Last week I wrote about my thoughts about Ivan in Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky’s final novel, in which he explores the complexity of Man’s faith in God in an uncertain, suffering and sometimes wicked world and the role that the three dueling natures in man - sensuality, intellect, and spirit - play in it.
Dostoevsky does this through the experiences of three young brothers, Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha, each embodying one of these natures, and each trying to make sense of the world around them in the midst of a tumultuous 19th century Russia and the murder mystery surrounding their father.
If Ivan is Dostoyevsky’s caution against relying solely on the intellect in trying to make sense of an irrational, unpredictable and uncertain world then Alyosha, Ivan’s younger brother and one of the three Karamazov brothers, embodies his advice in how to navigate that uncertainty without letting it crush your soul.
Dostoevsky famously said that he could make a stronger critique of God than most atheists and in the parable of the “Grand Inquisitor”, narrated by Ivan, he lays down compelling arguments if not against the existence of God, then certainly against a loving, merciful, and beneficent God.
Having laid down this challenge, in Ivan’s parable, Dostoevsky then goes on to answer them through the words of Father Zosima, the Elder who serves as a spiritual mentor to nineteen-year-old Alyosha, in his training to become a monk.
In the novel, Father Zosima’s teachings are laid out almost immediately after Ivan’s Grand Inquisitor in the chapter titled “From Talks and Homilies of the Elder Zosima.”
With both chapters occurring almost a third into the book, and with most of the action in the novel still remaining, Dostoevsky, through the monologues of Ivan and Zosima, lays down the philosophical foundations in interpreting the action that ensues for the rest of the novel, including the murder of the Karamazov father, Fyodor Pavlovich.
We explored Ivan’s nihilistic beliefs in the previous post and in this one I want to spend a bit more time exploring Zosima’s beliefs.
Zosima’s Teachings
So what exactly are Father Zosima’s teachings?
Father Zosima essentially preaches the connectedness of everything and therefore the need to love everything and everyone unconditionally. In his homilies he says “Brothers, do not be afraid of men's sin, love man also in his sin, for this likeness of God's love is the height of love on earth. Love all of God's creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. If you love each thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more of it every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love.”
In fact, when a woman comes to him complaining about her struggles with nihilism, how she can prove to herself that God exists, Father Zosima’s proposes unconditional love as an answer "No doubt it is devastating. One cannot prove anything here, but it is possible to be convinced….[it is possible to be convinced] by the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you'll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able to enter your soul. This has been tested. It is certain."
However, love is a tricky thing to define with Philosophers having debated this since the time of Plato, so Father Zosima clarifies the type of love he is talking about “I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one's life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as onstage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.”
He also suggests hell as being the absence of love when he says “FATHERS AND TEACHERS, I ask myself: ‘What is hell?’ And I answer thus: ‘The suffering of being no longer able to love.’”
Love is the central pillar of Father Zosima’s teachings with the remaining of his homilies focusing on habits and practices which can help one nurture it. He says to remain humble, be joyful, avoid despair, avoid lies esp. to yourself, avoid contempt esp. of yourself, never lose hope, never close your heart no matter how badly you are treated, avoid pride at all costs, not judge people, take over their sins upon oneself and be guilty before others - all in the service of being able to love unconditionally and always.
Alyosha as Zosima’s student
In the novel, Father Zosima is Alyosha’s spiritual teacher in the monastery. And if it is Zosima who explicitly lays down his philosophy of love, it is Alyosha who acts it out. The two figures are explicitly conjoined in the novel as a result of events in Dostoevsky’s life.
Shortly after Dostoevsky started writing Brothers Karamazov, his two-year-old son Alyosha died. Heartbroken and unable to work, he made a pilgrimage to the Optina monastery, where he spent two days with the monk who would go on to be canonized as Saint Ambrose of Optina. According to the account of his wife, Dostoevsky returned from that pilgrimage a changed man. The characters of the pious Zosima, representing Saint Ambrose, and the angelic Alyosha, representing Dostoevsky’s dead infant son, are clearly his way of dealing with this tragedy and possibly imagining the life of love his dead son might have lived.
In the novel we are told that even before Alyosha arrives in the monastery to start his training as a monk under Father Zosima he “love[ed] people; he lived all his life, it seemed, with complete faith in people, and yet no one ever considered him either naive or a simpleton. There was something in him that told one, that convinced one (and it was so all his life afterwards) that he did not want to be a judge of men, that he would not take judgment upon himself and would not condemn anyone for anything.”
That he did not judge people: “It seemed, even, that he accepted everything without the least condemnation, though often with deep sadness. Moreover, in this sense he went so far that no one could either surprise or frighten him, and this even in his very early youth.”
That he did not want to show off in front of others: “He never wanted to show off in front of his peers. Maybe for that very reason he was never afraid of anyone, and yet the boys realized at once that he was not at all proud of his fearlessness, but looked as if he did not realize that he was brave and fearless.”
That he never remembered an offense: “He never remembered an offense. Sometimes an hour after the offense he would speak to the offender or answer some question with as trustful and serene an expression as though nothing had happened between them at all. And he did not look as if he had accidentally forgotten or intentionally forgiven the offense; he simply did not consider it an offense, and this decidedly captivated the boys and conquered them.”
And that as a result, everyone loved him. “Everyone loved this young man wherever he appeared, and it was so even in his earliest childhood…he possessed in himself, in his very nature, so to speak, artlessly and directly, the gift of awakening a special love for himself.”
Alyosha’s Love vs. Ivan’s Pride
Alyosha’s personality is fundamentally setup in opposition to his intellectual older brother Ivan who his father describes as a “braggart, and he doesn't have so much learning ... or any special education either; he's silent, and he grins at you silently— that's how he gets by..He won't even speak to me! And when he does, it's all put on; he's a scoundrel, your Ivan!”
Alyosha is essentially the Christ to Ivan’s devil. Like Christ, Alyosha provides unconditional love and support to those he interacts with in the novel; and like the devil, Ivan cries about the injustice he sees around him and, in his pride, decides not to take part in any of it.
Over the course of the novel, as a result of their differing philosophies, we see Alyosha closely enmeshed in the lives of all the characters, while Ivan, for the most part, is seen alone, brooding over his intellectual puzzles, and criticizing others from his ivory tower.
Almost all the characters in the novel, the morally loose femme fatale Grushenka, the prideful Katerina Ivanova, the naive Lise Khokhlakov and the young Ilyusha Snegiryov, amongst others find solace in spending time with Alyosha.
In fact, the action in the novel is centered around three days over which we see Alyosha walking around interacting with all these characters and providing them relief from their moral crises, many times of their own making.
The surprising part in these interactions is how Alyosha’s words and actions take up less than ten to twenty percent of the space, with most of the action focusing on long monologues from other characters. In most cases Alyosha simply listens intently, offering a compassionate presence rather than imposing his own ideas.
The secret as to why the characters in the novel find Alyosha’s presence comforting can be found in Father Zosima’s instructions when he instructs Alyosha to leave the Monastery and go out in the world to provide comfort to others. Zosima says 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' Remember that. And you, Alexei, I have blessed in my thoughts many times in my life for your face, know that," the elder said with a quiet smile. "Thus I think of you: you will go forth from these walls, but you will sojourn in the world like a monk. You will have many opponents, but your very enemies will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but through them you will be happy, and you will bless life and cause others to bless it—which is the most important thing.
The parable of The Grain of Wheat is essentially Jesus’ metaphor to illustrate the importance of ego death in the pursuit of salvation and entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Zosima uses the metaphor to remind Alyosha that he must allow his current convictions and ideas about the world to die and be shed before he can be reborn with a purer, more virtuous self that is stronger than the original.
Characters in the novel therefore find Alyosha’s presence comforting because in him they are able to find a non-judgmental listener, without his own agenda, whom they believe understands their suffering and ‘loves’ them actively.
Dostoevsky’s message
The two world views of Ivan and Alyosha — one intellectual, cynical, nihilistic, pessimistic and selfish and the other spiritual, loving, hopeful, optimistic, and inclusive — form the the lenses which Dostoevsky uses to put the question of faith under the microscope in his magnum opus.
Over the course of the novel we see a young, naive, spiritually struggling Alyosha transform into a confident, humble, worldly man while Ivan slowly descends into madness as a result of the indecision rooted in his beliefs.
If there is a message from Dostoevsky in setting up the stories of these brothers thus, it is that life is harsh and becomes even more so under the microscope of the intellect. And that only through the act of unconditional and active love, which is irrational by its very nature, can we help change it for the better.
The very last lines of the novel read “Hurrah for Karamazov!" Kolya cried once more ecstatically, and once more all the boys joined in his exclamation.” which is a cry of ecstasy by a group of boys, gathered for a funeral, after Alyosha’s speech pleading them to live a more loving, generous, honest and hopeful life.
“Let us first of all and before all be kind, then honest, and then—let us never forget one another…Gentlemen, my dear gentlemen, let us all be as generous and brave as Ilyushechka, as intelligent, brave, and generous as Kolya (who will be much more intelligent when he grows up a little), and let us be as bashful, but smart and nice, as Kartashov.”
This is what Dostoevsky meant when he said beauty will save the world. He meant that beauty has the power to make us see and strengthen our belief in that which is best in us and in others. And that through this belief, absurd though it may seem as it goes against every material evidence man presents of his nature, we have the power to transform that nature.
Concluding Remarks
Dostoevsky’s message of love acting as our redemption and the lack of it resulting in our destruction resonates in the philosophy of other thinkers as well
Goethe said that “If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.” Alyosha embraces the irrationality of love and continues to believe in the goodness of those around him despite the ample proof they provide him of their depravity. Through this irrational act, for all evidence points against it, Alyosha changes those around him for the better.
Nietzsche said that “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” Ivan sees people as fundamentally weak, feeble, wicked and depraved and is unable to prevent himself from becoming like them.
This is precisely why Rumi wrote odes to Love and said “Gamble everything for love, if you're a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty.” Dostoevsky’s message of love, despite drawing from different literary and religious backgrounds, and employing different literary techniques is the same as Rumi’s. Both writers acknowledged love's transformative power as perhaps the sole way to endure life's hardships.
Further Explorations
I hope you guys found this useful. If you have read The Brothers Karamazov I would love to hear what you thought about it.
As usual, I would like to end this edition with some resources you might find helpful in exploring the various themes of the novel further (I shared the same in last week’s post):
Text and Translation: You can read Constance Garnett’s translation of The Brothers Karamazov as well as the chapters on The Grand Inquisitor and Ivan’s Devil for free online through these links. However, most critics will recommend the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, which you can access through Kindle.
Biography, Review and Critiques: Joseph Frank, the foremost Dostoevsky critic, published Dostoevsky’s biography Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time and Lectures on Dostoevsky which are extremely interesting and insightful to read as you make your way through Dostoevsky’s Oeuvre. It is also worth checking out Nabokov’s criticism of Dostoevsky, whom he did not rate very highly, in his Lectures on Russian Literature.
Youtube Reviews/Analysis: I find YouTube reviews an entertaining way to keep me engaged as I work through some of the bigger novels like the Brothers Karamazov. For a literary review, Benjamin McEvoy does a great job and if you’re interested in amore philosophical analysis, then Michael Sugrue’s should help you there.
Character analyses: While organizing my thoughts about this post I found some good character analyses for Alyosha, Zosima and Ivan as well as the Grand Inquisitor which you might find insightful.
Live Action Enactments: If reading is not up your cup of tea then fortunately there is an old movie (in Russian) available online on YouTube in three parts (here, here and here).