Analysis of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

Who approach the literature of Dostoevsky can see that he is master of psychology, and psychopathology, and often are not mistaken in this judgment. Nietzsche, for example, claims in Dostoevsky see a psychologist (besides being the only psychologist from which one could learn something, as the German philosopher said in the twilight of the idols), a perfect man who can show human behavior to perfection and link them to the moral issue, which is the subject matter of the author.

His work, The Brothers Karamazov, is no exception to this subject, nor beyond the psychological development of characters separately. The center of the book, the Karamazov family and his father. The two wives of the father have no weight here, since the man is a lewd did not respect the basic rules of marriage, his two wives left him, the first for another man, and the second by a disease. ¿Topics of the book? Well, this is different. Can one say ten thousand things about the book on Dostoevsky, even integers can be drawn interpretive studies of key passages as "a double-edged sword" or "Grand Inquisitor" (which can arouse so much controversy). But the underlying theme is one-disguised-divided into two themes: moral and God. In the end, if you ask wisely what Dostoevsky meant this book so great? can you answer that it is an attempt to answer a question that would be something like: how can a man fail to justify their moral in God and turn from their own regulatory body? And this question is the key to reading the book.

What is the teaching of the book? Dostoevsky himself says he does not know if you can prove it's worth reading the book. "For me, Fiodorovich Alexei is a remarkable man, but I doubt strongly that show the reader achieve" (p. 69). Alexei is the hero, a hero rare, shy, quiet, no action (the youngest brother). The hero of Dostoevsky, that is, an ordinary man. A Alexei also applied Dostoyevsky's definition of realism: "There are miracles that lean towards the realistic faith. The true realist, if not a believer, you will always find itself strength and ability to believe or not in the miracle, and if it is presented as an indisputable fact, the unbeliever will prefer not to believe his senses to admit the fact. (...) In the realist faith is not born of miracle but the miracle born of faith "(p. 100). So, with the key to understanding and Alexei as a hero, what are your brothers?, What does your father?, What does the father Zosima? These fundamental questions are very complicated to answer given the length of the book, but be brief.

Dmitri Karamazov, the eldest brother, the defendant at the end of the book to be a parricide, a strange, incontinent with his passions, would do anything for love, Grushenka, and that "would do anything" for course includes the act of murder. Ivan Karamazov is somewhat like the dreaded atheist intellectual by modernity. A guy with an above-average intelligence, with an innate ability to study, which automatically makes him an atheist (in the eyes of believers). In the book, he created the poem entitled "The Grand Inquisitor", which is a whole chapter of the book masterfully conducted on morality and freedom as the ultimate end of human existence. In sum, the free man does not know what to do with their freedom, and so the delivery. Thus says the Grand Inquisitor, a good guy and teacher, son of the strange adventures of Ivan Karamazov intellectuals.

Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov. Which I put to define it is unnecessary and unjust, Dostoyevsky makes it better because, in short, gives a vague idea that ends up not being so vague at the beginning of the first chapter of the book, and defines it thus: "Was the type of man not only vile and dissolute, but at the same time, awkward, clumsy though those who know how to compose a charm of their business interests, and only apparently such matters (...) most of these fools are quite intelligent and cunning (p. 75). Then he says Fyodor Dostoevsky gift is what we call today a "live", a "bee", which slices out of business with trickery (the latter itself is said by the Russian).

Father Zosima: This is the time it did not explain why the father had a whole section of the book (more specifically around the sixth book) to campaign on moral issues. A section of the book that, actually, if you skip it, nothing happens in history. But Dostoevsky leaving teaching there on a better humanity are not negligible and, for that alone, is worth reading the sixth book. While there they will find nothing of the Karamazov, but a moral construction very educational for life.

These, which are the main characters, revolving around Alexei. God is a foundation of morality, but is also challenged by this terrible world and away from God represented by his brothers and father. Thus speaks the little Ivan Alexei: "... I believe in order, within the meaning of life, believe in eternal harmony (...) in the Word who is God and is God himself, and so forth and so on until the infinity (...). However, imagine that the end result I do not accept this world of God, and although I know it exists, do not accept in any way. Understand me, it is God whom rejection, but the world, the world created by Him (p. 384). Also, his father, with a ridiculous argument that thought, says that in hell there are hooks in the ceiling to make sinners suffer for all eternity, or at least that the church intends, and drop the following: "Well If there is no ceiling hooks, everyone scurries over and over is incredible: who is going to crawl, then, with hooks? Because if I do not drag me, what would happen?, Where is the justice in the world? Il faudrait inventer them ... "(P. 99). And Dmitri, is simply an incontinent who believes in God but does not know how to act correctly and just follow your momentary impulse (whether its impulse tells you to kill his father).

To counter this negative effect of God is Father Zosima and monastery, practicing in Alexei respect for the divine. However, when the father dies, Alexei felt that killed his faith in God, he begins to realize that he has denied the existence of a supreme being much more than I thought and said "I do not accept God but their world," adding to the argument his brother Ivan.

I accept God but do not accept His world

This statement is made by Ivan, but retaken by Alexei day of the funeral of the father. What can it mean that non-acceptance of the world? It may be an attempt to self-determine the man as subject to the world. But certainly this is reflected in who most strongly is Ivan, who in a discussion with himself (literally with an alter ego who is represented by a kind of demon) argues that, or rather, the devil says this: "Je pense , donc je suis, this I know for a fact, whereas everything else, everything around me, all these worlds, God and even Satan himself, all for me is unproven, there is no evidence that it exists in yes or emanation is just mine, a progressive development of my self, with sole and eternal life ... "(P. 932). Although, of course, concern is widespread. Each character shows that some uncertainty in different ways. Even Father Zosima, when making their confessions to Augustine, God recognized not recognize at first. After that Alexis ends up taking the same position and, indeed, does not acknowledge God. Ends up taking a position similar to that of his brother Ivan, that is, a type of submission on God as the subject but definitely a denial of the world he has created for man. Here is an abysmal distance. Distance is not saved in any way and, therefore, ends in an absurd leap under way Kierkegaard, a leap to believe God or not believe him jump and stop him and his world.

Dostoevsky's warning is accurate. Alexei is who plays all the drama, all the moral dilemma is in the light of this hero who can light up the book and display all the moral issue in terms of man with God and man without God, for this is precisely transit through which passes this character happens to believe to doubt, goes from strength to certainty. All that is solid melts into air, can be applied to Alexei. And then if you do not see God, how to determine the actions?, Under what criteria? Here's the rub.

Moreover, his brother Dmitri ends up going to jail under which is the most obvious culprit of the murder of Fyodor Pavlovich, but Dmitri is innocent. Just a victim, not of justice but on the circumstances (Kafkaesque language, had its process). And it would still be unfair to him to go to jail. How to accept a world? Dmitri accepts the penalty under that feels a renewed man, something like a Raskolnikoff, but Alexei, why would I take on this? He is the hero, and as such this submission does not fit as well. Bakhtin say that "the hero has an ideological authority is independent and is perceived as an ideological author of its own and not as objects of Dostoevsky's artistic vision" (M. Bakhtin. P. 13). Thus, Alexei is subjected to the fact that his brother is in jail, but he firmly believes in the innocence of it. In this "believe in his innocence" lies the strength of Bakhtinian argument that allowing the hero Dostoevsky is not subject to any ideology (and to be precise, in this case, no belief). So Alexis is the hero but is he who has more action in the play. It is in him who turns the moral drama.

Now, what Dostoevsky called one of the final chapters of the book "a miscarriage of justice" which is where Dmitri Karamazov condemn parricide for the crime of (crime he did not commit but I had every intention of doing so) seems to be the Kafkaesque process . A false accusation and a real court. The process takes from Mitya (another name Dmitri) is not as unfair as that is done against Joseph K ... but they are both applicable that "justice means nothing to you, you take when you come and leave when you leave. " Thus, justice is not in the world, is in men, and if so, why ask God for justice?, Why ask for changes in humanity? And all this can be express with relation to freedom, that freedom has not humans because they do not know what to do with it, because the donation shall consume itself.

But what can make a wrongful conviction and, in a sense, an impotence to the world? I do not accept. Alexei, Ivan, Dmitri, even his own father, Fyodor, do not accept that God made the world but they try to do it their way. Fyodor Pavlovich from the hedonism and sensuality that borders on the pathetic, Dmitri from Aristotelian incontinence (abused too much of their impulses and nothing seems no reason), Ivan is the intellectual and building a better world from the beginning based on reasonable a type of utilitarianism and Alexis has to deal with all this world dissociated and alien to each other, living so close and not understood and not understood. In short, the book is a little universe that leaves a moral one large and many small morals. The big lesson is this: it requires a radical moral change. It is pointless for humans surrender their moral God and stay with reason, because that will trigger in dire consequences for all humanity. We must talk about a change in society which can only happen through a moral change. The problem remains the same: "... because without God, how can there be crime?" (Dostoievski. P. 492) In other words, how to incite a change in human behavior without resorting to crime, punishment ? This is best reflected in the work of Russian of the same name, Crime and punishment, where punishment is not exactly a punishment (if ultimately pay) but a moral pain. How can these changes in behavior? Perhaps because of this concern was Dostoevsky psychologist, to force to resolve these issues. And the brothers, the concern is the same. Whether God exists or not, the matter is to improve the world, save him from poverty, selfishness and a lot of similar services. How do, how Dostoevsky answers to this question proposed in siblings and in general in all his work? Not explicitly stated in this work, it is true, but can be sensed, and the Russian response, the synthesis of all his thought is this: beauty will save the world.

 

Literature

    Dostoevsky, M. (2008). The Brothers Karamazov. Madrid: Universal Lyrics

    Bakhtin, M (2003). Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

    Kafka, F. (1976). The process. Buenos Aires: Losada.