Anthony Mitchell
The Hidden God of Nature
Siewers
An Assessment of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Christian Existentialism Through The Brothers Karamazov
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 and their relational identity to Alyosha, the moral compass of the family, informs their development as characters. 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’s characters seek to formulate the “meaning of life”, diagrammed by Russian philosopher S.L. Frank decades after Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky carefully illuminates the traits of each character in The Brothers Karamazov separately, therefore mirroring his own spiritual journey and sense of existentialism. By attaching a quasi-autobiographical nature to each of the brothers in The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky ensured that his work would remain relevant for anyone seeking spiritual guidance and to understand their place in the world.
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 because it places him in direct contrast to Alyosha. In this moment, Dostoevsky examines the psychological torment that instantaneously grips Dmitri, “Good heavens! What am I doing it for?” thought Mitya, suddenly pulling himself together…If I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him…You’ve come to grief, old man, so there you must lie!” he said aloud. (Dostoevsky, 361) In the days and perhaps most precisely, in the moments before Dmitri plans to kill his father, the abandoned Karamazov is bordering on confident but displays the conscience buried in his mental recesses when murder appears imminent. Through rushed attempts to clear any evidence, Dmitri allows his insanity to reach the forefront, a character device familiar to Dostoevsky, having explored the idea of a man drawn insane at the thought of murder in Crime and Punishment’s Rodion Raskolnikov. 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. 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.” (Kierkegaard, 354) Had Dmitri studied Kierkegaard, he would have related to Kierkegaard’s view of despair because it connects to his own story. Sigmund Freud posited that humans are consumed by the dual forces of life and death, Thanatos and Eros respectively. In Freud’s view, humans are wired to actively contribute to their own demise through aggression and self-destruction. The above quote from Kierkegaard relates and 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.” (Dostoevsky, 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.” (S.L. 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. On the inverse, Alyosha discovers meaning of life through religion and embraces the life-giving force, Thanatos, rather than succumbing to the destructive tendencies of Eros.
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?” (Dostoevsky, 130) can convince Ivan to believe. Given Alyosha Karamazov’s tendency to experience his faith, i.e. his depression and subsequent rebirth surrounding the death of Elder Zossima, faith can be seen for Ivan as a gift that he has yet to receive. Ivan’s rejection of the substance of religion calls to mind a 2019 study by the Pew Research Center that found millennials as nearly as likely not to identify with any religion as they are to identify as Christian. (Pew) While there are numerous interpretations of the preceding statement, it lends credibility to Ivan’s position. Ivan assumes a stance of “what can religion do for me?” and dismisses the entire idea. Of note, Ivan forms an atheistic worldview of his own accord rather than allowing another to sway his opinion.
Ivan’s reluctance to expand on religious figures outside of simply stating his belief in their absence is telling. Despite Dostoevsky’s religious periods serving as a bookend for his life, his radical period left remnants that appear in his writing because of his portrayal of God as a character. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky leaves little room for an agnostic worldview, allowing for the fierce belief of Alyosha Karamazov – and to a lesser, sinful sense, Fyodor Karamazov – or the steadfast refusal to accept the notion of a concrete higher power found in Ivan. P.H. Brazier writes that Dostoevsky “approaches the imago Christi apophatically – it is un-named.” (Brazier, 33) In a sense, Ivan is doing the sense despite his atheistic worldview, seeing the notion of God through what He is not. In Ivan’s view, God is not the savior of man, man holds the key to his own prosperity or failure. Ivan does not have the luxury of faith to guide his answer to existential questions, he resorts to a deeply-critical mind. The question of defining God flummoxed the most brilliant minds as Kierkegaard struggled to qualify an omnipotent being. “Let us call him a savior for he does indeed save the learner from unfreedom…Let us call him a deliverer, for he does indeed deliver the person who had imprisoned himself.” (Kierkegaard, 122) The indecisiveness in Kierkegaard’s mind to place a label on that which cannot be seen, only felt, is telling and explains the rapidity with which Ivan dispels the idea of religion. Without the need to rationalize faith in and of itself, Ivan quickly responds to the idea of an Anti-Christ, “No, there’s no Devil either.” (Dostoevsky, 130) It is the way that a young Dostoevsky, trapped under Belinsky’s spell might have responded – a Devil cannot exist because Christ does not exist. The idea of a dual ideological black hole containing both Christ and Anti-Christ explains Dostoevsky’s reluctance to name his God figure.
Ivan’s character development is informed as much by non-belief as it by belief. Dostoevsky was reluctant to embrace the ideology of Belinsky and others in the Petrashevsky Circle because it was akin to a rejection of his upbringing. Celebrated Dostoevsky biographer Joseph Frank dedicated two chapters of his biography Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time to the relationship between Dostoevsky and Belinsky and Frank writes that “Belinsky was the ideological mentor responsible for having placed Dostoevsky’s feet on the path leading to Siberia.” (Joseph Frank, 119) Frank’s language in his assessment of Dostoevsky’s view of their relationship is important as it suggests an air of inevitability to Dostoevsky’s eventual imprisonment and servitude. In claiming that Belinsky was responsible for Dostoevsky’s actions in this period, Frank suggests that Dostoevsky was incapable of unique thought, that Belinsky had infiltrated Dostoevsky’s mind to such an extent that intelligent thought – from a novelistic heavyweight, no less – was impossible. And perhaps there is some truth to Frank’s assessment, given Dostoevsky’s sudden shift ideologically in terms of religion and philosophy, to a supporter of socialism. For Ivan to be surrounded by religion among his family and stay firm in his belief – or non-belief – regarding Christianity allows for a unique perspective into Elder Zossima, the devout equivalent to Belinsky, a mentor and source of guidance for the Karamazov family.
Relaying a treatise on the unconscious mind decades before the study would come to prominence, Ivan’s seismic shift in a religious sense comes through the inverted lucidity of a nightmare. Dostoevsky’s atheistic period came to a quick halt, not of his own doing but because of the threat of impending death. With the Petrashevsky Circle commanding the attention of the Russian government for literary discussions that skirted along the realm of dangerous ideology in the eyes of Tsar Nicholas I, Dostoevsky was staring into the cold barrel of a gun, literally and figuratively. The yet-to-be renowned author was at a crossroads between being and nonbeing as he stood before the firing squad at St. Petersburg’s Semyonovsky Square. Martin Heidigger considered the concept of being “Dasein” and it connects Dostoevsky’s change of worldview as he was near-death. Heidigger writes that “Only Dasein returns everything into focus…we begin to clearly differentiate what is around us, what we are, and what seemed like mere spots to us earlier…” (Heidigger, 292) It is an image that Dostoevsky would elucidate on numerous occasions in his writing but perhaps none more striking than The Idiot’s Prince Myshkin asking for a drawing of a man condemned to death by guillotine. But rather than requesting the entire scene, Prince Myshkin requests the face, giving a full view of the terror that awaits. Mochulsky writes of this scene, “Through this visual image the horror of death, the agony of a soul is conveyed.” (Mochulsky, 145) The agony deep in the recesses of Dostoevsky’s soul came to the forefront as he faced near-certain death and quickly turned to relief when his life was spared. The sensation is similar to that felt by Ivan, stricken with what Dostoevsky describes as “brain fever” as Dmitri’s trial approaches. With his nerves fraying, Ivan experiences a rudimentary spiritual birth, with Satan appearing to him, appropriately in a nightmare. And Ivan’s reaction is key. A frustrated, exasperated Ivan asks, “Is there a God or not?” (Dostoevsky, 584) While Satan replies in true fashion that he can not prove the existence of God – as much a question of existentialism as a potential commentary on the Harrowing of Hell, the Biblical account of Jesus’ descent into Hell to provide salvation for all who had died prior to Christianity – the reader begins to see the spiritual “wheels” turning inside Ivan’s mind. While the conscious Ivan is a steadfast atheist, the unconscious Ivan belies a man struggling to reconcile his previous beliefs with the tug of Alyosha and a family desperately attempting to clear its name.
Dostoevsky’s view of existentialism at this time can best by described as one of suffering. Through the Petrashevsky Circle, Dostoevsky discovered intellectual fulfillment through an outlet for his literary passions but rarely found philosophical fulfillment because of the vast ideological differences present between himself and the rest of the group. A man largely lost in the world when he arrived in St. Petersburg, Dostoevsky had been seeking a companion who could be considered a literary equal and while Belinsky held the stature to which Dostoevsky aspired, the relationship quickly dissolved due to published critiques of Dostoevsky’s work. Joseph Frank hypothesizes that a survey of Russian literature in which Belinsky attacked his newly-minted socialist mentee provided the suffering, “…we can glimpse Belinsky’s suspicion that Dostoevsky’s work was moving in a direction opposed to the one he would have wished him to follow.” (Joseph Frank, 97) Dostoevsky’s lived experience at this moment in time meant to live life was to suffer. He had abandoned his religious convictions in the name of literary connections only to find a false support system. Dostoevsky applies an inherent sense of suffering to Ivan from the first mention of his name, an inexplicable meeting with his father, “What does he want here? Every one can see that he hasn’t come for money, for his father would never give him any.” (Dostoevsky, 24) In doing so, Dostoevsky sews a sense of distrust into Ivan. While Dostoevsky’s suffering from the Petrashevsky Circle was purely mental at this time, it would lead to physical suffering soon enough.
Ivan wrestles with a similar suffering and his nightmare scenario both metaphorically and in his unconscious involves a reckoning of his belief system, whether a belief in non-belief religiously or accepting Christ into his heart and mind. While his mind races outside of conscious control, Ivan is forced to face an uncomfortable question for anyone, let alone someone who has argued against the presence of a dutiful higher power for much of his life. Simply put, Ivan must answer a question at the core of existentialist thought, “Why am I here?” In a moment of clever symbolism, Dostoevsky positions a Devil figure as the one seeking an answer to personify the torment facing Ivan spiritually. Posing a similar question to that raised by Fyodor Karamazov in asking Ivan to speculate on the existence of God, Dostoevsky attempts to gain a confession on Satan – “Not for one minute,’ cried Ivan furiously. ‘But I should like to believe in you,’ he added strangely.” (Dostoevsky, 586) Through this sequence, Ivan demonstrates a willingness to break free from his secular shackles and form a religious belief system but is constrained by his past.
A Saved Man: Dostoevsky and Alyosha Karamazov
Alyosha Karamazov’s soul quaked as it cleansed, a mortal man one with the Heavens and the stars, unable to understand the sensation yet realizing that perhaps he was not meant to comprehend it. Alyosha’s sensation of transfigurational virtue forces him to reconsider his monastic purpose and is Dostoevsky at his most clairvoyant because it is echoes his own lived experience. Stripped of his spiritual mentor, Elder Zossima, and forced to endure what are in his mind, baseless attacks on the divine worth of his father figure, Alyosha was left confounded. In a moment of spiritual clarity with bended knee, appreciating God’s Creation, Alyosha realizes the intent behind Elder Zossima’s words, urging him away from the monastery and into a mission providing salvation for Russia at large. “He longed to forgive every one and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men for all and for everything.” (Dostoevsky, 332) When Alyosha rises from the dirt, he is a changed man looking to save Russia from itself through the Word of God. As S.L. Frank writes, “Do we not already see that many Russians, having despaired at finding a resolution to the meaning of life, are succumbing to spiritual stupor and inertia and devoting themselves to the banal task of earning their daily bread?” (S.L. Frank, 9) Elder Zossima recognized the purity that courses through Alyosha without corruption from the scandalous reputation of his family name and Alyosha senses the meaning of his life, breaking Russia from a ‘spiritual stupor’. It is a spiritual stupor in which Dostoevsky finds himself after having his life spared in St. Petersburg. While years of exile and hard labor followed, Dostoevsky was forever changed by his near-death experience. Mochulsky references a letter that Dostoevsky penned mere hours after his life was spared to describe immediate and lasting impact of coming face-to-face with the culmination of his life. “Now, upon changing my life, I am being born again in a new form. Brother! I swear to you I will not lose hope and will preserve my heart and my spirit in purity.” (Mochulsky, 141-142) Rather than slowly losing his sense of self in the Petrashevsky Circle, Dostoevsky transferred that outlook to his writing, allowing for an inner purity outside of his novels.
Alyosha spoke in reverence of his spiritual rededication, declaring that “Some one visited my soul in that hour…” (Dostoevsky, 332) Whether the “Some one” in question in Christ himself or the closest representation that Alyosha can call to mind, the recently-departed Elder Zossima, is irrelevant because the sentiment of his thought is the same. Christ and Elder Zossima each play an important role in The Brothers Karamazov and in Dostoevsky’s work in full according to Wil van den Bercken. Van den Bercken writes that “…non-judgementalism is fundamental to Dostoevsky’s presentation of Christianity.” (Van den Bercken, 64). Van den Bercken adds another observation that is central to Alyosha’s view of Christianity, “…the realization that one is guilty for everything and everybody. And from this flows God’s forgiveness for everyone and everything.” (Van den Bercken, 64) To say that Alyosha is never tempted to succumb to the evils that befall his family would be inaccurate but he represents the closest persona of a saintly figure among the Karamazov family. Whereas others under the Karamazov name denounce religion, engage in lustful affairs or at worst, come perilously close to murder, Alyosha willingly owns the idea of original sin and seeks to atone for the sin of man by spreading the Word of God. That sentiment serves to explain Alyosha’s sentence in welcoming a visitor to his “soul” rather than to himself in a completely-secular sense.
While exiled in Siberia, Dostoevsky received perhaps the most-important gift of his life, a copy of the New Testament from a group in support of the Decembrist revolts, a movement in opposition to the ascension of Tsar Nicholas I to the Russian throne. As Tsar Nicholas I had been the culprit behind Dostoevsky’s sentencing to Siberia, the recently-changed man read from the book religiously, creating the foundation for not only his greatest literary achievements but his renewed meaning and thirst of life. Alyosha’s realization of his renewed sense of purpose comes in a similarly-abrupt fashion. As Dostoevsky writes, “Within three days he left the monastery in accordance with the words of his elder, who had bidden him “sojourn into the world.” (Dostoevsky, 332) Without an ability to confide in Elder Zossima and use his teachings for guidance, Alyosha’s apprehension in leaving the monastery dissolves, realizing that guiding those who have lost their way spiritually is his true purpose rather than quiet contemplation of scripture.
Much like Ivan, Alyosha’s spiritual reawakening comes in a dream sequence. But rather than the Devil figure that haunts Ivan’s dream, forcing him to confront his bubbling faith, Alyosha sees Elder Zossima calling for him. “Why have you hidden yourself here, out of sight? You come and join us too.” (Dostoevsky, 331) Given that the dream sequence involves Cana of Galilee, the invitation from Elder Zossima represents Alyosha’s spiritual standing if he possesses the courage to see it. Dostoevsky came to terms with his own spiritual standing as he progressed through later life, keeping his copy of the New Testament close by always.
Conclusion
At his heart, Fyodor Dostoevsky was a complex individual. To understand his place among the greats not solely in Russian literature but to world literature in its entirely, one must understand the man behind the writing. Journeying from a spiritual adolescence to a concerted break from the pressures of his monastic longing before finding his center again in the pages of a well-worn New Testament, Dostoevsky draws on his evolving sense of existentialism throughout The Brothers Karamazov. While each brother harbors a different sense of self, Alyosha, Ivan and Dmitri parallel a period in the evolution of a writer and man. Together, they create one cohesive meaning of life. As he lived and died by his Bible, it is fitting that a Bible verse – John 12:24 – adorns Dostoevsky’s headstone. “Verily, verily, I say unto you except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (King James Bible New Testament, 134) In a Dostoevskian sense, one must experience an event that allows to understand their place in the world and appreciate the fragility of life to find the meaning of life for themselves as the three Karamazov brothers ultimately do.
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