Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov A Diabolical Hero Essay -- essays papers

Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov A Diabolical Hero Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky is considered by many to be the pinnacle in a great epithelial duct of Russian authors who wrote in the 19th century. Gogol, Tolstoy, Lermontov, Pushkin, Chekhov these writers, like many greats the world round, come to themselves not only with their art, but with its affect on their society Gogol, for example, is express to have gone insane while working on his masterpiece, deceased Souls, obsessing himself with the mind that he could bring about the resurrection of his country through his tale. at long last becoming disillusioned with the task he had set himself, Gogol burnt more than of the manuscript and renounced all his worldly possessions, going on to lead an stark life until his death from starvation. While Dostoyevsky did not go to such extremes, he also int cease to provide a salvation for his country, which he byword was headed down a dangerous route. This salvation was to take the fo rm of The Brothers Karamazov and the church as a positive social ideal was to constitute the substitution idea of the new novel... (xiii)1. Some critics, however, have claimed that while he may have set out to write in support of the church, Dostoyevsky ended up writing a novel which in many shipway shows evil in an attractive, or at least ambiguous, light. For them, Ivan FyodorovichKaramazov is one of the most induce characters in all literature the world round andthat it is with him and not Alyosha (the Saviour in the novel), that we as readers identify most strongly. Thus, they claim, by having us identify with the rational, amoral ungodliness of Ivan, the novel becomes something of a diabolodicy rather than the great defense of divinity and Church it was intended to be.... ...n of accepting God, or, at the very least, His necessity. Of course, it could be argued that this acceptance only stands in the context of the novel-that is, the events in the novel are structur ed so as to make all non-believers come to bad ends and thus make it calculate as though any path other than that of Zosima and Alyosha is the wrong path however, I must stress that the existence of such a dusky conscience in Ivan and our deep sympathy for him leads us, almost inevitably, to reject the idea thatall things are lawful because our sympathy proves that we ourselves have consciences as well. Thus, whether we believe in God or not, we are forced to admit that we must at least act as though there is. To do otherwise is to guess the fate of Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov.BibliographyFyodor M. Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Trans. David McDuff (Penguin)