Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov: themes and analysis

Suffering and Redemption in the Brothers Karamazov

Suffering, for reasons that are not and most likely will never be fully understood, has long been associated with personal improvement and redemption. Punishment, it is assumed, must be constructive, and suffering is the most basic punishment; the only punishment that exists, when others are carefully examined -- the only reason punishments work as deterrents for undesirable action is because they cause suffering. Because of its believed import in human nature and its supposed redemptive value, suffering has also long been a theme in literature, especially in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as mankind redefined itself in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. France's Victor Hugo and England's Charles Dickens are two authors of the Anglo tradition who very consciously deal with suffering and its effects. But one of the most prominent literary philosophers on suffering is Fyodor Dostoevsky.

A simplistic, general, and in many ways incorrect reading of Dostoevsky gives the initial impression that he believed wholeheartedly in the redemptive value of suffering. In the Brothers Karamazov, for example, despite the hugely tragic events that befall Alyosha, whom the narrator proclaims at the outset to be the hero of the novel, the book ends with some optimism regarding his future, and his journey in the novel is certainly one of spiritual growth achieved largely as a byproduct of his suffering. But an examination of other characters and incidents in the novel reveals that this purported purpose of suffering -- as constructive and redemptive -- is far from universal, and that in fact suffering in many instances can be at least as detrimental and degrading as it can be redemptive and uplifting. For Dostoevsky and the characters in Karamazov, it is the source of suffering and one's reaction to it, rather than the degree of the suffering itself, that are the determining factors of suffering's ultimate effect on an individual.

The third chapter of Book II of the Brother's Karamazov contains several useful examples of suffering from which it may be possible to extract some of Dostoevsky's beliefs in regard to suffering, at least insofar as they are at work in this novel. This chapter concerns a group of women who have come to seek the blessing and advice of the Elder Zossima, who is renowned for his wisdom and believed to have certain healing capabilities. Many of these women are suffering, or believe themselves to be suffering, which might in reality -- or at least in the Brothers Karamazov -- be the same thing. The "possessed" woman who begins "shrieking and writhing as though in the pains of childbirth" is a clear example of the practical truth and reality of perception (Dostoevesky, Book II, ch, 3). Her suffering, as the narrator describes in a paragraph devoted to the understanding of possessed women in general, is possibly imaginary, and possibly (likely, given the theme o the downtrodden peasantry in much of Dostoevsky's work) the result not of possession, but exhaustion and overwork. The peasant woman's shrieking and writhing are merely outward expressions of the internal suffering she and other women go through in their daily live, which builds up to a point where it boils over in this seeming "possession."

Her healing at the hands of Elder Zossima is as instant as the onset of her symptoms was at the sight of him, and this healing came about "probably in the most natural manner. Both the women who supported her and the invalid herself fully believed as a truth beyond question" that the evil spirit that possessed her would not be able to withstand the touch of Elder Zossima, and so they were proved correct when the cleric's stole managed to banish the "spirit" (Dostoevsky, II, 3). It is the woman's belief in suffering, and her belief in healing, that allows each of these things to operate. Had she not believed in her possession -- in her suffering as something outside of herself and her control -- and instead acknowledged that it was her mode of life, which could not be easily changed for the better, that caused her to suffer, what hope could she have had for any relief? No holy man could come bless her and remove the need for her to work; no miracles would have out food on her table, clothed her children, stoked the fire, etc., etc., etc. Instead, by placing the cause of the suffering on something external to her desired mode of life -- in this case, a demon -- the woman and hose around her re able not only to mentally relieve, at east for a time, their suffering, but they actually take some joy out of the event that could not have occurred without the initial suffering. This "dispossession" was an event; this chapter informs the reader that Zossima's appearances are rare, and after witnessing this healing "many of the women in the crowd were moved to tears of ecstasy by the effect of the moment" (Dostoevsky, II, 3). The joy they take came from their belief that the suffering could end, and could lead to a happier and holier life.

The attitude that perception can affect -- and perhaps is solely responsible for creating -- reality is illustrated even more clearly in the shift that the woman who has lost her son makes. Elder Zossima notices her as being from far away, and goes to her after healing the "possessed" woman, moving from suffering and healing that was projected to an external force to suffering that had a true and verifiable external cause. This woman, Nastasya, left her husband three months ago, shortly after the death of her fourth and last child. As she explains, she neither thinks of nor cares for anything else at this point. But before we learn this about her, the narrator says something that goes straight to the heart of Zossima's encounter with the woman and to the issue of suffering in Karamazov as a whole: "Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to re-open the wound" (Dostoevsky, II, 3). The woman laments for two solid paragraphs to Zossima, begging his advice but not listening to it at first. She is too wrapped up in her own grief and suffering to admit to any healing possibilities. A short parable Zossima shares with her adds no comfort; she simply replies that her husband told her the same story but that it didn't matter because her son was still gone. She is unwilling to believe in the healing power of her own thought, and so cannot find relief or growth from her suffering.

Eventually, however, Zossima convinces her to go back to her husband; though she has resisted relief all of these months, she has also journeyed very far specifically seeking the advice and healing power of Elder Zossima, and her faith in his abilities eventually carries the day. It is his insistence that her son's soul is still alive and seeking her happiness -- that is, it is a reaffirmation of her faith -- that finally convinces her that it is okay for her to stop suffering, or at least to begin to heal. When she first arrives, she is stuck in her "lamentations," unable or unwilling to see any relief for her suffering. As long as she is turned inward, focused on her own suffering, she stays in it. But when Elder Zossima is able to get her to think of others -- her husband and the still-living soul of her son -- she finds enough comfort and/or duty in these externalities that she is able to partially relieve her suffering, and she leaves Zossima and the reader with a sense of hope that life will continue to go on and her pain will lessen with the passage of time.

The first two women that Zossima heals and advises both illustrate the acceptance of suffering and the unselfish or external focus that is necessary for suffering to turn to redemption, growth, or even simply relief. Another character in the scene, mentioned at the outset of chapter three but not really coming into prominence until chapter four, illustrates the other side of the issue. The third chapter of Book II is called "Women of Faith;" the fourth chapter, which describes Madame Hohlakov and contains here lengthy description of her own metaphysical suffering, is called "A Woman of Little Faith." The chapter begins with this rich woman's overblown praise for Elder Zossima and false claims of his healing abilities. She is immediately seen as someone who is vain and concerned more with how she is perceived than the true affect she has on the world. That is, she is selfish and turned inwards, incapable of thinking about anyone but herself. About halfway through the chapter, when it seems as though Elder Zossima is about to take his leave of the throng on the portico, she begins her own set of lamentations that reverberate with a sense of falseness and self-promotion. Her main complaint seems to be that she does not know how to safely share the inordinate amount of love she has for humanity. No doubt her suffering becomes at least partially real; she is weeping by the end of their discussion (Dostoevsky, II, 4). But the cause and focus of her suffering is her own selfishness, and though she receives some consolation and wisdom from Zossima, even his prognosis for her does not reflect much hope that her suffering will be relived, not until "you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it" (Dostoevsky, II, 4). Only through self-awareness, Zossima explicitly states, will her suffering be able to turn into something useful.