Here, he is condemning the doctrine of greed and unlimited desires. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. The world says: “You have needs - satisfy them. The Imaginative scenario in the chapter depicts the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition confronting a Christ-like figure. A person must find something to live for. The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.įyodor Dostoevsky contended that simply staying alive would not make a person content. This ties in with the teachings of Jesus, which exhorted love as the ultimate virtue, above all else. In this quote, Dostoevsky makes the case that a life of being unloved is hell and being unable to love. Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zosima. What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.įrom Part II, Book VI. Later in the novel, the novel indicates that the key to salvation is true self-awareness, which can only be gained via suffering. This argument provides an insightful assessment of Fyodor Pavlovich’s psychology and serves as a springboard for many of the novel’s later redemption themes. Because he distrusts his surroundings and cannot believe in anything-not God nor other people-he loses respect for and love for mankind and slips into sin. He claims that someone who lies to himself cannot recognize the reality around him. Here, Zosima delves into the fundamental topic of self-honesty as a means of attaining virtue.

In this section of the novel, many of Zosima’s comments set the framework for developing the novel’s primary ideas. In Book II, Chapter 2, Zosima gives this speech to Fyodor Pavlovich. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. These quotes best encapsulate these gestures.Ībove all, don’t lie to yourself. These gestures are difficult to explain, but they communicate a poetic sense of the elements that make faith both vital and rewarding to the human soul. The argumentative conversation is frequently replaced with profound, unexplained gestures. Even though ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ is primarily a theological inquiry, the novel supports the premise that the decision to believe in God cannot be entirely explained rationally.

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