Study Guide to The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Influence Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645421412
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Guías de estudio
• Subtopic: Guías de estudio

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, considered one of the most acclaimed achievements to date in the world of literature.

As a philosophical novel set against a modernizing, nineteenth-century Russia, Dostoyevsky's last work is a passionate exploration of the ethical debates surrounding God, free will, and morality. The narrative's primary conflict between religious faith and doubt remains as accessible and relevant today as it was upon publication. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Dostoyevsky's classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons it has stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains:

- Introductions to the Author and the Work

- Character Summaries

- Plot Guides

- Section and Chapter Overviews

- Test Essay and Study Q&As

The Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DOSTOYEVSKY

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born October 30, 1821 in Moscow, the second son of Mikhail, a physician at the Maryinski Hospital for the Poor. The family belonged to the hereditary nobility and possessed a small country estate worked by some one hundred “souls” as serfs were then called. Late every spring the family left Moscow to spend the summer there.

After Fyodor completed his secondary education, his father sent him in 1838 to St. Petersburg where he entered the College of Engineers, a military school run by the Czar. Although he studied hard and in general made a good impression on his teachers, the young cadet was in constant financial straits. Always writing home for more money, he describes his “terrible plight” in the most urgent terms. When money came, though, he celebrated its arrival with a huge banquet and drinking party for his friends, or gambled it away shooting pool. He was generous to the point of self-destruction. When his brother Mikhail was married, Fyodor sent him one hundred fifty rubles. Two weeks later he was broke again, begging him for five. This inability to manage his finances persisted throughout his life. In fact, he was nearly always on the brink of bankruptcy.

Despite his ups and downs in Petersburg, the twenty-three-year-old Dostoyevsky became so attached to the city that the mere thought of living elsewhere was unbearable for him. So when he learned that he was about to be posted to the provinces, he resigned his commission and resolved to support himself by writing. In 1846 Poor Folk was published and immediately became a best seller. The young author was lionized as the new Gogol, received into the best houses, and became the object of unrestrained praise. The novel is a brilliantly written though sentimental story about the destructive effects of poverty. In quick succession there followed The Double (1846) and a collection of short stories under the title White Nights (1848).

About this time Dostoyevsky became seriously ill, both mentally and physically. Poor, quarrelsome, the victim of unpredictable fevers and convulsions, he soon alienated his admirers as well as his editors. Furthermore, since his erratic behavior was put down to personality rather than to the illness that it was, he was frequently laughed at, jeered, and mocked. Turgenev, for instance, so despised him that he would engage him in conversation merely for the pleasure of torturing him. Still, Dostoyevsky was reckoned among the most promising young writers of the day. Unfortunately, his literary career was suddenly interrupted by a remarkable incident that was the direct consequence of his political involvement.

Sentenced To Death

Ever since the Decembrist revolt in 1825 it had become fashionable for men of learning to promote social reform. Revolutionary manifestoes were printed abroad, smuggled into the country, and widely distributed. Czar Nicholas I, however, was determined that there would be no revolution in Russia under him. Censorship was severe and many domestic and foreign authors were banned. The penalties for revolutionary activity were increased, and government spies were everywhere. Notwithstanding, Dostoyevsky joined a group of political rebels who met every Friday evening at Mikhail Petrashevsky’s apartment. Here they discussed different political trends, plotting revolution on the side in a rather harmless way. All the same, the government became suspicious. The members of the circle were arrested, brought to trial, and Dostoyevsky, along with several others, was sentenced to death.

Finally, on a cold winter morning after a miserable stay in prison, the future author and his co-conspirators were driven to their place of execution. There, tied to stakes, the unlucky men faced the firing squad. However, as the soldiers were given the order to aim, a horseman suddenly appeared riding full tilt across the square. He bore a letter from the Czar commuting all the death sentences to prison terms. The entire affair was prearranged to frighten them and others of their kind into submission to the Czarist regime.

"To Live, No Matter How”

Needless to say, Dostoyevsky was profoundly affected by this brief encounter with death. So much so in fact that the theme of the condemned man appears on countless occasions in his letters, articles, and novels. Among the most forceful passages describing the condemned man’s state of mind occurs in Crime and Punishment when Raskolnikov says: “Someone condemned to death thinks an hour before his death that if he had to live on a steep pinnacle or on a rock or on a cliff edge so narrow that there was only room to stand, and around him there were abysses, the ocean, and everlasting darkness, eternal solitude, eternal tempests - if he had to remain standing on a few square inches of space for a thousand years or all eternity, it would be better to live than to die. Only to live, to live, to live, no matter how.”

Dostoyevsky’s will to live was severely tested by the Czar’s verdict. He was sentenced to four years’ hard labor in Siberia followed by another five as a common soldier in a penal battalion. The years of physical hardship, loneliness, and the study of the Bible, the only reading allowed the prisoners, completely changed the author’s way of thinking. In both religion and politics he turns into an outspoken conservative, a staunch supporter of the Czarist regime, and the Russian Orthodox Church. He becomes convinced that an Orthodox Christian will, of his own accord, subject himself joyfully to the will of God. Furthermore, by some mystic fiat, a true Russian’s political strivings will miraculously coincide with the will of the Czar Emancipator. These attitudes form the basis of Dostoyevsky’s dialectical thought and ultimately determine whether his heroes are saved or destroyed.

Thus when in 1859, ten years after his arrest, Dostoyevsky is permitted to resign from the army and return to Petersburg, we meet a changed writer, but not a less productive one. Shortly after his release he publishes an account of his imprisonment, Notes from the House of the Dead (1860). This is followed by the short novel The Insulted and the Injured (1861). He even tries his hand at journalism, successfully editing his own paper. Unfortunately, his troubles with the regime are not over. His journal, Vremya, is considered subversive and ordered closed. Disgusted, Dostoyevsky decides to leave Russia for Europe.

In Wiesbaden he won a large sum of money which allowed him the luxury of an affair with the beautiful, charming, and intelligent Polina Suslova. They toured Europe together visiting all the “in” places until he lost his money. Possessing a destructive passion for gambling, he could not keep away from the casinos. On several occasions he lost everything and had to write friends in Russia for the fare home.

The novel The Gambler (1866) is a thinly veiled autobiographical account of this trip. The book is also the third major work in the most productive period of his life which begins in 1864 with the publication of Notes from Underground. During the next sixteen years Dostoyevsky worked feverishly, producing among other things five major novels and The Diary of a Writer. In addition, he maintained a voluminous correspondence with friends, acquaintances, and various admirers who wrote for advice.

Marriage And Fame

Dostoyevsky’s existence changed for the better with his marriage to Anna Snitkina, his secretary. Among her many qualities was a good business sense that enabled her to offset her husband’s inability to manage his finances. There were trips abroad and every summer the family rented a small cottage in the country. Dostoyevsky could now truly enjoy his fame as one of Russia’s leading authors and was finally able to write at his leisure.

Yet Dostoyevsky’s health was always bad. Since his return from Siberia he suffered from epilepsy and these attacks increased with alarming frequency in the 1860s. During the worst period the fits came once a month and so exhausted him that he needed several days to recover. In addition, he contracted tuberculosis in the 1870s which, together with lung cancer, precipitated his death January 28, 1881.

ST. PETERSBURG: DOSTOYEVSKY’S BAD DREAM

The background of many of the author’s stories, Dostoyevsky’s St. Petersburg seems to be a flat, featureless wasteland. Its buildings lack character and its streets are dismal alleyways rarely touched by daylight. To Dostoyevsky, St. Petersburg seemed often so unreal that he was haunted by the prospect that it was simply someone’s dream and that upon awakening everything would disappear leaving only the marshes and lakes. Others had felt likewise before him. When Peter the Great realized his ambition to build a city upon the Finnish marsh, the peasants living in the vicinity thought that it had been pulled down from the sky. It is only fitting that in such a city human activity is subdued. There is no hustle and bustle in Dostoyevsky’s city streets, nor do we find the comforting noise of people going about their daily business. Rarely anything takes place in open daylight. The city seems to be condemned to perpetual twilight through which Dostoyevsky’s characters hurry to their non-descript lodgings.

Thus, Dostoyevsky never describes a city in the manner of Balzac. In fact, he had an antipathy toward any kind of description of buildings or landscapes, saying that he had better things to do than waste time over creating word pictures. Consequently, he draws the barest outlines and leaves the reader to fill in the details. From another angle, this method is all the more effective because it allows the reader to create his own image of the city.

We could say that the author conceives St. Petersburg like a map. He chooses a location and then strictly adheres to its dimensions. In Crime and Punishment, for example, we know exactly where Raskolnikov lives, how many paces to the moneylender’s house, and how far it is to the police station. Often Dostoyevsky’s favorite places are the ones he personally knows. Central to Crime and Punishment is Haymarket Square close to which the author lived for many years. An unbelievably filthy quarter, it is the gathering place of thieves, prostitutes and the like. Surrounding the square are the stalls from which are hawked all manner of merchandise of use only to the destitute. Leading off the square are trash-filled alleyways bordered by pothouses and bodakings of the worst kind. Like Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky loved to wander aimlessly about the place filling his lungs with the fetid air as if he were inhaling the essence of being. Still, precise descriptions of the place are absent. The scenery resembles a rather hastily erected stage set. Yet, we sense it as real because the characters are real, often uncomfortably so.

THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

INTRODUCTION

 

This is the last and the greatest of his novels and one of the most powerful works in world literature. Properly speaking, it is not a novel at all, but a panorama of the human soul in relation to the forces and problems that have afflicted the human mind from classical antiquity to the present day.

Of the four central characters, the three brothers and their father each represents a particular philosophy of life. The father, Fyodor, worships the senses with little concern for anything else. Many readers see him as Dostoyevsky’s self-portrait. This is true only if we see in all the main characters different aspects of the author’s self.

Ivan, his first born, is his exact opposite. An enlightened rationalist, he insists that his way of life is determined solely by reason. A religious skeptic, he is tortured by the question: “If there is really no God, then is everything permissible?” Believing Ivan’s arguments, his half-brother Smerdyakov murders Fyodor. In this way Ivan and his “idea” become responsible for his father’s death and Smerdyakov’s consequent suicide.

The second brother, Alyosha, personifies the principle of Christianity at its best, the love of one’s neighbor and of all creation. Dmitri, the third brother, embodies Russia’s primitive spirit. Driven by instincts he swirls through the novel like a demonic force.

The Brothers Karamazov is concerned above all with man’s search for meaning and his battle with doubt and alienation. The characters believe that beyond or within the phenomenal world there exists an ultimate reality. In their struggle for faith they hurtle against one another with destructive force, creating suffering and despair. Fatally addicted to crime, driven by lusts and passions of every kind, they are kept from their goal by the very intensity of their search.

THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

PART ONE

BOOK I

Introduction

The theme of the novel is man’s search for God. In this quest each of the three brothers represents a major aspect of man’s existence. The eldest brother, Dmitri, embodies man’s physical nature. He is said to possess the “Karamazov spirit,” which means that like his father he has an unbridled, mercurial nature and values sensual experiences as well as material possessions. The second brother, Ivan, represents man’s intellectual capacities. He rejects God’s existence as inconsistent with reason and feels justified in saying: “If there is no God, then everything is lawful.” Alyosha, the third and youngest of the brothers, signifies man’s desire to transcend his earthly existence. He believes in God and Christ and in the possibility of bringing the kingdom of Heaven to earth through charity and the love of one’s neighbor. Although each brother represents one aspect of human existence, they are not pure symbols because each feels and responds to the influence of the other two.

Fyodor Pavlovitch

The greater part of Book I is devoted to Fyodor Pavlovitch and to the circumstances that bring the family together. Dostoyevsky gives a particularly vivid description of the old man’s face. It is repulsive in every aspect. He has bloated features, suspicious little eyes swimming in fat, and an unnaturally large Adam’s apple that describes an arc from his chin to his neck. Not only is his mouth filled with the stubby remains of decayed teeth, he has a tendency to slobber as well.

Fyodor’s physical repulsiveness is exceeded only by his moral degradation. Between orgies, the old man devotes his time to amassing wealth in dubious e...