Brothers Karamazov (Volume 1 and 2)

Author: Dostoevsky
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: The Brothers Karamazov is the last long novel written by the great Russian writer Dostoevsky (1821–1881), one of his most important representative works. Since the early 1850s, he had beening this novel, and after nearly three decades of gestation, he began writing it in 1878. It was published in installments over two years, appearing in The Russian Messenger from 1880. Fyodor Karamazov is a nouveau-riche from a provincial Russian town. He has accumulated over 100,000 rubles but lacks religious faith (in the author's view, no spiritual life) and indulges in sensory pleasures. He is petty, greedy, and lustful, with three sons. The eldest, Mitya, is an officer who, like his father, becomes infatuated with a foreign woman named Grushenka. Meanwhile, he also keeps a cook named Smelka. Out of jealousy, Mitya threatens to kill his father but does not carry it out. Instead, it is the cook who actually kills him. The cook is the illegitimate son of Fyodor and a simple-minded woman. Smelka kills Fyodor because he is influenced by Fyodor's second son, Ivan. Although Ivan behaves nobly, he has no faith in his thoughts, nor does he have a moral compass. He advocates, "Anything is permissible," which leads Smelka to kill Fyodor and take 3,000 rubles. After the incident, however, things go awry, and the blame falls on Mitya. During the trial, Smelka admits to killing Fyodor but commits suicide immediately. Without a witness, and with Mitya's conflicting testimonies from his two lovers, the court sentences him to twenty years of hard labor. Later, Mitya realizes that he should actively endure suffering, forgive everyone, and atone for humanity. The ideal character in the novel is Alyosha, Fyodor's son, who converts to religion and dedicates himself to the love of God and humanity. Even though he advocates and participates in planning Mitya's escape, whether the escape succeeds remains a question left for the reader to imagine.