alyosha goes into the world to do good, he cannot stop his father’s murder, Ivan’s insanity, Dmitri’s indictment, or Smerdyakov’s suicide. He is not a failure, however, because he focuses on teaching the younger generation the ways of love and acceptance so that they will create a better world. The younger generations can redeem the sins of past ones.
  • The Importance of Money: Many of the characters in The Brothers Karamazov are fixated on money. They attach great importance to the exchange of rubles, and owing a debt is extremely stressful and shameful. Dostoevsky spent a great deal of time in debt because of his propensity for gambling, and he knew well how poverty could wreak havoc on a man. In Russia at this time, serfdom was a very recent memory (it was only abolished in 1861). Even when the serfs were emancipated, the disparity in wealth was very great, and many former serfs still lived in primitive, impoverished situations. When a character like Fyodor or Dmitri spends money recklessly, it is not portrayed as charming or silly but as selfish and indicative of weak character. Dostoevsky’s characters are not all greedy thieves and profligates, however. The fact that money is imbued with great importance makes it a weighty currency of respect and of honor.Dmitri, for instance, is obsessed with paying Katerina back a sum he owes her. He feels that he cannot go ahead with his plans to marry Grushenka before his debt is paid. Though he is essentially breaking an engagement and running off with another woman, his sense of honor and duty compel him to return the 3,000 rubles she has loaned him, and the desire to do so consumes him.Ilusha’s father is a complicating example. He is a poor man who was badly beaten by Dmitri, humiliating his son Ilusha. Because she pities him, Katerina offers to give him 200 rubles, a sum that will dramatically improve his family’s situation. But since Alyosha is the messenger who offers it to him, he decides he cannot take it from a Karamazov. He wants to earn his son’s respect, and refusing money from the family that shamed him is more important to him than helping his family out of poverty. When Rakitin accepts money to trick Alyosha into seeing Grushenka, he becomes very upset and guilty. This Judas-like act of accepting money to betray a friendship weighs on his conscience. Although money carries such gravity in the novel, characters with integrity still prefer principles such as friendship; honor goes beyond its financial characteristics.
  • Shared Responsibility: Father Zossima states that every man is partially responsible for the sins of his fellow man. Fyodor’s murder is a pivotal plot point, so determining who is to blame for his murder is very pertinent to the novel. Is Smerdyakov alone guilty, or did all the characters in the novel contribute in some way to the murder? Ivan is an obvious candidate for partial guilt, since he feels so strongly that he is partially guilty of Fyodor’s murder that he has a mental breakdown. Dmitri is also an interesting case; even though he is wrongly convicted of the crime, he wants to suffer so that he may find peace and a new life. Both brothers encounter self-motivated suffering as if they are actually guilty of the murder. We thus see that responsibility can be a matter of character; it can be internal, not merely a result of external actions. Since humans are fallible, we might be able to connect a wide complex of individual character flaws to a crime such as a murder, even blaming “society” at least in part.In the novel, the feeling of responsibility for the sins of others also expresses a Christ-like perspective—responsibility even if one sees no actual culpability in oneself. Alyosha does not simply feel guilty for the sins of others; he actively involves himself in their affairs because he believes that the affairs of the world are his, too. Father Zossima helps him come to the conclusion that his place is not in a secluded monastery but in the world, for he has work to do there. This underscores Alyosha’s strongly-held sense of responsibility for others. Many of Dostoevsky’s characters feel the weight of responsibility for their fellow man, which supports Dostoevsky’s view that man should be “married” to the world around him, inextricably connected to all of God’s creation.
  • Voluntary Suffering: The novel suggests, as Christians sometimes do, that suffering can purify people and bring them closer to salvation. Suffering is thus primarily a personal experience, defined not by outside forces but by its role in self-development. Father Zossima believes that punishment by the state or by an authority figure has no effect on the soul. The only type of productive punishment is when one’s conscience admits a sin and copes with it. In the novel, the desire of characters to find salvation is expressed sometimes as an illness, sometimes as a self-imposed punishment, and sometimes as a simple desire for humiliation. When Ivan believes he is guilty of letting old Fyodor be murdered, he has a mental breakdown and falls ill, having to be confined to bed for long periods of time. Ivan’s behavior is reminiscent of Raskolnikov’s behavior in Crime and Punishment—Raskolnikov periodically falls ill, wracked by guilt over his murder.Dmitri, though technically innocent of the murder of his father, wants to accept the suffering that prison will afford him because he believes it will enable him to change and begin a new life. While this may offend the reader’s sense of justice, it should be made clear that, according to the novel’s outlook, suffering for any reason, not simply when it is just in the particular instance, can help a person find salvation. Other characters yearn for humiliation. Dmitri says that he might “find a certain pleasure in falling in such a humiliating way.” Similarly, Katerina wants to be with Dmitri, who shuns her in return. He is very openly trying to be with Grushenka, and Katerina’s fidelity contrasts sharply with Dmitri’s infidelity. Perhaps Katerina is simply loving unconditionally, but it is also possible that she longs for the disgrace that Dmitri will bring her. Dostoevsky’s fascination with suffering very likely was enriched during his long imprisonment and faux execution. Perhaps he found redemption in his suffering, but many of his characters seem simply masochistic, having lost the connection between suffering and the purification of character that it can effect.
  • Christianity's Place in Society: Dostoevsky believed that having faith in God and embracing “Mother Earth” constituted the only path to personal salvation and peace. He also believed that Christianity in a society makes it strong and capable. Hence, much of the novel centers around the struggle for faith and the anti-religious ideas that threaten Christian society. The desire for sexual and sensual pleasure that both Dmitri and Fyodor feel runs counter to traditional Christian attitudes.Ivan’s life runs on his intellectuality and sympathy rather than religion, which poses a threat to a view of faith as the only path to peace. Ivan has integrity. He writes so that he can support himself. In a novel where debt and money hold such great import, Ivan’s financial responsibility is noble. He also has great empathy, feeling repulsed (as almost everyone does) by the suffering of innocent children. His sense of justice is strong, and he cannot tolerate affronts to it. This intolerance actually creates a rift between his ideas and the religious ones held by characters such as Alyosha and Father Zossima. He cannot “accept this God-made world,” and therefore Ivan does not fit with Dostoevsky’s ideal of someone who accepts God and all his creation. Ivan ends up choosing not to do what he can to protect his father from a potential murder, however, and the guilt he feels from his inaction drives him insane. This major mistake reveals human fallibility despite the intellectual’s best intentions, undermining the notion that the intellectual life is enough for peace. If Dostoevsky’s novel shares the didactic tendencies of a fable, Ivan’s insanity can be considered his punishment or a consequence of his rejection of the God-made world. Alyosha, in contrast, leaves the monastery to live in the world and do good in it. The novel ends with him being applauded for his Christian teachings of love and acceptance, his reward for his religious fervor. The fates of the two brothers end up reinforcing the importance of Christianity in the world, despite or in spite of the world’s frequent lack of peace.
  • Duality and the Clash of Ideas: Dostoevsky is fascinated by the idea of opposites. He sets characters in opposing, contrasting roles, and he pits ideas and philosophies against each other. In The Brothers Karamazov, he illustrates many foil relationships between characters, which places each character in a complex position on a multidimensional grid of ideology and philosophy. For instance, Father Zossima and Father Ferapont are rivals because of their stances on Christianity. Father Zossima’s loving attitude toward all things contrasts sharply with Ferapont’s acerbic cynicism. At the same time, Zossima is a foil to old Fyodor, for Fyodor has no faith in God and has no sense of responsibility. Each of the Karamazov brothers is also a foil to Fyodor in his own way; for instance, Ivan’s thoughtfulness contrasts with Fyodor’s impulsive nature, and Alyosha’s loving manner contrasts with Fyodor’s meanness. By highlighting the opposing natures of his characters, Dostoevsky creates a forum for debate, sometimes expressed explicitly among the characters, sometimes in a presentation of the characters that seems designed to get the reader to debate the issues in his or her own mind. In this way, the novel addresses such sweeping issues as morality, responsibility, nihilism, murder, and love through the characters, what they frankly discuss, and what their words and actions represent.The difficulty is that Dostoevsky’s characters are not flat characters who represent simple opinions, being two-dimensional embodiments of arguments expressed in the grand scheme of the novel. The characters themselves embody conflicts and arguments; their position on any particular issue can develop and change. Dmitri is the best example of this inner conflict. Instead of being a pristine religious fanatic or a depraved profligate with no conscience, he is a guilty pleasure-seeker, a sinner who yearns for God’s grace. He spends very much of his time and energy trying to pay Katerina money he owes her, a rather honorable pursuit. He initially spent this money, however, on an affair with another woman. He feels that he is destined to “plunge into the abyss” of “degradation” headfirst, but he feels that even if he is “following in the devil’s footsteps, &lt;he is&gt; still &lt;God’s&gt; son.” Dmitri embodies an important conflict in the novel: the desire for earthly pleasures and the struggle to control such desire. Dostoevsky shows that there is good and evil in every person—a person has moral choices to make. Even though Dostoevsky deals with such grand issues as good and evil, he very astutely creates characters who display human virtues, vices, and fallibility.
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Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 5 of 91 in The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time, 2004. (authoritative list)
This book is in 100 Fantabulous Book Challenge. (community list)
This book is in Penguin's Top 100 Classics. (authoritative list)
This is book 6 of 95 in The Art of Manliness' Essential Man’s Library. (authoritative list)
This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)
This is book 837 of 1286 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. William J. Leatherbarrow (Translator)
  2. Constance Garnett (Translator)
  3. Julius Katzer (Translator)
  4. David McDuff (Translator)
  5. Richard Pevear (Translator)
  6. Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: Russian
Publisher: The Russian Messenger
Country: Russia
Publication Date: November 1880
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 701

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PG3326 .B7
  • Dewey: 891.733

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

Movie Connections edit see section history

  • The Brothers Karamazov: 1915, directed by Victor Turiansky
  • The Brothers Karamazov (IMDb): 1958, directed by Richard Brooks, starring Yul Brynner
  • The Brothers Karamazov: 1969, directed by Marcel Bluwal
  • The Brothers Karamazov (IMDb): 1969, directed by Kirill Lavrov, Ivan Pyryev and Mikhail Ulyanov
  • Boys (Мальчики): 1990, directed by Renita Grigorieva, based on the novel's eponymous tenth chapter
  • The Brothers Karamazov: 2008, directed by Yuri Moroz
  • The Karamazovs (IMDb): 2008, directed by Petr Zelenka
  • Karadağlar: Karadağlar is a Turkish television drama loosely based on the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It airs on Show TV every week on Monday evenings at 20.00 local time, and is repeated on Wednesdays at 23.00, as well as on Sundays at 16.45.

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Crime and Punishment
  • The Double and The Gambler
  • Demons
  • The Inferno
  • Vertigo
  • The God Particle
  • Dreams of a Final Theory
  • The First Circle

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   
  • Spark Notes Brothers Karamazov
  • The Brothers Karamazov: Worlds of the Novel (Twaynes Masterwork Studies)
  • The Brothers Karamazov (Cliffs Notes)
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky's (aka Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's) "The Brothers Karamazov": A Study Guide from Gale's "Novels for Students" (Volume 08, Chapter 2)

Books Influenced by This Book edit see section history

   
  • The Brothers K
  • The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history

   
  • Slaughterhouse-Five
  • Everything Is Miscellaneous
  • Finding Beauty in a Broken World
  • On Ugliness
  • The Myth of Sisyphus

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