Who He Is
Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, Alyosha, is the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and Sofya Ivanovna, the hero whom the narrator announces in the preface as a strange man, by no means great, but who perhaps carries within him the core of the whole (preface to Book I). He keeps his mother, who died when he was almost four, in a single evening scene, with the lamp before the icon and the woman in a fit who lifts him up to the Virgin (ch. IV of Book I). Raised in someone else's house, loved by everyone since childhood, he reaches twenty and goes to his father's house, first seeks his mother's grave, and enters the monastery, close to Elder Zosima (ch. IV of Book I, ch. V of Book I). He is the son of faith: where Mitya answers abandonment with the body and Ivan with the intellect, Alyosha lives his own conviction without half-measures, the same excess of family turned toward surrender rather than appetite or argument. The trait that defines him is not judging, and that is why he disarms those who distrust everyone (ch. IV of Book I, ch. I of Book III).
Trajectory
In ch. IV of Book I, the narrator explains the gift Alyosha has, which does not come from cleverness:
Да и все этого юношу любили, где бы он ни появился, и это с самых детских даже лет его., Everyone loved this young man, wherever he appeared, and this from his earliest childhood.
In ch. V of Book I he is described as a realist, for whom faith is what generates the miracle and not the reverse, and whose conviction admits no half-measures:
В реалисте вера не от чуда рождается, а чудо от веры, for the realist, faith is not born of miracle, but miracle of faith.
Хочу жить для бессмертия, а половинного компромисса не принимаю, I want to live for immortality, and I do not accept a half-way compromise.
He adds that, had the conclusion been the opposite, he would have gone to the atheists and the socialists, because socialism is above all the question of atheism, and he defines the master he chose:
социализм есть не только рабочий вопрос, или так называемого четвертого сословия, но по преимуществу есть атеистический вопрос, socialism is not only the labor question, or the so-called fourth estate, but above all an atheistic question.
Старец — это берущий вашу душу, вашу волю в свою душу и в свою волю, The elder is the one who takes your soul and your will into his own soul and his own will.
In ch. VII of Book II, after the scene in which Zosima kneels before Mitya, the elder orders Alyosha to leave the monastery when he dies and leaves him a testament:
Как только сподобит бог преставиться мне — и уходи из монастыря. Совсем иди., As soon as God grants me to depart, leave the monastery. Go away for good.
Горе узришь великое и в горе сем счастлив будешь. Вот тебе завет: в горе счастья ищи., You will see great sorrow, and in that sorrow you will be happy. This is my testament: in sorrow, seek happiness.
On the pine walk, Rakitin tells him what he thinks of the Karamazovs, that contempt does not protect someone who falls in love, and Alyosha lets slip that he understands:
Тут, брат, презрение не помогает, Here, brother, contempt does not help.
In ch. III of Book III, in the garden next to his father's, it is he who hears Mitya's confession, and in ch. IV of Book III, when his brother recounts one of his adventures, it is he who blushes, and not for the deeds but for being the same:
Всё одни и те же ступеньки., They are always the same steps.
In ch. VIII of Book III, at his father's table, when the old man asks him whether he believes he is not only a buffoon, he answers:
Верю, что не всего только шут., I believe he is not only a buffoon.
Later, the father asks him, as he asked Ivan, whether there is God and immortality, and Alyosha answers:
Есть бог., There is God.
И бог, и бессмертие. В боге и бессмертие., God and immortality. In God is immortality too.
When the father asks his forgiveness for having offended the abbot, he says that he knows his thoughts and that the heart is better than the head.
In ch. X of Book III he holds back Katerina Ivanovna when she throws herself at Grushenka, and asks the latter to leave. In ch. XI of Book III he hears from Mitya that a dishonor is being prepared there, in the chest.
In ch. III of Book IV, defending a boy surrounded by schoolboys, he takes a bite on the finger from the boy, who asks him what he did to be tormented, and whom the book will reveal to be Ilyusha:
не может быть, чтоб я вам ничего не сделал, — не стали бы вы меня так мучить даром. Так что же я сделал и чем я виноват пред вами, скажите?, it can't be that I have done nothing to you; you would not torment me like this for nothing. So what did I do, and what am I guilty of before you? Tell me.
In ch. IV of Book IV, Lise reproaches him, as a joke, for the letter of the day before, and he answers without evasion what he thinks of marrying her:
Я как прочел, то тотчас и подумал, что этак всё и будет, потому что я, как только умрет старец Зосима, сейчас должен буду выйти из монастыря. Затем я буду продолжать курс и сдам экзамен, а как придет законный срок, мы и женимся. Я вас буду любить. Хоть мне и некогда было еще думать, но я подумал, что лучше вас жены не найду, а мне старец велит жениться…, When I read it, I immediately thought that it would all be just like that, because as soon as Elder Zosima dies, I must leave the monastery at once. Then I shall continue my studies and pass my examinations, and when the legal time comes, we shall marry. I shall love you. Although I have not yet had time to think, I thought that I will not find a better wife than you, and the elder tells me to marry...
In ch. V of Book IV, in Katerina Ivanovna's drawing room, he says, as one who throws himself off a roof, the truth no one wanted to hear, and the scene ends in a break:
позовите сейчас Дмитрия [...] вы мучаете Ивана, потому только, что его любите… а мучите потому, что Дмитрия надрывом любите… внеправду любите… потому что уверили себя так, call Dmitri now [...] you torment Ivan only because you love him... and you torment because you love Dmitri in a nadryv... you love in untruth... because you have convinced yourself that it is so...
In ch. VII of Book IV he takes two hundred rubles that Katerina sends to Captain Snegiryov, and watches the man trample them. In ch. I of Book V, telling Lise, he says the failure was the best possible, and when she asks whether there is contempt in the captain, he answers:
Нет, Lise, нет презрения [...] я уж об этом сам думал, идя сюда. Рассудите, какое уж тут презрение, когда мы сами такие же, как он, когда все такие же, как он, No, Lise, there is no contempt [...] I have already thought about this myself, coming here. Consider: what contempt can there be, when we ourselves are just like him, when everyone is just like him?
He says of the family that it is a force of the earth, earthy and frenzied, and confesses a doubt about himself:
Тут «земляная карамазовская сила», как отец Паисий намедни выразился, — земляная и неистовая, необделанная, it is the "earthy Karamazov force," as Father Paisy said the other day, earthy and frenzied, raw.
А я в бога-то вот, может быть, и не верую., And as for me, perhaps I do not even believe in God.
In ch. IV of Book V, in Rebellion, to Ivan's question about who would have the right to forgive, he answers, with shining eyes:
Но существо это есть, и оно может всё простить, всех и вся и за всё, потому что само отдало неповинную кровь свою за всех и за всё., but that being exists, and it can forgive everything, everyone and everything, because it itself gave its innocent blood for all and for everything.
In ch. V of Book V, at the end of the poem of the Grand Inquisitor, he rises, approaches in silence, and kisses his brother on the mouth. In ch. I of Book VI, in the cell, Zosima receives him and, before telling him the story of Brother Markel, says what he sees in him:
Здравствуй, тихий, здравствуй, милый, вот и ты. И знал, что прибудешь., Hello, quiet one, hello, dear one, here you are. And I knew you would come.
изыдешь из стен сих, а в миру пребудешь как инок. Много будешь иметь противников, но и самые враги твои будут любить тебя. Много несчастий принесет тебе жизнь, но ими-то ты и счастлив будешь, и жизнь благословишь, и других благословить заставишь — что важнее всего., you will leave these walls, but in the world you will remain as a monk. You will have many adversaries, but even your enemies will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but through them you will be happy, and you will bless life, and make others bless it too, which is most important of all.
Алексей казался мне до того схожим с тем духовно, что много раз считал я его как бы прямо за того юношу, брата моего, пришедшего ко мне на конце пути моего таинственно, для некоего воспоминания и проникновения, Alexei seemed to me so similar to him in spirit that many times I took him almost for that young man, my brother, who came to me at the end of my path, mysteriously, for some remembrance and understanding.
In ch. I of Book VII, with the noxious odor in the coffin, Paisy finds him in the crowd and rebukes him for having let himself be seduced:
Или и ты соблазнился? [...] да неужто же и ты с маловерными!, Have you too been seduced? [...] Are you too among the faint of heart?
In ch. II of Book VII, the narrator explains the crisis: he did not need miracles, he needed supreme justice, and the refusal he then tells Rakitin is Ivan's:
Но не чудес опять-таки ему нужно было, а лишь «высшей справедливости», которая была, по верованию его, нарушена и чем так жестоко и внезапно было поранено сердце его., But it was not miracles, once again, that he needed, but only "supreme justice," which had been violated, in his belief, and by which his heart had been so cruelly and suddenly wounded.
Я против бога моего не бунтуюсь, я только «мира его не принимаю», I do not rebel against my God; I only "do not accept his world."
In ch. III of Book VII, he goes to Grushenka's house with Rakitin, who takes him to watch him fall, and, with her sitting on his lap, he tells Rakitin what he found in her:
нашел сестру искреннюю, нашел сокровище — душу любящую… [...] Ты мою душу сейчас восстановила., I found a sincere sister, I found a treasure, a loving soul... [...] You have restored my soul just now.
Grushenka tells him the fable of the onion, the only virtue she says she has, and falls on her knees at his feet, hoping that someone will love her, vile as she is. Alyosha answers her:
луковку я тебе подал, одну самую малую луковку, только, только!.., I gave you an onion, one very small onion, only that, only that!...
In ch. IV of Book VII, keeping vigil over Zosima's coffin, he falls asleep and dreams of the wedding at Cana, where the elder, alive and laughing, tells him that he too gave his onion to a hungry woman and should begin the work:
Я луковку подал, вот и я здесь. И многие здесь только по луковке подали, по одной только маленькой луковке…, I gave an onion, and here I am. And many here gave only an onion, one small onion...
И ты, тихий, и ты, кроткий мой мальчик, и ты сегодня луковку сумел подать алчущей. Начинай, милый, начинай, кроткий, дело свое!.., And you, quiet one, and you, my gentle boy, you too today managed to give an onion to the hungry woman. Begin, dear one, begin, gentle one, your work!...
He goes out at night, falls to the ground as if mown down, and wants to forgive and to ask forgiveness for everything, and the narrator says what happened:
Простить хотелось ему всех и за всё и просить прощения, о! не себе, а за всех, за всё и за вся, а «за меня и другие просят», He wanted to forgive everyone and for everything and to ask forgiveness, oh! not for himself, but for everyone, for everything and for all things, for "others also pray for me."
Пал он на землю слабым юношей, а встал твердым на всю жизнь бойцом, He fell to the earth a weak youth, and rose a fighter, firm for his whole life.
«Кто-то посетил мою душу в тот час», "Someone visited my soul in that hour."
Three days later he leaves the monastery, as the master had ordered. In ch. IV of Book X, already in the world, when Kolya asks him whether Ilyusha's father is a buffoon, he says what he thinks of the captain, and when the boy confesses that they accuse him of playing bandits with the little ones, he answers:
есть люди глубоко чувствующие, но как-то придавленные. Шутовство у них вроде злобной иронии на тех, которым в глаза они не смеют сказать правды от долговременной унизительной робости пред ними. Поверьте, Красоткин, что такое шутовство чрезвычайно иногда трагично, there are people who feel deeply but are somehow crushed. Their buffoonery is a kind of spiteful irony toward those to whom, out of long and humiliating timidity before them, they dare not tell the truth to their face. Believe me, Krasotkin, such buffoonery is sometimes extremely tragic.
это ведь тоже зарождающееся искусство, зарождающаяся потребность искусства в юной душе, that too is a budding art, a budding need for art in a young soul.
In ch. VI of Book X, guiding Kolya without doctrine, he says that self-love is the devil who has crept into the whole generation, and offers him the only thing he has:
В это самолюбие воплотился черт и залез во всё поколение, именно черт, in this self-love the devil has embodied himself and crept into the whole generation, the devil himself.
Будьте же не такой, как все; хотя бы только вы один оставались не такой, Be then not like everyone else, even if you alone remained not like them.
In ch. V of Book XI, in the dark street, he tells Ivan, without proof, the sentence that haunts him until the end of the book:
Не ты убил отца, не ты!, It was not you who killed our father, not you!
In ch. IV of Book XII, in court, he testifies without an oath, treated with sympathy, and says of his brother:
я всегда был убежден, что некоторое высшее чувство всегда спасет его в роковую минуту, как и спасло в самом деле, потому что не он убил отца моего, I was always convinced that some higher feeling would save him in the fatal moment, as indeed it did, because it was not he who killed my father.
In ch. III of the Epilogue, beside Ilyusha's stone, he offers the boys, in place of doctrine, a good memory as the foundation for a whole life:
Знайте же, что ничего нет выше, и сильнее, и здоровее, и полезнее впредь для жизни, как хорошее какое-нибудь воспоминание, и особенно вынесенное еще из детства, из родительского дома, know, then, that there is nothing higher, stronger, healthier, or more useful for life ahead than some good memory, especially one carried from childhood, from the parental home.
не бойтесь жизни! Как хороша жизнь, когда что-нибудь сделаешь хорошее и правдивое!, do not be afraid of life! How good life is when you do something good and true!
Kolya asks whether it is really true that everyone will rise from the dead, and see each other again, and Alyosha answers, half laughing, half exalted:
неужели и взаправду религия говорит, что мы все встанем из мертвых, и оживем, и увидим опять друг друга, и всех, и Илюшечку?, is it really true that religion says we shall all rise from the dead, come back to life, and see one another again, everyone, and little Ilyushechka?
Непременно восстанем, непременно увидим и весело, радостно расскажем друг другу всё, что было, we shall certainly rise, we shall certainly see one another, and joyfully, happily, tell each other everything that happened.
Themes Embodied
Alyosha is love that acts, embodied in deed and not in speech: the same love that Zosima distinguishes from contemplative love, which wants only to be seen (ch. IV of Book II). He is the novel's third answer to power that decides for the freedom of others, after the silence of Christ before the Inquisitor (ch. V of Book V) and Zosima's doctrine: Alyosha answers with a gesture without calculation, the kiss he returns to Ivan without argument, the onion he gives without expecting change (ch. III of Book VII, ch. IV of Book VII). The Epilogue names this answer: where the Inquisitor offers miracle, mystery and authority, because he judges freedom a burden, Alyosha offers a concrete and good memory, with no doctrine that decides for anyone (ch. III of the Epilogue). The theme he carries is that of Faith, measured against the Suffering that Ivan does not accept.
What he wants is complete faith and to be useful, and what he fears is losing his master (ch. I of Book IV, ch. I of Book V). What he knows is little, but he knows how to love without demanding purity: he holds Katerina (ch. X of Book III), receives Grushenka (ch. III of Book VII), and listens to Kolya (ch. VI of Book X). Where he is wrong is in thinking that a truth spoken all at once reconciles: in Katerina Ivanovna's drawing room he says what no one wanted to hear and leaves thinking he has erred (ch. V of Book IV, ch. VI of Book IV), and in expecting from the master a justice the world does not give (ch. II of Book VII). His faith is not the absence of these falls; it is the gesture of rising from them.
Divergent Readings
Within the book, Rakitin reads Alyosha as one more Karamazov, sensualist on his father's side and holy fool on his mother's, and sums up the family in a phrase:
сладострастники, стяжатели и юродивые!, Sensualists, grasping men and holy fools!
The elder reads in him a monk who will remain in the world (ch. I of Book VI), and the narrator, a realist for whom the miracle is born of faith and not faith of the miracle (ch. V of Book I). The readings do not cancel one another: Rakitin is right that the energy belongs to the family, and the elder's and the narrator's readings that it turns in another direction (ch. III of Book VII, ch. IV of Book VII).
In Frank - 07 - Karamazov and Death, Suvorin's account says that Dostoevsky planned for the never-written sequel an Alyosha who would leave the monastery, become an anarchist, and kill the tsar:
Aliócha Karamázov seria o herói da continuação do romance, um herói a partir do qual [Dostoiévski] queria criar um tipo de socialista russo [...] Nela Aliócha sairá do mosteiro e se tornará anarquista. E meu puro Aliócha matará o tsar
What Alyosha is for the book is divided among the readings. For a symbolic reading, that of the spirit, he is the only way out that can still work; for Suvorin's account, which Frank cites, he is the hero of a sequel in which he would become an anarchist; for the text that exists, he is a young man who rises from each fall without promising more than that. The reading of the spirit is the most generous, and the book sustains it in the dream of Cana and in the speech by the stone (ch. IV of Book VII, ch. III of the Epilogue); the anarchist's is the most disturbing, because it would make of the hero whom the narrator apologized for choosing (preface to Book I) the opposite of what the book shows. Against the first, it is worth recalling that he also fails, in trying to reconcile and in being shaken by the smell (ch. V of Book IV, ch. I of Book VII); against the second, that it is a plan reported by a third party and never written.
Relationships
- Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov: the father who lets him go to the monastery and who says he is the only one who does not condemn him (ch. IV of Book I, ch. I of Book III).
- Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov: the brother who makes him the longest confession in the novel (ch. III of Book III, ch. IV of Book III, ch. V of Book III) and whom he visits in prison (ch. IV of Book XI).
- Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov: the brother with whom he talks in the tavern (ch. III of Book V, ch. IV of Book V, ch. V of Book V) and to whom he says in the street that it was not he (ch. V of Book XI).
- Elder Zosima: the master who sends him into the world and awaits him at the feast of Cana (ch. VII of Book II, ch. I of Book VI, ch. IV of Book VII).
- Grushenka: the woman who receives him with the onion and whom he does not judge (ch. III of Book VII).
- Katerina Ivanovna: Mitya's fiancée, whom he holds back (ch. X of Book III) and to whom he tells the truth in the drawing room (ch. V of Book IV).
- Lise Khokhlakova: the fiancée who proposes marriage to him (ch. IV of Book IV, ch. I of Book V).
- Kolya Krasotkin: the boy whom he guides without doctrine (ch. IV of Book X, ch. VI of Book X).