Dostoevskys The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment

God Answers the Questions Presented by Dostoevskys The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment In Dostoevskys novels pain and some heavy burden of the inevitability of human suffering and helplessness form Russia. And he depicts it not with white gloves on, nor through the blisters of the peasant, but through people who are close to him and his realities: city people who either have faith, or secular humanists who are so remote from reality that even when they love humanity they despise humans because of their own inability to achieve or to create paradise on earth. His novels The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment are best examples of the poisonous effect of such ideals on the common man. The rebellion of†¦show more content†¦That is not the love that is directed towards the humanity as a whole, but towards the individual: Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably (II, 4). For Dostoevsky such love is a false one and he presents it through such characters as Rakitin, Perkhotin and even Luzhin: Consciousness of life is superior to life, knowledge of the laws of happiness is superior to happiness--that is what we must fight against. (The Dream of a Ridiculous Man , p. 382) One of greatest evils for Dostoevsky are the so-called liberals who love humanity more than an individual man. Yet he does not represent their behavior as genuinely evil . Their hate towards humanity arises exactly from the opposite: love. Secular humanists see so much evil, crime and inhumanity, they cannot stop it so they rebel. Ivan Karamazov and his rebellion are purely of that kind. He is not vile, he just cannot understand that there might be a solution for such suffering, especially in the case of children who are innocent in Christianity. That is why Ivan asks: Love life more than the meaning of it? (II, 3) Ivan as any average intellectual, wants to know. To know the meaning of life for him is more important than to actually do something about the human suffering. Ivan forgets that one human life is as important as the entire humanity. For him humanity is merely an abstraction which happen to be surrounding him.Show MoreRelatedFyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Notes From The Underground, And The Idiot1713 Words   |  7 PagesFyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist and philosopher best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Notes From the Underground, and The Idiot. He used his works to learn about the social customs and movements of nineteenth-century Russia, and also to explore himself and gain a deeper understanding of his life. Dostoevsky’s personal life experiences and the philosophical movements of his time influenced his works by shaping the subjects he discussed and theRead MoreCommon Themes in Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov2032 Words   |  8 Pages Russian author and philosopher, Fyodor Dostoevsky, was best known for his literary contributions between 1866 and 1880. Of his substantial work, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils, and The Brothers Karamazov are the novels he remains most recognized for. In each of these novels, Dostoevsky examines and interprets several social, physical, mental, and emotional situations and conditions, which he believed to, influenced the nature of humanity. His theories concerning the causes and effectsRead More The Prostitute In Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, and The Meek One1416 Words   |  6 PagesThe Prostitute In Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, and The Meek One The prostitute is a curious fixture of Victorian era literature. In the works of William Thackeray and Samuel Richardson it was almost clichà © for the heroine to end up in a house of prostitution and then to transcend that situation in a show of proper Victorian morals. Having seen many young women forced by extreme poverty to take up the trade of a loose woman, Fyodor Dostoevsky, a petit-bourgeois fallenRead MoreAn Analysis Of Dostoevsky s The Brothers Karamazov 1344 Words   |  6 PagesPermission and Punishment In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Rakitin responds to a central question throughout the novel, â€Å"What is permitted?† when he proudly states to Dmitry that â€Å"An intelligent man can do anything he likes as long as he’s clever enough to get away with it† (788). While Rakitin has found his answer to this question, multiple characters in the novel are still stuck on that question. Throughout the novel, Dostoevsky seems to separate these characters into two groups: the charactersRead More Dostoevsky was an Anti-Semite2271 Words   |  10 Pageseverything he has written? This paper will address Dostoevskys anti-Semitism through an examination of Isay Fomitch Bumstein in The House of the Dead, the Messianic idea in The Devils, and the little demon in The Brothers Karamazov. Furthermore, this paper will question the moral implications of Dostoevskys Christian message given his anti-Semitic posture. It will suggest that while he was indeed an anti-Sem ite, one can continue to read Dostoevskys work without feeling that his message was a completeRead MoreLiterature and Politics the Impact of Dostoevsky9582 Words   |  39 PagesDOSTOEVSKY Dostoevsky and the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, by Vasily Rozanov. Translated and with an Afterword by Spencer E. Roberts. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1972. Pp. xi. 232. $12.50. Political Apocalypse. A Study of Dostoevskys Grand Inquisitor, by Ellis Sandoz. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971, Pp. xviii. 263. $13.50.* ostoevskys great novels have spawned a vast library of critical 1/literature, a library which extends well beyond traditionalRead MoreEssay about Dostoevsky and Nietzsches Overman2123 Words   |  9 Pagesoverman is a moral agent, he is not an agent of an absolute morality for each action, but rather an agent which affirms a state of being as the ultimate state of being that a human can achieve.    Dostoevskys character Raskolnikov develops some very similar ideas in Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov, a poor and starving former student, conceives of the idea to kill an old pawnbroker and steal her money. Raskolnikov reasons that, because the old pawnbroker is evil, he will actually be benefittingRead More Dostoevsky as Performer Essay4297 Words   |  18 Pagesthat beautiful language--freeflowing, emotionally charged, profoundly Russian and memorably expressive--in which, in time, his worldfamous books would be written (10). Joseph Frank attributes these storytellers tales of the saints with feeding Dostoevskys unshakable conviction that the soul of the Russian peasant was imbued with the Christian ethos of love and selfsacrifice (1976, 49). The Dostoevsky children were also entertained and educated with oral readings by their parents, especiallyRead More The Pathological Protagonist of Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground2598 Words   |  11 PagesThe Pathological Protagonist of Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground Dostoevsky’s vision of the world is violent and his characters tortured; it is no wonder that many have viewed his work as prophetic of the 20th century. However, though Dostoevsky, in his unflinching portrayal of depravity, gives the Devil some of his best arguments, the Gospel often triumphs. Ivan Karamazov is at least offered the possibility of repentance when kissed by his saintly brother Alyosha. Raskolnikov, the nihilisticRead MoreExistentialism vs Essentialism23287 Words   |  94 Pages------------------------------------------------- The gods had condemned  Sisyphus  to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. If one believes  Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions