The Theme in the Work
Suffering in The Brothers Karamazov appears in two families that the book cannot join. The first is the family of chosen suffering: Elder Zosima tells Alyosha to seek happiness in sorrow, the mysterious visitor declares that he wants to suffer in order to begin living, and Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov decides to go to Siberia for a boy he dreamed of. This family has an owner and has meaning, and the novel treats it with respect. The second is the family of imposed suffering: the children that Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov gathers from newspapers and archives, the girl locked out in the cold, the boy torn apart by the general's dogs, and, within the plot itself, Ilyusha Snegiryov, who falls ill because of a dog he believes he killed and because of a father humiliated in the square. For these, no meaning offered satisfies, and that is why Ivan returns the ticket. The novel's hell is not fire: it is the suffering of no longer being able to love, and it is the point where this theme touches that of denied love. The strongest scenes in the book are born from the point where the two families touch and one does not explain the other.
In ch. VII of Book II, Zosima sends Alyosha off with a testament.
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.
Further on in the same chapter, Alyosha explains to Rakitin his brother Ivan with a phrase that comes from Zosima.
Он мучения, может быть, ищет., He seeks torment, perhaps.
In ch. VII of Book IV, after trampling the banknotes that would have saved the house, Captain Snegiryov shouts to Alyosha, through tears, what he would say to his son.
А что ж бы я моему мальчику-то сказал, если б у вас деньги за позор наш взял?, And what would I have said to my boy, if I had taken your money for our shame?
In ch. IV of Book V, Ivan says why he chooses to speak of children.
деточки ничего не съели и пока еще ни в чем не виновны, the little children have eaten nothing and are still guilty of nothing at all.
After the girl in the cold, he says what weighs less than her tear.
весь мир познания не стоит тогда этих слезок ребеночка к «боженьке», the whole world of knowledge is not worth then these little tears of the baby to "dear God."
He tells the story of the general and the greyhounds, and his refusal of the harmony that includes it.
Не хочу я, наконец, чтобы мать обнималась с мучителем, растерзавшим ее сына псами! Не смеет она прощать ему!, I do not want, after all, the mother to embrace the torturer who had her son torn to pieces by dogs! She has no right to forgive him!
He closes the argument by returning the ticket.
свой билет на вход спешу возвратить обратно [...] Не бога я не принимаю, Алеша, я только билет ему почтительнейше возвращаю., I hasten to return my ticket of admission [...] It is not God that I do not accept, Alyosha; I merely return the ticket to him with the greatest respect.
In ch. II of Book VI, the visitor who has decided to declare the crime says what he expects.
Знаю, что наступит рай для меня, тотчас же и наступит, как объявлю. Четырнадцать лет был во аде. Пострадать хочу. Приму страдание и жить начну., I know that paradise will come for me, it will come the moment I declare it. For fourteen years I was in hell. I want to suffer. I will accept the suffering and begin to live.
In ch. III of Book VI, Zosima defines hell.
Страдание о том, что нельзя уже более любить, the suffering of no longer being able to love.
In ch. VIII of Book IX, Mitya dreams of a thin mother and a child crying in a burned village, and asks himself and the coachman.
почему не кормят дитё?, why don't they feed the little child?
In ch. VII of Book X, sick Ilyusha consoles his father instead of being consoled.
Папа, не плачь… а как я умру, то возьми ты хорошего мальчика, другого… сам выбери из них из всех, хорошего, назови его Илюшей и люби его вместо меня…, Papa, don't cry... and when I die, take a good boy, another one... choose him yourself from all of them, a good one, call him Ilyusha and love him in my place...
The captain answers in a whisper, far from his son.
Не хочу хорошего мальчика! Не хочу другого мальчика!, I don't want a good boy! I don't want another boy!
In ch. IV of Book XI, in prison, Mitya ties the boy from the dream to the punishment he accepts.
За «дитё» и пойду. Потому что все за всех виноваты. За всех «дитё», потому что есть малые дети и большие дети. Все — «дитё». За всех и пойду, потому что надобно же кому-нибудь и за всех пойти. Я не убил отца, но мне надо пойти. Принимаю!, it is for the boy that I will go. Because all are guilty for all. For everyone, the boy, because there are small children and big children. All are "the boy." I will go for all, because someone must go for everyone. I did not kill my father, but I must go. I accept!
In ch. III of the Epilogue, at home after the funeral, the captain calls his son in front of the little boots.
Батюшка, Илюшечка, милый батюшка, ножки-то твои где?, my little father, Ilyushechka, my dear little father, where are your little feet?
Who Embodies It
Ivan is the suffering that refuses to be justified, and he writes the refusal in the form of a poem and of a returned ticket. Elder Zosima and the mysterious visitor are the suffering that is accepted and turned into a path. Mitya stands between the two: he suffers without explanation, and decides to give it one. The children in Ivan's poem, Ilyusha, and the child in Mitya's dream are the suffering that no one chose. Captain Snegiryov is the suffering of the humiliated: he refuses the money because of the son who saw him humiliated.
Where It Appears
- Book II, ch. VII: Zosima tells Alyosha to seek happiness in suffering, and Alyosha says of Ivan that he seeks torment.
- Book IV, ch. VII: Captain Snegiryov tramples the banknotes and shouts what he would have told his son had he accepted them.
- Book V, ch. IV: Ivan lays out cases of tortured children, says no future harmony pays for their suffering, and returns the entrance ticket to God.
- Book VI, ch. II: The mysterious visitor confesses to Zinovy the crime committed fourteen years earlier and says he wants to accept suffering in order to begin living.
- Book VI, ch. III: Zosima defines hell as the suffering of no longer being able to love.
- Book IX, ch. VIII: Mitya dreams of the mother and the child who cry in a burned village.
- Book X, ch. VII: Ilyusha asks his father for another boy in his place, and the captain answers that he does not want one.
- Book XI, ch. IV: Mitya tells Alyosha he will go to Siberia for the boy from the dream, because all are guilty for all, though he did not kill his father.
- Epilogue, ch. III: The captain kisses his son's little boots and asks where the little feet are.
Where the Readings Diverge
Joseph Frank notes that Zosima's hell is an attribute of the psyche.
Frank closes Zosima's preaching at a point that the comparison with Dante, Milton and Shakespeare, at the opening of the chapter, had only announced: the novel's hell has no hooks or irons, it isthe suffering of no longer being able to love, and faced with the "material fire," Zosima says he does not investigate the mystery, he is afraid. Dostoevsky, Frank writes,remains faithful to his poetics of subjectivity, transforming even hell into an attribute of the human psyche.
The novel admits two readings of what joins the families of suffering. In one, chosen suffering answers imposed suffering: Alyosha, Zosima, and Mitya show that one can bear evil without explaining it, and the answer to Ivan is a life and not an argument. In the other, the answer does not come, because what is chosen does not pay for what is imposed on another: the girl in the cold chose nothing.
The book gives the child of Mitya's dream the place of a bridge. In ch. VIII of Book IX what moves him is a child whom no one feeds, and it is for her that, in ch. IV of Book XI, he accepts punishment for a crime he did not commit. One therefore chooses the suffering of one who did not choose. This does not answer Ivan, because Mitya cannot pay the girl in the cold's tear with his Siberia. But it changes the question, from why the suffering of children exists to what to do while they suffer. The Epilogue, in which Ilyusha's father is not consoled and the boys promise to remember, is the only place where the book rehearses this second question.