Dostoevsky’s Karamazov family was one of the worst examples of the family unit that could be described. The old man, Fyodor Karamazov, ends up getting murdered by one of his sons in this story of a fictional Russian family in the 1800’s. The wives of Fyodor never lasted very long. There were two. One of them went crazy and then died, and the other just died. The first bore him one son, whom they named Dmitry. Her family had money, and on her death, a respectable sum was left to Dmitry, in care of his father. The second wife bore Ivan and Alyosha before passing on. Dmitry was mostly raised by Gregory and his wife, house servants of Fyodor. Ivan and Alyosha are brought up in the home of relatives in another town.
The father had no concern for these sons. His whole life was one debauchery after another, sometimes even in view of the children in their home. Even the wives, while they lasted, had to witness the unhidden vileness of Fyodor’s pursuit of selfish pleasure in the home and in their small town. Fyodor had another son, never confirmed, but accepted as such by the other brothers. This son, Smerdyakov, was the child of "reeking Lizavetta," a local half-wit woman who begged her living and often slept out in the open, not having a home. Once, some gentlemen were joking and laughing at the question of what man might have her, and old Fyodor answered that every woman has her charms if the man is skillful to find it. Shortly afterward, Smerdyakov was born in Fyodor’s back yard, where Lizavatta had gone, over the fence, in order to deliver her baby in some shelter. She died during the process. Old Gregory discovered the child and his mother, who was barely still alive.
Dmitry makes a go of the military service, and he is a recently retired officer as the story begins. Ivan gets a college education and he is brilliant as a journalist. Alyosha goes to the monastery in the town where his father lives, and he is greatly influenced by his mentor, Father Zosima, the elder of the monastery. The book actually begins with the brothers and their father visiting Zosima for some advice on how to have peace in their family. There is particularly a problem with Fyodor wanting to cheat Dmitry out of his share of his mother’s inheritance. Smerdyakov is excluded from this meeting, as well as all other family matters except as he might inadvertently attend in his duties as the cook in Fyodor’s house.
Zosima is unable to do anything more than listen, but he closes the interview with the family in an unusual and unexplained way. He suddenly goes over to Dmitry and bows down to the ground in front of him. Later, on Zosima’s death bed, he tells Alyosha that he did that because of the honor he felt he needed to show Dmitry for the very great trials his brother would soon be facing.
The in-depth characterization that we enjoy in the first half of this book is topped off in the realistic portrayal of the scene in Mokroye of the meeting of Dmitry Karamazov and Grushenka (Part III, Book VIII, Ch. 6). Grushenka has traveled there to meet the returned lover of her youth, a Polish army officer. Dmitry, her jilted lover, has followed the departure of his Grushenka by only an hour, in hot pursuit with a wagon load of champagne and sweetmeats to throw a party when he gets there. A snapshot of what is going on in this scene at the inn could barely introduce the varied purposes and anxieties of the characters assembled there in Mokroye from about 11:00 PM to after 3:00 AM. In the end, the police arrive and prevent Dmitry from the suicide plan he had made in going there, and they arrest him on suspicion of patricide and theft of $3,000 rubles from his father's home.
The interrogation of Dmitry is grueling, but I will save my comments for the trial. All I'll say for now is that Gregory, the old man servant of Dmitry's father, did survive the bloody head wound Dmitry gave him after Gregory discovered Dmitry on the grounds and tried to stop him from jumping the fence. Although this is good news to all, especially Dmitry, there is now a question of who killed old man Karamazov.
The character of Grushenka is especially intriguing to me. Here is a woman who had driven Dmitry to the distraction of (nearly) killing his father so that he would not have any competition in his love for her. That is saying quite a bit, but there is much more to her mysterious character. She is physically beautiful, but not in a classic sort of way. She is shrewd as a business woman. She is also careful in giving her affections, even though she displays affection openly. She can be polite and charming, and she can be rude and embarrassing at other times.
Without the dramatics of Dmitry’s affections, her beauty might not be so well-noticed, but she would never find herself alone. She longs for the times of her first love, but she is repelled by the man of those dreams five years down the road. She is charitable to the poor, as evidenced in her housing poor Maximov, and she visits Dmitry in prison while he is awaiting trial for murder. It remains to be seen how she will endure Dmitry’s trial.
It was a real surprise for me to make a connection while reading The Brothers Karamazov concerning a ghost or apparition that calls itself the Devil. He is dressed in an ordinary business suit and he keeps calling on Ivan. This is an uncomfortable part of the book to read, this looong chapter with Ivan and the Devil (Part IV, Book XI, Ch. 9). And these ill feelings one gets is confirmed when, on Alyosha’s arrival, we discover how really more physically ill Ivan appears, to him, than when they’d met earlier that day.
The news Alyosha brought was that Smerdyakov had hung himself at home an hour ago. It’s almost like Ivan can’t even hear him tell this news (the Devil now vanished, of course). Yet, Ivan claims to have already known Smerdyakov would kill himself.
Since "farewell" was the last word Smerdyakov said to Ivan, I’d say he probably didn’t have far to guess about what that meant. Kind of like Ivan was willingly led astray when Smerdyakov was advising Ivan to get out of town, but not far away, on the night Smerdyakov was planning to kill the old man, Ivan’s father. Ivan knew that is what Smerdyakov and/or Dmitry were planning that night, and he just went off anyway, pretending not to understand. Ivan is turning out to be a real case. And we thought Mitya was bad.
Anyway, the connection I mentioned is this:
While reading the chapter with Ivan and the Devil, I was alternately amused and annoyed that the Devil kept saying a lot of his punch lines in French. I do not speak French very well, and there were no translating footnotes for all of these phrases. Then, after learning from Alyosha that Smerdyakov killed himself, I was remembering how Ivan had inquired of Smerdyakov’s Doctor how it was he thought Smerdyakov was irrational. The Doctor asked Ivan if he knew Smerdyakov was learning French. He was memorizing words that someone had written for him aside Russian words of the same meaning. Although I was puzzled that that should seem to the Doctor to be irrational behavior, that opinion seemed to fit with the part of the story about Smerdyakov the Doctor maybe wasn’t telling us – that he’d maybe been talking with the Devil and wanted to learn more French. Is this just too far out?
If these Great Books of the Western World were all movies, I think they would deserve an R rating, Restricted; for adult audiences only. This work is a frighteningly real portrayal of evil and its consequences. Tom Jones was no Sunday school picnic either. Both books, however, are far more than a rating. If one is adult enough to understand all else that is in these books, then there should be no greater need to worry about how one might continue to conduct her/himself as a lady or gentleman after reading these works. Beware we don’t get too Don Quixote about all this!
Just as he had promised Smerdyakov, Ivan got up at Dmitry’s trial and said that he and Smerdyakov had conspired to kill Ivan’s father, Fyodor Karamazov, and make it look like Dmitry had done it. Ivan was suffering from "brain fever" that day in court, and his testimony was not well received. He even brought the $3,000 rubles, but it could have been any $3,000 rubles, and there was no proof he could offer that his story was true, that Smerdyakov had actually killed the old man. Why Smerdyakov did it is still a mystery. He had said it was "because everything is allowed" to one who does not believe in God, some fragment of one of Ivan’s speeches that Smerdyakov was fascinated with.
Unfortunately, at the end of Ivan’s testimony, Katerina, Dmitry’s earstwhile lover, who was now claiming to be in love with Ivan, stood up and said she had a letter from Dmitry that would prove that Ivan’s story was untrue. This letter, written by Mitya while he was drunk, describes exactly how he was going to kill his father and rob him if he is unable to get the $3,000 rubles he owed Katerina by any other means. Katerina is hysterical, and even has to be carried away after fainting at the conclusion of her speech. This was the kiss of death for poor Mitya. The letter she had brought was admitted into evidence.
What was very interesting about the trial was that there were twelve jurors, all peasants (merchants or civil servants), there were three judges, and there was a prosecutor and a defending attorney. Most unusual to me, though, was that the trial lasted only one day. They even kept going past the interruptions by Ivan and Katerina. The jury got the case in the wee hours of the morning. They took one hour to decide that Mitya was guilty. There was no death penalty, so he was going to be sent to Siberia for life to mine coal. Even before the trial, however, Ivan had plotted a bribery and escape for Mitya, and Katerina was given the plans to carry it out. Ivan was not expected to recover from his brain fever.
Grushenka, of course, is stirred up to a fever pitch of hatred for Katerina for having done this. Later, Katerina asks her for forgiveness. Grushenka’s reply was, "We are too vicious, my good woman, both of us, and we’re both past the niceties of forgiveness. But all you have to do now is to save him, and if you do, I promise I’ll pray for you as long as I live." Grushenka and Mitya have made plans to go to America once Mitya escapes, but after becoming U.S. citizens, they plan to come back to Russia and live in hiding until they die.
The story ends on a very tender note. A part of the book, involving Alyosha, that I had previously seen as a "side story" concerning school children of the town, is used to close the action of the book. One of the children, named Ilyusha, whose father was once beaten and ridiculed in public by Mitya earlier in the book, had become ill and died shortly after Dmitry’s trial. Ilyusha’s funeral is described in a way that would bring tears to the eyes of anyone. Alyosha uses the occasion to give a speech to the boys about the importance of remembering their solidarity at Ilyusha’s funeral. Good memories, especially those from childhood, he tells them, are treasures that will keep them from falling into evil ways later in life. Good survives, and memories of the good can prevent evil actions in the lives of men. The book ends with the boys proclaiming "Hurray, Karamazov!" Alyosha, the only good to have come of the family of Fyodor Karamazov, remains the constant bright star of goodness throughout the book.
I know I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, repeating how much I enjoyed each of these great books I read. True, these are not too easy to read, and they are not short. This particular book is very spiritual and psychological in the way it is told. That may be repulsive to some tastes, but it is convincing as the "mind of the people" in this little Russian town named Skotoprigonievsk, with a nearby monastery, in Russia in the days of the Tsars. I wholly recommend it.
© 1997 Herman Fontenot
References found on the World Wide Web:
This amateur takes no responsibility for the content or availability of any of these references, nor does he necessarily agree with the viewpoints expressed.
Dostoevsky, text and contexts. Background and links on Dostoevsky, his life and works.
The Brothers Karamazov - the text on line.
Crime and Punishment - the text on line.
There are a number of very good Dostoevsky pages on the net. I've chosen some here that contain links to many others.
My name is Herman, and my e-mail address is: kfonteno@flash.net.
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