S.M.Y Kayseri's Reviews > The Brothers Karamazov

The two chapters, "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor" were one of the best and most passionate chapters in the novel. Here was the famous line, adopted from Schiller, where the atheist Ivan Karamazov said that, if the suffering of the world, especially the children are made by God to show Mankind of good, evil and He as his arbiter, if this is the price of wanting to know and have faith in God and to be received in his paradise, then he, Ivan Karamazov, returns his ticket back to Him.

And the poem of "The Grand Inquisitor", where the Inquisitor arrested the supposedly Christ after he appearing in the crowds, was so beautiful. The Inquisitor argued that it is because he, Christ rejected the three things "tempted" by the spirit in the wilderness- miracle, mystery and authority- is the root for all faithlessness and tragedy. He reproached Christ's rejection of the three matters so man can love and believe in him with their own freedom as naive, saying that "...from the burden of their freedom of choice they choose to reject you...".

The main plot, on the other hand, regarding the murder case of the paterfamilia Fyodor Karamazov ended with questions. The prosecutor argued with his vast knowledge of "psychology" and the defence attorney retorted that psychology is "a stick with two ends". I think it is not a coincidence that one of the chapter in Book XII that narrated the trial are named as "Adulterer of Thought", that human reasoning can produce multiple narration from a single set of evidence.

Notable ideas produced during the trials were, one of the many, was on what matters that one truly earns the title of the father. Fyodor Karamazov begets the three brothers, and possibly the servant Smerdyakov, and so he automatically earned the title father, even when he totally abandoned the children to lice and squalor, even not knowing of their existence for a time? This automatic reasoning, argued the defence attorney, is a belief by prejudice, a mysticism. Fathers should be asked "Do you love me when you beget me?" or "just in the moment of passion, under the influence of drinking" to earn the right to be loved and respected by their children. The family unit must be formed with the labor of trust and love and not established by a belief by prejudice. Ironically enough, it is the parents who applauded greatly when the attorney finished his point regarding this.

In conclusion, Dostoevsky's final novel were great in breadth and depth, covering pretty much everything, from the aping of socialism and liberalism, the institution of elders and politics between monks, parricide, religious criticism, Russian identity to the subtle question of what is and what must be done to earn the title of father.