All logical explanation escaped him as Alyosha fell to the Earth, compelled beyond that which dialogue can convey. Tears flowed endlessly from his face, a river signifying a new purpose to a distraught man. It was in this moment that Alyosha Karamazov was born. Mirroring the spiritual journey of his author, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alyosha creates a framework of Christian existentialism, guiding his brothers through the suggested process of atonement and forgiveness. Existentialism is a desire to understand the human condition, a study of the external milieu that commands human action and thought. Soren Kierkegaard sought to understand humans beyond their “socially-imposed identities” and discover the crux of human existence (Kierkegaard, Stanford). In the mind of Dostoevsky, Alyosha soars closest to the ideal. Alyosha experiences virtue as otherworldly grace as he transitions from a cloistered monastic to a life among the mortals spreading the Word of God. If one approaches the text from a Christian point of view, it can be suggested that the lack of religion for Ivan and Dmitri Karamazov is just as fundamental. While man is said to have been created in the image of God, Konstantin Mochulsky suggests that Dostoevsky lent aspects of himself to each of the Karamazovs. Through his works, Dostoevsky reflects that the time surrounding one’s physical presence is unceremoniously brief. In his eyes, man is born, man dies and the events thereto are out of mortal control. A hallmark of his major works, Dostoevsky seeks to lead his crucial characters toward salvation as Alyosha Karamazov exemplifies. Dostoevsky carefully illuminates the traits of each character in The Brothers Karamazov separately, therefore mirroring his own spiritual journey and sense of existentialism.
The Radical Dostoevsky Through Dmitri Karamazov
Dmitri Karamazov shuddered at the thought, a hastened attempt at stemming the tide billowing from the servant Grigory’s head proving unsuccessful. This scene from the Brothers Karamazov best encapsulates the rash, too-decisive Dmitri. Prior to harboring patricidal ideation, Dmitri is the outcast of the Karamazov family. Tossed aside by his father, Fyodor, in favor of lecherous activity, Dmitri comes to live an existence on the fringes of familial life. Explain fort-da…Follow up on Dostoevsky as Christian existentialist. Rather than embracing his son and viewing him in the same light as Alyosha and Ivan, Fyodor places Dmitri in the largely-nonexistent care of his servant, Grigory, foreshadowing the near-death act later in the novel. While his brothers find a religious center or a twisted sense of peace in rejecting spirituality in the name of illogical suffering, Dmitri is left to wander aimlessly without a true purpose.
As Dostoevsky was forming his worldview at a young age, he experienced the loss of a parent, not through the sense of reckless abandonment a la Dmitri Karamazov but through his mother’s death from tuberculosis. The period that immediately followed was one of growing discontent in a young man searching for a purpose including an ill-fated jaunt to military engineering school. As Konstantin Mochulsky writes, “Dostoevsky’s life at school became more agonizing with each passing day.” (Mochulsky, 18) Unable to realize what had become his inner sense of full potential, with a dead father living vicariously through him, Dostoevsky needed an escape. Much like Dmitri Karamazov, the writer was succumbing to his father’s shadow. While he had lived a sheltered childhood, religious pilgrimages as a family during Dostoevsky’s youth remained an enlightening presence in his mind, one that he would reflect upon in later writings, “That truly amazed and astonished me.” (Mochulsky, 8) Dostoevsky’s sense of existentialism can perhaps best be relayed by St. Dionysius – “…we offer worship to that which lies hidden beyond thought and beyond being.” (Medieval Philosophy, 156) St. Dionysius saw Christ as the origin of all sense and being and a young Dostoevsky captured that essence of mystery explained from a young age. Dostoevsky kept Christianity close to his soul late in life, carrying a well-worn Bible with him always and requesting the Parable of the Prodigal Son be read on his death bed. In crafting Dmitri as a character, Dostoevsky allows for a splintered existence from birth, which prevents Dmitri from clearly defining his purpose, in a spiritual or secular sense, an ability which was vital to the author.
In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard writes that “the torment of this despair is precisely this inability to die.” (Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard, 354) As humans, we come to realize a fault in our mental faculties but are left powerless to assess it. It is beyond our understanding. In a Freudian sense of seeking death, the human is consumed by the dual forces of life and death, Thanatos and Eros in Freudian parlance. The above quote from Kierkegaard may hold the key to understanding Dmitri’s actions throughout the novel. A part of Dmitri figuratively died when left in the care of his father’s servant, Grigory, at a young age. Seeking to acquiesce his mind, Dmitri looks to enact revenge on his father. Dignposts for the reader… For Dmitri, his ‘personal repulsion was growing unendurable.” (Brothers Karamazov, 360) In Dmitri’s eyes, Fyodor Karamazov had betrayed his sons from birth, leaving the three brothers to fend for themselves, leaving a minor miracle in the relative righteousness displayed by Alyosha. When adding the competing love interest of Grushenka, Dmitri falls into a deep despair. While Kierkegaard describes the ability to despair as an “infinite advantage” as it separates the feeling, thinking man from animal, the way in which a man channels despair is key. For Dmitri, his despair quickly turns to rage towards an absentee father and the individuals caught in the unfortunate crosshairs. S.L. Frank would be wont to categorize Dmitri’s pursuit of revenge against his father as meaningless as Dmitri is acting solely out of human self-interest. As Frank says, “The meaning of our life must be within us; we ourselves by our own life must manifest this meaning.” (Frank, 83) Since Dmitri has not found meaning, or in a Frankian sense, has not embraced Christianity, he attempts to fill the void with bloodshed.
In a less-vile sense, Dmitri echoes Dostoevsky’s early-radical period. Dostoevsky was seeking to manifest meaning out of life and in doing so, risked his own life by galivanting with the Petrashevsky Circle, individuals with whom he would have been repulsed earlier in life. Raised in a religious family, Dostoevsky questioned his belief system while involved with the Petrashevsky Circle, a group of radical progressives critical of the Russian government. In perhaps the most-important development for Dostoevsky’s sense of religion and virtue, he forged a close friendship with Vissarion Belinsky. Dostoevsky held a contentious opinion of Belinsky, an atheist literary critic, yet he convinced a young Fyodor to denounce his religious morals in favor of socialist ideals. In doing so, Dostoevsky nearly met his demise, relating him to Dmitri, for whom associating with Grushenka nearly leads to his death. Much like a young Dostoevsky wrestling between a Christian upbringing and the atheist ideas placed in front of him, Dmitri wages a war between love for Grushenka and hatred for his father. This idea is best expressed as Dmitri prepares to see Grushenka – “Where are you, my angel, where are you?’ He was fearfully agitated and breathless.” (Dostoevsky, 360) Dmitri is divided as he places the blame for his tense feeling partly on his father’s shoulders and partly to Grushenka. Dmitri’s end goal bares a resemblance to Freud’s Oedipus Complex. In the Oedipus Complex, a son desires an intimate relationship with his mother and to reach that goal, the father figure must be destroyed. Although rather than seeking to murder his father to pursue his mother as in Freud’s philosophy, Dmitri seeks to destroy his father to ideally win the affection of Grushenka, an oddly-stabilizing figure in his life. In these pages, Dmitri is painted as a raving lunatic, and while that is without a doubt a rational and just assessment, the pause before Dmitri acts against the unfortunate Grigory suggests a hint of a moral compass. Much like Dostoevsky warring with Belinsky as Belinsky sought to alter Dostoevsky’s steadfast belief in the divine, Dmitri is amid an internal struggle, balancing a deep-seated distrust of his father with the calming influence of his affection toward Grushenka. To call upon an idea from Frank, Grushenka represents the wholesome God figure while Fyodor plays the part of the Devil.
Dostoevsky Lost in Himself Through Ivan Karamazov
Dostoevsky’s sense of existentialism – much like the man himself – was evolving, therefore creating a chasm in a young mind. If Dmitri Karamazov represented Dostoevsky’s early life, seeking to rationalize a harsh world without a guide, Ivan Karamazov is the doppelganger for Dostoevsky’s middle period, firmly-entrenched in the socialist leanings of the Petrashevsky Circle that would ultimately lead to his downfall and subsequent rebirth. Dostoevsky turns self-reflective on this period of his life, with Ivan discussing the presence of a higher power – “Is there a God?” (Dostoevsky, 130). Ivan’s answer, rejecting the presence of the divine is one that would have been reasonable for Dostoevsky at this period to utter. Ivan struggles with religion stem from an ethical concern and question, in short, how can a merciful God allow believers to suffer? It is a dilemma that plagues Job in the Old Testament as a believer tested relentlessly by God. Ivan chooses to skip the trials in favor of simple resentment of religion. Not even the pleading of Fyodor Karamazov – “Ivan, and is there immorality of some sort, just a little, just a tiny bit?” (130) can convince Ivan to believe.