Walkenhorst Family

Walkenhorst Family

Monday, December 19, 2011

We Are All Karamazovs

I read Dostoyevsky's 'Brother Karamazov' a while ago and wrote some of my thoughts at the time. I recently read it again because ... well, why not? I enjoyed the book and didn't know what else to read. I had a couple more thoughts as I read it this time and I wanted to document them.

Knowing the basic storyline really helped me focus on Dostoyevsky's ideas without getting distracted by wondering how the story would end, how the trial would turn out, whether Dmitri really killed his father, etc. Two things came out clearly that I hadn't quite grasped before.

 Fyodor Dostoyevsky

First, each brother represents an aspect of human nature. The oldest brother represents the physical; the second represents the mental; and the youngest represents the spiritual. Although some wonderfully graphic arguments are brought about contending against God and absolute morality, I think it's clear where Dostoyevsky stood on the question. At the end of the book, the only brother who is truly happy and free is the youngest who represents the spiritual side of man. The oldest brother is in prison with plans to escape, though we never learn whether those plans come to fruition. The second brother is terribly ill and possibly mad and/or dying.

Second, very near the end, a prosecuting attorney is making a speech in which he discusses the nature of the Karamazov family and he talks about each of the brothers in turn. It's a very lucid speech except for the conclusions he draws about the crime he's prosecuting (which I think is pretty ironic) and I get the sense that Dostoyevsky was using this character to share some of his own philosophy with us. Although the prosecutor is wrong about the case, his philosophy is more sound than the philosophy of the defending attorney, who happens to be correct about the case. Among other things, the prosecutor claims, more or less, that we are all Karamazovs. And it occurred to me that that is exactly what Dostoyevsky wanted to do with his work. His story of the three brothers is an analysis, not only of eternal questions including God and the devil, but of human nature. He examines the extremes to which human nature will tend when emphasis is placed upon one of the three aspects of that nature - the body, the mind, or the spirit. His conclusions on the happiness of humans who choose a certain path based on those different elements of our nature are seen in the state of the characters at the end of the story. Though the fates of all three are uncertain at the end of the story - the end is a bit unsettled compared to many books I've read - the state of each character at that point is sufficient to understand Dostoyevsky's view on the ultimate ends of three fundamentally different approaches to life.

Tolstoy, a contemporary of Dostoyevsky and one of my favorite authors, is mentioned in the book and I understand that Tolstoy had a copy of Brothers Karamazov with him when he died. Knowing the circumstances of Tolstoy's death, I believe he must have had a great love for the book. I can understand why. It's a deep and powerful piece of literature.

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